# Keeping the old stuff going



## brad (May 22, 2009)

We stopped in at the Kanuk factory store in Montréal last Thursday night, and noticed that they were still using iMac G3s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3), circa 1999, to manage inventory and orders. 

This reminded me that the subway cars in Montréal's Métro system date back to 1966 and 1976, and the Métro has an elaborate maintenance and parts manufacturing/swapping operation to keep them in running order. New trains are coming, but the current stock will still be in service until around 2017. That's pretty impressive in today's throwaway society.

There's so much pressure from advertisers and peers to have the "latest and greatest" that it helps every now and then to be reminded that old stuff that still works is often a perfectly good solution.


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

brad said:


> This reminded me that the subway cars in Montréal's Métro system date back to 1966 and 1976, and the Métro has an elaborate maintenance and parts manufacturing/swapping operation to keep them in running order. New trains are coming, but the current stock will still be in service until around 2017. That's pretty impressive in today's throwaway society.


Not sure that old computer or solidstate technology is worth the expense
of keeping it going, unless you are satisfied with the performance and
it doesn't cost you anything to service or maintain it. Computers are
designed with the 2-3 year obsolence factor, and since it takes a lot more
memory and speed for most computer operations these days, it probably
is cheaper to upgrade than to take it somewhere to install memory or
other components.

But somethings like subway systems can run for many decades without a 
need for an upgrade, look at the TTC..been around for 60 years or more
and still going. In public transist replacement cost is usually a factor
over maintenance as the capital requirements are different. Replacement
cost millions or even billions in todays dollars, maintenance and parts can
be factored into a yearly maintenance budget much easier.


----------



## brad (May 22, 2009)

carverman said:


> Not sure that old computer or solidstate technology is worth the expense
> of keeping it going, unless you are satisfied with the performance and
> it doesn't cost you anything to service or maintain it.


I think the factor here is probably that their inventory system was built in Mac OS9, which is now obsolete; porting it up to Mac OSX is probably a non-trivial task so they keep the old machines going. OSX is a lot more stable than OS9 (I have had one system crash on OSX in the past 8 or 9 years), but it's probably still cheaper for them to keep the old computers than to upgrade and redo the system.

I remember reading that the air traffic control system in the US (and possibly Canada as well) operates on really old equipment and software for similar reasons. I have a friend who built a database for a small company back in the early 1990s using now-obsolete software and hardware, but they still run it because it would cost them so much to convert.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

brad did you know that the designer of those original metro cars was a transplanted american.

morley smith, originally from new york state. An industrial designer working in canada for most of his career, smith specialized in transport design.


----------



## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

The moral of the story is don't marry yourself to bespoke hardware or software. It'll cost you dearly in the long run. Things are getting better with virtualization, but not all platforms are supported.


----------



## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

I used to work for a company that needed keep old hardware and software to run some of their key systems because of the cost involved to upgrade, and the risk. It was a fairly stable system until a special keyboard died. 

It was costing the company tens of thousands of dollars a day to have this system down due to a keyboard. The manufactuer offered to bring out the old machineryto make a couple for a mere $2000 or $3000 each. The cost would have been fine, but it would have taken a couple of months min to get it fixed.

Fortunately, we found one on ebay and got it within a week or two. 

There is a huge cost to maintain out of lifecycle software and hardware for critical systems.


----------



## brad (May 22, 2009)

Plugging Along said:


> There is a huge cost to maintain out of lifecycle software and hardware for critical systems.


This is true, although at the time of purchase or development, it's impossible to predict the future of the technology you're investing in. For example, I imagine Kanuk set up their inventory system using some sort of off-the-shelf software that was available for Mac OS9, but which may never have been rewritten for OSX. OS9 and OSX are completely different (OSX is based on Unix), and while it was possible to run OS9 programs on modern Macs (in "Classic" mode) for a few years, that option is no longer built into new Macs. 

It's also possible that the OS9 machines were simply being used as dummy terminals for a networked system that is in fact up to date -- I just happened to notice the iMacs all over the store when we were visiting. Back when the Mac first came out in the 1980s, the organization I worked for used them as terminals for their mainframe computer as well as performing the standard functions of standalone PCs. I've seen old Macs repurposed as voicemail machines, backup computers, televisions (we use my old PowerBook as our television, in fact).


----------



## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I could have told you that buying software written for Macs in 1990s was a bad idea at the time in terms of forward compatibility. It was a dumb decision at the time to marry yourself to a fringe hardware/OS player. Had it been written for Windows 95 or Unix, they'd probably have been fine porting it forward.


----------



## sprocket1200 (Aug 21, 2009)

we are running two imac g3's and two emac g4's at home. with airports they are very portable. people buy stuff just to be faster and more hip, but don't really analyze what they truly need, suckers...


----------



## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

My main machine is a 2003 HP Pavilion Laptop that I bought used off craigslist in 2003. It was half price. And restored to factory software by the kid who just had to buy an iMac. Still going strong...


----------



## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

In regard to heavy equipment and subways and buses as well would fall into that category they are designed differently than say cars... 

It's disgusting how badly they design passenger vehicles, they regularly do things such as use different metals together guaranteeing corrosion. If you saw what I have to do to change a damn turn signal in my van, it's unacceptable design. There is a hatch in the wheel well that is too small for even my hand and you have to feel around a mess full of wires to find the bulb blind. I've had a car in which you have to remove the rad to change the water pump. Car designers would simply be shot if they tried to design heavy equipment in this way. 

So you have loaders and cranes and bulldozers that work as good as new ones in operation after 30-50 years because of design... 

As far as the Macs are concerned, I too worked in an office with 15 year old macs all networked. After dealing with PC's for years in my business it was a relief...every day I went to my desk started up the ancient thing and it worked. Even those old computers could run a program much faster than I could type. So it took an extra 30 seconds to start in the morning. Big deal. I the year I worked there I had to reformat my PC's hard drive 3 times because of viruses. 

We live in a consumer driven society with designed obselescence in everything we buy. If it works too well they won't be able to sell us new stuff.


----------



## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

Berubeland said:


> In regard to heavy equipment and subways and buses as well would fall into that category they are designed differently than say cars...
> 
> It's disgusting how badly they design passenger vehicles, they regularly do things such as use different metals together guaranteeing corrosion. If you saw what I have to do to change a damn turn signal in my van, it's unacceptable design. There is a hatch in the wheel well that is too small for even my hand and you have to feel around a mess full of wires to find the bulb blind. I've had a car in which you have to remove the rad to change the water pump. Car designers would simply be shot if they tried to design heavy equipment in this way.
> 
> ...


One of things with cars though, is how much longer they last. My 1971 Buick Riviera, had a 1 year, 12,000 mile warranty. The standard warranty now is 5 years or 160,000k . We ask a lot more of our cars too, safety, strength, comfort, fuel economy, and we ask for it every day, every year.

It's not that they are poorly designed. It's that they are not designed to be worked on.

My 2000 Intrepid got to 200,000 and 10 years before ANYTHING went wrong. Working on it is a pain in the butt. I had to pull the rad to change an alternator. It's a trade off.


----------



## K-133 (Apr 30, 2010)

crazyjackcsa said:


> It's not that they are poorly designed. It's that they are not designed to be worked on.


I think you hit a good point with this one. 

In addition to people wanting all of the other things you mention, they don't want to spend a $1 passed the day of purchase.


----------



## brad (May 22, 2009)

Berubeland said:


> As far as the Macs are concerned, I too worked in an office with 15 year old macs all networked. After dealing with PC's for years in my business it was a relief


It's also worth noting that back in the early to mid 1990s, there were all kinds of studies showing that workers were more productive with Macs because the computer kept all the commands in its head instead of requiring you to fill up your brain with things like autoexec.bat, and there was more consistency across programs due to Apples human interface guidelines. There were justifiable business reasons for going with Macs instead of PCs. This is in fact what led Microsoft to develop Windows. But in the early days of Windows, it was years behind the Mac, and remained so pretty much up to XP, which is a much more stable and useable operating system than any of the previous versions of Windows (except Windows 2000 Professional, I guess). My company and virtually all my clients still use XP, and it'll probably be years before we upgrade to Windows 7.

Nowadays Windows 7 is just as reliable and useable as Mac OSX and the differences between the two operating systems are much more subtle.


----------



## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

I can relate this to real estate - we have a 100+ yr old house and it's built SOLID. I look at new construction today, even custom built houses and cringe.


----------



## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Maybe some 100 year old houses, but they did some seriously dodgy things in home construction from ~1920-1980.


----------



## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

It's true that railway and bus equipment lasts longer than passenger vehicles, but not by as much as you may think. Some locomotives don't go for longer than 5 years (if they are a poor design) and some last for 60 years if they are an excellent design/quality product. I think the average is around 30 years. Buses rarely go past 20 years in regular service. The mileage these run up is very high and they have to be rebuilt every 5-10 years to have a fighting chance of being used as long as possible. Most people don't rebuild their cars but even the mighty buses and trains eventually return from whence they came. I see this stuff in scrapyards and it looks weird as the heavy equipment always seems so invinceable compared to any car.


----------



## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Addy said:


> I can relate this to real estate - we have a 100+ yr old house and it's built SOLID. I look at new construction today, even custom built houses and cringe.


Ever seen Mike Holmes?


----------



## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Plugging Along said:


> I used to work for a company that needed keep old hardware and software to run some of their key systems because of the cost involved to upgrade, and the risk. It was a fairly stable system until a special keyboard died.
> 
> There is a huge cost to maintain out of lifecycle software and hardware for critical systems.


The Canadian government has a lot of old systems still running on legacy
software that very few of the programmers and analysts know much about.
To upgrade those systems could mean tremendous downtime and loss of
paychecks/gov't pensions..so they just try to build on the existing system
at least that way, they can remove the upgrades, if they cause problems.

I used to work for a high tech company that had software from the
early 70s running on obsolete computer hardware in the 90s. When it
came to offer a new computing engine, they ported a lot of the old operating
system onto the new hardware and massaged it until it worked. Operating
systems can be very tricky to design and debug and still have the performance required in todays applications.


----------



## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

carverman said:


> Not sure that old computer or solidstate technology is worth the expense
> of keeping it going, unless you are satisfied with the performance and
> it doesn't cost you anything to service or maintain it. Computers are
> designed with the 2-3 year obsolence factor, and since it takes a lot more
> ...


----------



## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

Addy said:


> I can relate this to real estate - we have a 100+ yr old house and it's built SOLID. I look at new construction today, even custom built houses and cringe.


My house is about 110 years old, and it's solid too. But there's no insulation, the windows are drafty, The plaster is cracked, and the bricks are spaling.

My boiler is original to the house. It won't ever fail, but there aren't any moving parts, and it's 50% efficient.


----------



## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

Yeah, true about the insulation or lack of. We gutted our house and insulated it and put in new windows... now I love it! And of course now it's near done and I'm happy with it, we're moving, hubby being transferred 

We also drive a 1996 Astro (or Safari? I get them mixed up but they are the same thing essentially), paid $5K for it about 5 years ago and haven't spent a lot on repairs, get it maintained regularly and have had some minor issues (battery died a few times, but that may have been a few dud batteries). I like that the vehicle isn't pristine but it's big and good for moving stuff. It's harder on fuel than a newer van I'm sure, but since we don't drive it very often it's worth it. Hopefully we can hold onto this van until it's 20 yrs old or more.


----------



## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

I forgot to mention, retro small appliances can be fun - we bought an older waffle maker thats stainless steel, very cool looking, and it works well. The newer models may work well also but I like the idea of buying a $2 waffle maker that will last a long time vs a $40 or more modern waffle maker that probably won't last a lifetime.


----------



## brad (May 22, 2009)

Addy said:


> I forgot to mention, retro small appliances can be fun -


Small appliances yes (I love antique toasters, for example), but large appliances no, mainly because the old ones are energy hogs -- especially refrigerators but also washing machines.

Braun used to make alarm clocks, and they were incredibly reliable: I bought mine in 1985 and it still works great, despite having been knocked off my bedstand countless times by me sleepily groping for the snooze button.


----------



## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

My dearly departed brother used to find old stuff at the curb awaiting pickup and he would drag it home and fix it. He had kettles, stereos, toasters, all fixed. When I was clearing out his house, no one wanted them. I tried craigslist, and kijiji for somone starting out in the Toronto area or with a new cottage.


----------



## sags (May 15, 2010)

Last year was a good one for this old "side of the road" gatherer.

A plastic house and a plastic castle for the backyard for the grandson, a leather couch, desk, filing cabinet, and chair for the basement office.

Two wooden stands for the pantry area and a lower bathroom vanity unit for a tool cabinet...............

Not a bad haul at all.....................

My son used to cringe when I arrive home and asked him to come out with me. He knew that meant he had to hang onto something on top of the car while I drove it home.........fortunately my range was a couple of blocks.

I recently bought 4 winter tires on Kiijii for my car. They were 4 months old.

I paid 200 for all 4 and 100 for installation.

All my clothes were given to me, mostly from widows cleaning out their late husband's closet.

I have no false sense of pride...........when it comes to free or cheap.


----------



## brad (May 22, 2009)

sags said:


> Last year was a good one for this old "side of the road" gatherer.


Years ago when I lived in the Boston area, I shared a house with four other people, one of whom kept a map on the wall showing the garbage pickup days for all the towns surrounding Boston. He would go out each morning with his pickup truck scouting for good stuff on the curbs. He was a carpenter by trade, and he got a perfectly good table saw, a router, and a drill press this way, along with plenty of perfectly good smaller stuff that he'd store in the garage and later sell. Nowadays with eBay, I imagine one could almost make a living that way.


----------



## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

brad said:


> Nowadays with eBay, I imagine one could almost make a living that way.


Also consider http://freecycle.org for getting or giving.


----------



## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

brad said:


> Years ago when I lived in the Boston area, I shared a house with four other people, one of whom kept a map on the wall showing the garbage pickup days for all the towns surrounding Boston. He would go out each morning with his pickup truck scouting for good stuff on the curbs. He was a carpenter by trade, and he got a perfectly good table saw, a router, and a drill press this way, along with plenty of perfectly good smaller stuff that he'd store in the garage and later sell. Nowadays with eBay, I imagine one could almost make a living that way.


Very interesting post. At first I was going to disagree that money can be made on ebay. I've been a low volume seller on that site for many years and can say that selling prices are really low lately. After all the fees from ebay, paypal and the post office I find I am getting 25 cents on the dollar for stuff. However, in the example you gave, that's 25 cents pure profit!

You do have to be careful though. Some cities have outlawed picking through garbage as described above. For instance, people were driving around with vans in eastern Ontario cities and scooping up alum. drink cans and then driving them to the next province over and cashing them in for 5 cents a piece. The source cities were being robbed of the recycling revenue (they were probably doing the same thing haha) and outlawed the practice. Imagine your recycle bin being emptied of its cans through the night.

But it's not just cans.

Then there are other cities that have an annual curb day that allow people to leave whatever they want (subject to some basic rules, like the stuff should actually work and be usable and not be broken) for pick up by whoever wants it the following day. Seems to be successful, but the drivers of the pickup vehicles can be a menace in traffic as they are not paying attention to the driving task and brake and turn suddenly without warning.


----------



## brad (May 22, 2009)

the-royal-mail said:


> Imagine your recycle bin being emptied of its cans through the night. But it's not just cans.


This actually happens here all the time: there's a cadre of people (some homeless, some elderly and poor) who go down the streets in my neighbourhood on recycling day and comb through the recycling bins, taking anything of value. On a more sinister level, I've seen people sorting carefully through the paper in my bin as well, which implies that they may be trying to sell material to identity thieves. (Anything with my address or other personal information on it gets shredded; I don't put any of that in the bin.)

I've even seen people diving into the Goodwill containers to pull out donated clothing, presumably to sell it. Initially I felt outraged by this, but the people who were doing it clearly were not well off, so in a sense the donations were still serving something of their intended purpose.


----------



## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

In my city you can't actually throw out large items, and everything must be in bags and bins, so no garbage diving. I've been using freecycle to try and give my stuff and get stuff. I managed to furnish most of my cabin using freecycle and garage sales.


----------



## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

In terms of ebay, this is one of the ways that we found to make money, but as you said with all the fees that have been charging, its been harder and harder. 

I guess part of it, is not looking at how much you spent on the item or how much it was originally worth, but more how much is it worth now. If you're planning to throw out any ways, and have no use for it, then any money you get, you'll be further ahead.

For us, we buy in massive bulk at times, and then resell. I remember we needed a harddrive. So we found the best deal on used hard drives, however, you had to buy I think it was 500 or something like that and some didn't work, or needed repair. . We bought the lot of 500 for dirt cheap. Many needed to be cleaned and repaired, so we did that in our spare time, while carrying our non sleeping newborn. We sold those, made our money back, then the ones we got tired of cleaning or were too difficult or unrepairable, we sold them in smaller lots for parts. 

I think the thing with ebay is you have to know what is selling or not, and how to either repackage things, or add value to them when get them cheap.


----------



## Sustainable PF (Nov 5, 2010)

I still get a LOT of use out of my 35mm camera that I got back in '88.
While not as old, my cell phone (I call it mini-tank) a pay as you go Virgin mobile phone is 8 years old and still gets the best coverage of any phone that has ever tried to get coverage @ my cottage (2 bars baby! (no one else gets more than 1 intermittent bar, including our newer Virgin flip-up phone))
I still have a discman I got back in 92 or 93 that works.


----------



## Sustainable PF (Nov 5, 2010)

brad said:


> This actually happens here all the time: there's a cadre of people (some homeless, some elderly and poor) who go down the streets in my neighbourhood on recycling day and comb through the recycling bins, taking anything of value. On a more sinister level, I've seen people sorting carefully through the paper in my bin as well, which implies that they may be trying to sell material to identity thieves. (Anything with my address or other personal information on it gets shredded; I don't put any of that in the bin.)


ditto on both fronts. Liquor bottles and cans are extremely popular though not nearly as popular as they were in Alberta where you couldn't just bring your empties back to The Beer Store - you had to go to some depot which was hardly convenient for transit users. People would just toss or recycle those $0.10 containers.

shredding is a hobby of ours


----------



## sags (May 15, 2010)

A friend of my dad's claimed he made over a million dollars buying stuff cheap at yard sales, gathering it up in his garage, and then having the auctioneer come over and truck it away to auction it off.

Only problem is that he got so cheap, with all the haggling and stuff, that he couldn't bear to spend any money, so when he died his ex wife got it all.

As of last report, she is thoroughly enjoying his money.


----------



## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

the-royal-mail said:


> Very interesting post.
> 
> [ ... ]
> 
> ...


They'd have a hard time getting much off my curb. 

I donate my cans plus some others give me and whatever I collect from the street when out for a walk to Habitat for Humanity.

The paper etc. I take into the work recycling program as I'd prefer to do it in smaller chunks instead of a full bin being snowed on etc.


I'm sure the neighbours think I don't recycle at all.


----------



## heyjude (May 16, 2009)

I still have my record player and LPs......including Dire Straits. Hey, that's probably worth something now!


----------



## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

I am a big fan of "keeping the old stuff going".
My philosophy has been one of buying quality/value, taking care of the things, and making them last.
I abhor "use and throw" and constant upgrading, esp. consumer goods like electronics.

Having said that, there is a balance.
There somes a time when it is more expensive (from a $$ perspective as well as social) to keep squeezing blood out of a stone.
It's a matter of judgement to decide when something has outlived its maximum utility and is best to replace.


----------



## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

The 'military lifestyle' we are so familiar with due to my husbands work reflects the buy crap and throw it out in a year attitude to the max. Renting military housing, which is expensive btw, it's not subsidized. Then they have their big new F150's or Hummers along with the wifes van and the kids cars.... Buying new electronics every year or two, ski do's, fishing boats and gear, driving to the corner store to pick up smokes, drinking at the bar regularly.... Most can't believe I walk to work and hubby bikes almost year round to work from our house! One of my husbands supervisors went so far as to belittle me for not having my own car when we have a small child!

And they think WE are the crazy ones!


----------



## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

I am curious if anyone here buys say a BMW or Mercedes and keeps it for a LONG time (30 or more years)? An old doc I had did this and I wondered if it saved him money in the end.


----------



## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Addy said:


> I am curious if anyone here buys say a BMW or Mercedes and keeps it for a LONG time (30 or more years)? An old doc I had did this and I wondered if it saved him money in the end.


Highly doubtful. The parts are expensive, and no car is all that reliable past 15 years of age. More likely a labour of love than frugality.


----------



## brad (May 22, 2009)

andrewf said:


> Highly doubtful. The parts are expensive, and no car is all that reliable past 15 years of age. More likely a labour of love than frugality.


Not only that, but you miss out on all the safety and efficiency improvements of more modern cars. When I was in my 30s my father gave me an old Series III Land-Rover (1976) that I restored myself (you can still get new parts for old Land-Rovers). I drove it for a while, but it didn't take me long to realize that it was dangerous, not to mention incredibly fuel-inefficient. No headrests, air bag, shoulder belt, crumple zones, etc., just a lap belt. And it got about 8 miles per gallon.


----------



## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

andrewf said:


> Highly doubtful. The parts are expensive, and no car is all that reliable past 15 years of age. More likely a labour of love than frugality.


Says you. My 1971 Buick Riviera is just as reliable as any other car. My 1995 Buick Riviera is just as reliable and has as many options as a new car. My 1994 Suburban has never let me down.

Parts are parts, and if you are prepared to do the work yourself,you can save tonnes of money. There is more upkeep is more on an older car, but you have to weigh that against new car payments.

It depends on how much work he did himself, how much he drove it, and when he drove it.


----------



## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

Dad drove a Mercedes 1972 for years, finally turned it into a company car when the vacuum for the door locks ceased working. It just kept on running like a trouper. They use the company cars for driving on a 27 mile dirt road. Finally parked it just a few years ago. I gave them a Subaru that I picked up for $600 here in TO. That was also a great car. 

I'd say it depends on the car. My van for instance is perfectly reliable. It would be idiotic to put good money into this van for an engine or transmission. Certain things I just live with like the passenger window won't roll down anymore. I'm looking now for a spare car for when it kicks the bucket. It will one day develop a problem not worth fixing. I can plan ahead for this. 

You can get really good cars for cheap. I could have got a Honda with 150,000 kms on it that the owner had hit an underground post with and dented the fender. It was loaded, leather seats, came with 4 new snow tires, had been serviced religiously at the dealers and stored in an underground garage. He wanted $2000 but I only wanted to pay $1000. It was a sports car and the insurance on it was $300 extra per month no room for a child seat, two door. In short not a great car for me. 

Some people like cars because it makes them happy. They should get a nice car. I don't care about cars except for their use as a tool to keep me from walking to my appointments. I resent every penny I have to spend on my transportation. I figure I should money on what I value. I guess I'm lucky I'd rather have money in my pocket than mmost things


----------



## sprocket1200 (Aug 21, 2009)

i agree with crazyjack, learn how to do it yourself. it is all just lego. bmw has a super easy design of engine with their I6. sooo easy to change oil and sparkplugs it is funny. BMW always easy to work on.

our 1994 dodge dakota is super reliable and parts nearly free from junk yard. 350,000 kms and going strong. and safe, big, heavy, crush all those small cars...
'


----------



## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

There is the other good point that many older cars are death traps. Even if they are more economical, it sounds penny wise and pound foolish to me to risk death or serious injury to save a few bucks.


----------



## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

andrewf said:


> There is the other good point that many older cars are death traps. Even if they are more economical, it sounds penny wise and pound foolish to me to risk death or serious injury to save a few bucks.


That's a reasonable point of view, but I'd hesitate to call older cars "death traps" 

Even in the 70's there were seatbelts, disk brakes, soft dash boards, and even a form of traction control, so an "older car" say one built in the late 80's or early 90's is still pretty safe.

They aren't as safe as modern vehicles, but the most important factor (the driver) is just as safe.

Besides, we all take risks everyday, Riding a bicycle is more dangerous than driving in a car, but we all do it. Poor eating and health habits are risky too.

Bottom line? I feel safe enough putting my childs' car seats into the back of my classic car.


----------



## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

andrewf said:


> There is the other good point that many older cars are death traps. Even if they are more economical, it sounds penny wise and pound foolish to me to risk death or serious injury to save a few bucks.


I agree with andrew, but only to a point. It really depends on the car. A Sunfire (shudder) for instance, even if it's newer, is a 'death trap' compared to even an older Volvo or BMW.


----------



## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

sprocket1200 said:


> our 1994 dodge dakota is super reliable and parts nearly free from junk yard. 350,000 kms and going strong. and safe, big, heavy, crush all those small cars...'


Maybe so, but anyone who has taken basic physics knows that bigger does not automatically mean safer. In fact, if a vehicle doesn't give, something must (rule of force), and often that can be the human body. I'd rather crumple my car than my body.


----------



## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

Addy said:


> A Sunfire (shudder) for instance, even if it's newer, is a 'death trap'


Which is probably why they don't make them anymore


----------



## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

Here is a video of a classic car taking on a new one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g
I would rather be riding in the new one!


----------



## brad (May 22, 2009)

Somewhere I remember seeing a crash-test video of a Smart car compared with a crash test at the same speed of a 1970s Buick or some similar behemoth, and the occupants of the Smart car came out with no injuries while the Buick driver would have died. Crumple zones are amazing things. It's hard to overstate the protective value of safety features that have been introduced over the past few decades: they're mandatory for a reason.


----------



## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

brad said:


> It's hard to overstate the protective value of safety features that have been introduced over the past few decades: they're mandatory for a reason.


I totally agree, my point is that we all take risks in life, some small, some big, we take risks others wouldn't, and avoid risks others wouldn't.

An older car is not a ticking time-bomb. An older car is not as safe as a new car, but I wouldn't say its dangerous. Not being as safe as safe can be does not automatically equal dangerous.

But we've strayed from the original topic. 

Maintaining the old going is nearly always cheaper than buying new.

Old homes, old cars, old clothes, old computers, old TV's, and for what it's worth, old people.


----------



## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

Yes but we don't have to be so extreme... My van is old but it's not a 1959... it's a 2000 and has crumple zones, plastic bumpers and air bags. I am not a car enthusiast I am a drive a cheap older car enthusiast. I've driven many cars and trucks into their final resting place at the scrap yard. 

I've inherited quite a few vehicles that are not good enough for other people. Many people like to buy new cars. I would also like to buy a new car, I'm just not prepared to make payments or pay the amount that dealers want for a new car. Maybe If I were a millionaire I would buy a new car, not sure. Probably not. 

I'm pretty sure my parents were millionaires before they bought a new pick up. I learned how to drive in it when I was 9 years old. It was a Mazda diesel pickup that dad ordered from Vancouver. That was a great little truck. It had 700,000 km on it when the transmission died for the third time. I was driving it, that's how I know. The body was finished. Then a guy came along and bought the motor to rebuild it and paid $500 bucks. 

Compare this to the Ford tough piece of crap my sister bought. "Heavy Duty" with a tow package, Ford replaced the transmission 3 times in the first year of it's life. It was in the shop more often than on the road. All for the bargain basement price of $72,000.


----------

