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> Don’t buy the damned things. I just bought a 1989 Toyota pickup. Manual transmission, locks, windows, etc. Super reliable and easy to work on. It’s got a stan

by spurgu 3y ago

> Don’t buy the damned things. I just bought a 1989 Toyota pickup. Manual transmission, locks, windows, etc. Super reliable and easy to work on. It’s got a standard double-DIN stereo opening, so you could install the latest touch-screen gizmo if desired. How did this comment die so fast? It's a valid point of view. I also much prefer older cars. Late 80s ones are getting hard to find in decent condition though but I would certainly consider one if available.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sniglom 3y ago
I totally agree. It's nice to have something that doesn't require magic vendor tools to fix. You don't have to go all the way back to the 80's though. The 90's are fine too and you still own your vehicle in the 00's. Late 90's make the vehicle harder to steal.
- amelius 3y ago
  At some point governments will increase emissions regulations and you don't have another choice.
  - 0xffff2 3y ago
    Do other countries apply emissions standards retroactively? In the US emissions regulations apply mostly if not entirely to new vehicles.
tormeh 3y ago
Standardized infotainment dimensions and connectors are pretty sweet stuff, and I wish it'd make a return. Looking at cars now it all seems so custom.
- almostnormal 3y ago
  I doubt standardization for anything consumer-related is going to make a return unless enforced by regulators. Standardization still works between companies (e.g., interfaces between parts for computers, that are put together by computer-manufacturers), but not where there is no advantage for any company. A bit of plastic for an over-priced OEM infotainment module is more useful than being able to switch suppliers for radios easily.
kushie 3y ago
Newer cars are far safer. According to NHTSA, occupant fatality rate per 100k cars in 1997 was 17.81 and was 10.05 in 2017 https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/newer-cars-safer-cars_fact-sheet_010320-tag.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/newer-...
- technothrasher 3y ago
  My teen-aged son was just in a bad accident last week. A lady pulled out from a driveway right in front of him while we was going 45mph. There's no question in my mind she at least would have been dead if she were in an older car without modern side impact safety standards. She had to be cut out of the car, but it protected her pretty darn well. His car was entirely destroyed all the way up to the firewall, after which point there was basically no visible damage at all. Modern cars are definitely safer.
  - WWLink 3y ago
    I had a similar crash about 5 years ago when someone in a pickup abruptly made a u-turn in front of me. Said they didn't see me lol. Based on how the crash felt, I was stunned when I saw how fucked up the front of my car was. Well, that and wondering how people survive freeway crashes when a ~40mph crash screwed my car up that much! We were a bit bruised but everyone walked away. I consider us lucky the pickup driver hadn't modified their truck and it had the OEM ride height and bumpers. Lots of people like deleting their bumpers and lifting the truck. that would have been so bad.
    - TheCleric 3y ago
      This is the counterintuitive thing. It’s actually good that cars get so messed up in accidents now. It usually means that the energy was dissipated via the cars designed failure modes (like crumple zones) instead of just transferring all of it to you.
_zamorano_ 3y ago
First, at least in europe, regulations won't allow carmakers to build basic cars. Cars are required to be online for an emergency call in case of accident. Plus all fancy systems like lane keeping are now compulsory. So you can't no longer buy such cars. And in case you go for the used market, regulations will keep you away from cities due to polution issues, even for tiny cities.
- phero_cnstrcts 3y ago
  Then we should also question those laws. I don’t buy the „it’s for your protection“ argument anymore.
  - c0pium 3y ago
    Fatalities and collisions are both down significantly in places with those kinds of laws, and there are some interesting natural experiments created by exceptions which strongly indicate those links are causal. Just because a law has a side effect you don’t like doesn’t mean the Illuminati are out to get you.
    - _zamorano_ 3y ago
      For many people is either I buy something I can afford, or I don't buy anything. What is safest. Regulating new cars to expensive safety standards, and make them unaffordable for the masses or being more conservative about such standards and allow affordable cars to exist? European govermentes have chosen the first option. In the meantime, the car average age keep increasing. Much safer, indeed. The end goal is to have much less cars on the road, not conspiracy, but an actual statement. And of course, the cars to get rid of are not those of the wealthy.
- nottheengineer 3y ago
  > Cars are required to be online for an emergency call in case of accident. Does that mean online as in internet connection or just GSM?
bhaney 3y ago
> How did this comment die so fast? The poster is shadowbanned and seemingly has been for a while, so their posts are autodead. Enough people vouching for it should un-dead the post.
- spurgu 3y ago
  Aaah that makes sense!
yterdy 3y ago
It's a fair point. The one detraction I would mention is safety. I wish there were ways to retrofit for better crash protection like there are to electrify an older vehicle.
rainsford 3y ago
I don't agree with comments like that dying since I think it does contribute a unique POV to the discussion, but I also think it's not a very persuasive one and feels a bit like the reflexive "just run Linux" if someone brings up a Windows issue. The problem with old cars as the solution is that first and foremost, that's obviously not a long term solution or one that will work for car buyers as a whole. Not everyone is going to be OK with buying a 34 year old car, and even fewer are going to be OK buying a 44 year old car 10 years from now. Even if they were, cars don't last forever and eventually we'll all be in a bidding war over the last analog car. That approach also throws the baby out with the bathwater. Infotainment aside, new cars are vastly better than old cars in a number of areas. Safety, comfort, efficiency, reliability, performance, etc. Missing all this because modern infotainment features are bad does not seem like a good tradeoff, particularly since new cars will continue to progress in all those areas while old cars obviously won't. The smartphone comparison is actually pretty appropriate here, because a modern smartphone is a huge improvement for the vast majority of people over an old dumb phone, even if the improvement comes with some tradeoffs. Instead I think it would be more useful and realistic to push for more consumer friendly car technology, either by voting with our wallets or pushing for appropriate legislation. Pretending cars peaked the year Taylor Swift was born does not feel like the right alternative, even if some people do genuinely like older cars.
- BytesAndGears 3y ago
  Is buying old cars instead of new ones not voting with your wallet, as you suggest? I can’t think of a better way to convince car manufacturers to change than not buying newer cars. Especially if resale values of newer cars is lower than older cars, consumers will be less likely to buy a newer car even if they want one!
  - rainsford 3y ago
    That's a fair point, although I think the persuasive impact is lessened by the fact that a lot of people won't be wiling to make the old car tradeoffs and there is still the ever limited supply problem. But for those willing and able to do it, it may help send a message for sure.

by spurgu 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sniglom 3y ago

I totally agree. It's nice to have something that doesn't require magic vendor tools to fix. You don't have to go all the way back to the 80's though. The 90's are fine too and you still own your vehicle in the 00's. Late 90's make the vehicle harder to steal.

amelius 3y ago
At some point governments will increase emissions regulations and you don't have another choice.
- 0xffff2 3y ago
  Do other countries apply emissions standards retroactively? In the US emissions regulations apply mostly if not entirely to new vehicles.

tormeh 3y ago

Standardized infotainment dimensions and connectors are pretty sweet stuff, and I wish it'd make a return. Looking at cars now it all seems so custom.

almostnormal 3y ago
I doubt standardization for anything consumer-related is going to make a return unless enforced by regulators. Standardization still works between companies (e.g., interfaces between parts for computers, that are put together by computer-manufacturers), but not where there is no advantage for any company. A bit of plastic for an over-priced OEM infotainment module is more useful than being able to switch suppliers for radios easily.

kushie 3y ago

Newer cars are far safer. According to NHTSA, occupant fatality rate per 100k cars in 1997 was 17.81 and was 10.05 in 2017 https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/newer-cars-safer-cars_fact-sheet_010320-tag.pdf https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/documents/newer-...

technothrasher 3y ago
My teen-aged son was just in a bad accident last week. A lady pulled out from a driveway right in front of him while we was going 45mph. There's no question in my mind she at least would have been dead if she were in an older car without modern side impact safety standards. She had to be cut out of the car, but it protected her pretty darn well. His car was entirely destroyed all the way up to the firewall, after which point there was basically no visible damage at all. Modern cars are definitely safer.
- WWLink 3y ago
  I had a similar crash about 5 years ago when someone in a pickup abruptly made a u-turn in front of me. Said they didn't see me lol. Based on how the crash felt, I was stunned when I saw how fucked up the front of my car was. Well, that and wondering how people survive freeway crashes when a ~40mph crash screwed my car up that much! We were a bit bruised but everyone walked away. I consider us lucky the pickup driver hadn't modified their truck and it had the OEM ride height and bumpers. Lots of people like deleting their bumpers and lifting the truck. that would have been so bad.
  - TheCleric 3y ago
    This is the counterintuitive thing. It’s actually good that cars get so messed up in accidents now. It usually means that the energy was dissipated via the cars designed failure modes (like crumple zones) instead of just transferring all of it to you.

_zamorano_ 3y ago

First, at least in europe, regulations won't allow carmakers to build basic cars. Cars are required to be online for an emergency call in case of accident. Plus all fancy systems like lane keeping are now compulsory. So you can't no longer buy such cars. And in case you go for the used market, regulations will keep you away from cities due to polution issues, even for tiny cities.

phero_cnstrcts 3y ago
Then we should also question those laws. I don’t buy the „it’s for your protection“ argument anymore.
- c0pium 3y ago
  Fatalities and collisions are both down significantly in places with those kinds of laws, and there are some interesting natural experiments created by exceptions which strongly indicate those links are causal. Just because a law has a side effect you don’t like doesn’t mean the Illuminati are out to get you.
  - _zamorano_ 3y ago
    For many people is either I buy something I can afford, or I don't buy anything. What is safest. Regulating new cars to expensive safety standards, and make them unaffordable for the masses or being more conservative about such standards and allow affordable cars to exist? European govermentes have chosen the first option. In the meantime, the car average age keep increasing. Much safer, indeed. The end goal is to have much less cars on the road, not conspiracy, but an actual statement. And of course, the cars to get rid of are not those of the wealthy.
nottheengineer 3y ago
> Cars are required to be online for an emergency call in case of accident. Does that mean online as in internet connection or just GSM?

bhaney 3y ago

> How did this comment die so fast? The poster is shadowbanned and seemingly has been for a while, so their posts are autodead. Enough people vouching for it should un-dead the post.

spurgu 3y ago
Aaah that makes sense!

yterdy 3y ago

It's a fair point. The one detraction I would mention is safety. I wish there were ways to retrofit for better crash protection like there are to electrify an older vehicle.

rainsford 3y ago

I don't agree with comments like that dying since I think it does contribute a unique POV to the discussion, but I also think it's not a very persuasive one and feels a bit like the reflexive "just run Linux" if someone brings up a Windows issue. The problem with old cars as the solution is that first and foremost, that's obviously not a long term solution or one that will work for car buyers as a whole. Not everyone is going to be OK with buying a 34 year old car, and even fewer are going to be OK buying a 44 year old car 10 years from now. Even if they were, cars don't last forever and eventually we'll all be in a bidding war over the last analog car. That approach also throws the baby out with the bathwater. Infotainment aside, new cars are vastly better than old cars in a number of areas. Safety, comfort, efficiency, reliability, performance, etc. Missing all this because modern infotainment features are bad does not seem like a good tradeoff, particularly since new cars will continue to progress in all those areas while old cars obviously won't. The smartphone comparison is actually pretty appropriate here, because a modern smartphone is a huge improvement for the vast majority of people over an old dumb phone, even if the improvement comes with some tradeoffs. Instead I think it would be more useful and realistic to push for more consumer friendly car technology, either by voting with our wallets or pushing for appropriate legislation. Pretending cars peaked the year Taylor Swift was born does not feel like the right alternative, even if some people do genuinely like older cars.

BytesAndGears 3y ago
Is buying old cars instead of new ones not voting with your wallet, as you suggest? I can’t think of a better way to convince car manufacturers to change than not buying newer cars. Especially if resale values of newer cars is lower than older cars, consumers will be less likely to buy a newer car even if they want one!
- rainsford 3y ago
  That's a fair point, although I think the persuasive impact is lessened by the fact that a lot of people won't be wiling to make the old car tradeoffs and there is still the ever limited supply problem. But for those willing and able to do it, it may help send a message for sure.