House of Eratosthenes

I’m timid when I barely know the subject matter, or don’t know it at all. But when it comes to making cars last a long time, I’ve achieved more than most have, and I’ve adjusted my humility to reflect that.

Who knows? Maybe this’ll help some folks out. If not, then at least it’s a chance for me to vent. Some of you folks who have been entrusted with a good chunk of the household finances, present & future, through the hunk of gleaming metal you get to command on the public roads…you haven’t quite earned this sense of trust. You need to brush up. So read on.

1. No automatic transmissions.

If your car is an automatic transmission, you have no business trying to follow this list; not unless you’re prepared to replace the automatic transmission, which is going to cost more than you think and will mostly invalidate what we’re doing here. Get another car that has an old-fashioned gearbox. Automatic transmissions are done at 100k, maybe 150k. No, I don’t care how good the modern technology is. Making a car last means spending some effort. Learn to work a clutch, get really good at it so you can start from a dead stop without knocking an egg off the dashboard.

2. No jackrabbit starts.

If you want to prove me wrong about what I just said with regard to automatics, don’t peel out. Just because you want to go sixty miles an hour, doesn’t mean you have to jump there. If you are feeling some “G” forces you’re doing it wrong.

3. Do everything as if your car weighs ten tons.

That means going and stopping. Drive like you’re in command of a logging truck, with tons of timber and really loose chains holding it all down. Your automatic transmission will thank you for that. In fact, this is all good advice for everyone whether they’re driving a real car or not. Think like a freight train. Or a barge on a river. Take about thirty seconds after the light turns green to get up to speed. If this annoys the fellow in back of you, let him pass.

4. Show some empathy.

Know those old westerns where the cowboy vaults into the saddle from the second floor of a saloon or a brothel? Yes, no man is ready, willing or able to do that in real life. But if your relationship to your car is something like that — “I got places to go, giddyap!” — you need to change that relationship. This is a two-way street, and your car needs things from you, too.

This goes double for the ladies. Just because it’s politically incorrect doesn’t mean it’s incorrect all-around: Most women, when they operate machinery in general, conduct themselves in a way that the only adjective truly fit to describe it is “peevish.” They act like a wife being forced to share the kitchen with her husband’s concubine. That probably captures the reason why just as well as it captures the phenomenon itself: Jealousy. Women also do the most bitching about car repair bills, speculating with some justification that they’re being given inflated quotes because of their sex.

Your suspicion may not be misplaced, but your jealousy is. You are not competing with this car for anything. The car is not taking anything from you. The car is your friend. If you need to remind yourself of that on a regular basis, then do so. And then, who knows, perhaps owning a car will be as economical for you as it is for most of the gentlemen. C’mon, admit it, you know it’s true. Men don’t use cars the same way you do. And we don’t hear the “time to go car shopping” speech quite as often from our mechanics. There is a connection. If nobody’s told you that yet, it’s time you found it out from somewhere.

5. Fluids. Check ’em.

Fluids and belts. Gas, oil, coolant, PS, windshield washer, air in the tires.

6. Spend some real money on your fluids.

This is a pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later thing. Don’t go looking for reasons to throw money away, for there will always be someone willing to take it.

But if you only buy the finest name-brand medicine for your kids when they’re sick, and only the finest dog food for your puppy, but the cheapest utilitarian crap for your designated chariot, you just might be repaid for this stingy habit in a manner not convenient to you.

Mortality 7. Choose your motor oil wisely.

Thicker oil in the summer, thinner oil in the winter. Natural/synthetic blend is best. Use high mileage formulas over 200k.

When I first bought Bessie, these were left to consumer discretion. Now they make all the choices for you at the station, and of course you’re forced to go there because there are dainty disposal requirements involved for the used oil. The pussification of America, whaddya gonna do.

You can still bring up the subject with your mechanic. Ask what’s going into the crankcase. Believe me, it has a far bigger effect on your day-to-day life, than the mechanic’s.

8. Premium gasoline, all the time, and I don’t care what anyone says.

I’m open to a reasonable discussion here. But if you haven’t gotten 340 thousand miles on one car out of your cheapass gasoline, then know your place.

9. As with a person’s health, the key is getting past life’s grander misadventures.

You want to pilot an old car, start thinking like an old person: Once you’ve celebrated your ninetieth, you know that when the end finally comes it will most likely be coming in the middle of some kind of event. Day-to-day, you’ll be just as vibrant as you were four decades previous; but someday you’ll check into the hospital for something trivial, something that would’ve been shrugged off those four decades ago, but this time you won’t check out again. Barring a terrorist attack, that’s how it ends for you after ninety. That’s what is slated for your wheels after nineteen. An event. So you’ll get warnings. But the upkeep required will increase exponentially whereas your attendance to the requirement will not. That’s the exit cue.

Learn enough about what makes your car go that when the time comes it’s not running quite right, you possess some knowledge for figuring out what’s amiss and the consequences involved in this deficiency.

You should know enough that, once you understand what isn’t working right, you can categorize this into one of the two: “limp along” or “power down.” A window that won’t roll up is “limp along.” A quart of oil disappearing every 3,000 miles is “limp along.” A major oil leak or a cracked radiator, is “power down.” It is your responsibility to know which is which.

If you don’t know, err on the side of caution, park safely, shut things off, call the tow truck.

10. Any little problem that has to do with cooling goes in the “power down” column.

Machines don’t react to heat the way people do, and all damage caused by heat is not immediately visible. Just remember, as the odometer rolls over and over again, that when this thing eventually goes the final blow will almost certainly be directly related to heat.

So if you’re in it to win it, and you’re not absolutely sure the oil is going where it needs to go, and the coolant is going where it needs to go…key OFF.

Thatisall.

Not gonn’a argue about the auto trans, ’cause your right,. I couldn’t find one when I bought my used ’03 Ford Ranger. I agree and do everything else on your list EXCEPT the Premium gas, you put that in a Ford and it’ll knock and since the owners manual also says not to I simply don’t.

All in all, great advise.

If I could add one thing, CHANGE YOUR OIL EVERY 3,000 MILES!!!
- tim | 07/22/2009 @ 06:03
Ah, you’re right I should’ve included that one. In my mind it was just kinda floating around out there as a “given” that could be left unstated. That was a mistake on my part, because there are some strange opinions out there about how long you can go without changing oil.

I could duck behind the excuse that, if you care enough to read this list from top to bottom, you’re probably changing your oil every 3k already. But that would be a flawed premise and it would be inconsistent since the list is built for those who need to see it. Jesus said to go where the sinners are, y’know.
- mkfreeberg | 07/22/2009 @ 06:54
I read this yesterday and nodded my head north-south… but didn’t comment as I didn’t wanna be “first” yet again.

The Green Hornet will be nine years old this coming October, and I’m most amazed at the reliability built into cars these days. She still has her original plugs and shocks in/on her and hasn’t had her first brake job yet. But then again… like the apocryphal Lil Ol Lady who only drove her ’53 DeSoto back and forth to church… I only drive TGH back and forth to the Class VI (read as: liquor) store. Mostly, anyhoo. She has yet to break the 50K mile barrier.
- bpenni | 07/22/2009 @ 11:54
I drive a 1990 Mazda Miata myself. I hope to hell I can get 300,000 miles off of her. She has 111,000 miles right now. A couple of things:

Don’t agree with the premium gas. If your manual says use 93 octane, then use it. If not, then not. As another commentator noted, this can cause knocking and pinging. Plus it is a waste money.

Change the oil every 3000 miles, and use the synthetic oil.

Yes, use a manual gearbox. It gives better control of the car and is more fun to drive anyway.

Something you did not mention: wax the car once in a while. Spend an hour doing this twice a year, and you can keep the paint job looking nice and new, and help prevent rust.

Find a good garage you can trust and that does good work. Keep those fluids changed, and fix your oil leaks. A nice older paid for car, that you invest a repair in once in a while, can be a lot cheaper than making a car payment.
That is all.
- darrencardinal | 07/23/2009 @ 06:20
It’s probably time I said something about the conflicts between my “premium gas” dictum and some of the manufacturer recommendations. Obviously, I’m going to have to backpedal if such a conflict exists (this is a situation that is new to me).

If both grades are acceptable, and knocking/pinging has been known to take place or is a possibility, you should use the higher grade — unless you’ve tried both and found the higher grade to cause the knocking. (In theory, this is more likely; but in practice, I’ve never actually heard of such a thing. Pipe up if your experience is different.) There is little or no “firm” damage occuring with a knock, but a car exposed to hundreds of thousands of miles of it is going to be altered in condition compared to another car with equal mileage subjected to better treatment. When we discuss the idea of long life for cars, which don’t heal, this has an effect of embiggening the related concept of “damage.” If the explosion is not taking place at the right point in the cycle, or has the potential to stray outside this window of time expected by the engine’s design, it becomes just another metric you’ll want to be tightening down on. That’s really the name of the game here: Turning the uncertainties into certainties.

My gritty determination and haughtiness come not quite so much from the 340k miles of premium gas with the car living to drink it all in, but the exceptionally boring and uneventful service record compiled throughout. Bessie never did have a proper tune-up; never needed one. The valve cover gasket was replaced at 150k, and the head gasket blew at the end — that’s an exhaustive list of engine work throughout all those years. You have to have that, that elusive quality of components running in peak condition even though nobody’s interfering with them, because once the car or any part of it requires near-constant or semi-seasonal tweaking, you’ve been knocked out of the running. All repair work, even “successful” repair work, is a foreshadowing of the eventual end. At least the invasive stuff is.
- mkfreeberg | 07/23/2009 @ 08:34
Well, I have no issues regarding premium gasoline: my car prefers it. Loves it, in fact. The 91-octane stuff here in the Quarter-Mile-High City is satisfactory, but get her down to sea level where 93 can be had, and she’s downright thrilled. And I know what happens if I cheap out to save the 10 percent or so: she drinks 10 percent more, thereby eliminating any conceivable savings.

I did a piece regarding automatics today, and while I’m not a slushbox hater, I’m also not sanguine about the possibility of Joe and Susan Sixpack getting 300k out of one either, especially given the rather haphazard maintenance specifications of some manufacturers. (Last Mazda I had, it wasn’t on either the Severe or the Really Severe schedules. I changed it at 30k anyway.)

Besides, it’s way cheaper to fix a manual gearbox.

What I drive: 2000 Infiniti I30, 117,000 miles. Manufacturer recommends 3750 miles for oil changes. I keep the engine room as close to spotless as I can. (Spark plugs are supposed to last 105,000 miles, to which I say HA! I don’t leave anything in an engine that long. I’m on set #3.) I don’t know if I’ll make 300k, but I’m pretty confident about 200k, and after that, we’ll see.
- CGHill | 07/23/2009 @ 15:49

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How to Make a Car Last Three Hundred Thousand MilesTuesday, July 21st, 2009

How to Make a Car Last Three Hundred Thousand Miles
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009