Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 276 posts

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#221

Post by Teknomadix »

fransje26 wrote: post #79
physix wrote: post #57

When I lived in Germany, in the 90s, I regularly sat in diesel Mercedes Benz taxis with over a million kms under the hood. Private drivers usually. Many had giant mileages. We used to say (tongue in cheek) that after 250k, the MB diesel engine was broken in. I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore.

Let me wager a guess: Mercedes models W124? > I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore. You guessed correctly. The 1980's W124 was one of those cars that would keep going and going. Mechanically great, with a galvanized chassis and bodywork that made it also pretty rust resistant. The 1993 version of the W124, supposed to be an "improved" remodeled version of the original car, was a worst car in every as…

I can confirm as an owner of several W124 vehicles, most notably the 1987 North American market S124, this is the 300 TDT, a station wagon version of the W124 chassis with the OM603 turbo diesel. Currently my wagons clock has just over 370,000 mi. This is a unicorn car in North America. They only sold this car during one sales year in 1987, with this particular engine configuration. This engine can also be found in several other cars around the same era from Mercedes-Benz.

I also own a 1999 W210 with the OM606 turbo diesel. This is the electronically controlled and upgraded version of the OM603. I can confirm that the w w210 is plagued with the myriad of problems. But it is still a fairly nice chassis with modern features and once one becomes acustomized with its particular idiosyncrasies it isn't really that horrible. But it's definitely not the tank that the w124 and w123 series chassis were. The primary prize is the OM606 engine. Which is commonly extracted from the W210 chassis and used to repower any number of other vehicles. There are lots of ways to crank tons of horsepower out of these engines, but at the sacrifice of their longevity.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#222

Post by prmoustache »

fasteo wrote: post #103
fransje26 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me wager a guess: Mercedes models W124? > I don't think MB makes them like they used to anymore. You guessed correctly. The 1980's W124 was one of those cars that would keep going and going. Mechanically great, with a galvanized chassis and bodywork that made it also pretty rust resistant. The 1993 version of the W124, supposed to be an "improved" remodeled version of the original car, was a worst car in every as…

I have a w245, 410.000 Km. Still going strong

I bought recently a w245: basically I wanted a reliable petrol car that would have a small exterior footprint while being spacious inside (I have 2 teenagers at home) and that I could buy for less than the price of my bicycle.

Only downside is fuel consumption in urban driving.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#223

Post by prmoustache »

SoftTalker wrote: post #150
cperciva wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of cities have banned them now, at least for personal use. (Last time this was debated in my area, some businesses had justifications for why they couldn't just use electric tools, but none of those applied to regular homeowners.)

A lawn service that is working 8-10 hours a day can't use battery tools unless they buy a lot of batteries and/or have a way to recharge them in the field (from a gasoline-powered generator, most likely). So their complaint has some validity.

Sheep and goats don't need to be recharged. They feed while doing the lawn.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#224

Post by gosub100 »

torginus wrote: post #216
TimByte wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays it feels like the electronics or emissions gear will take the car down long before the engine wears out

It's weird how EV fans doggedly believe that EVs will outlast mechanical cars because they got so few moving parts, even experience shows the electronics often fail before the mechanical parts, both in cars and household appliances.

if they last long enough, 3rd party manufacturers might make after-market parts for them.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#225

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

rendaw wrote: post #130
jbeard4 wrote: post #69

> Over the years, nearly everything on the vehicle has been replaced or repaired, and Campbell says the only original part is likely the body, and even that has had work done on it. It’s the Tercel of Theseus: if every part has been replaced, is it still the same car? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Well the odometer's gotta be the same, right? I reckon the soul of a car resides in the odometer.

>I reckon the soul of a car resides in the odometer.

Citation?...

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#226

Post by v5v3 »

jbeard4 wrote: post #69

> Over the years, nearly everything on the vehicle has been replaced or repaired, and Campbell says the only original part is likely the body, and even that has had work done on it. It’s the Tercel of Theseus: if every part has been replaced, is it still the same car? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Trigger's Broom

https://youtu.be/56yN2zHtofM

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#227

Post by vel0city »

SoftTalker wrote: post #201
senorrib wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BS. Gasoline is just more convenient and cheaper for them. 40V batteries last long enough that you only need a handful of them to last a whole day.

I have 40V electric lawn mower. It takes nearly the full charge on two batteries to cut my average suburban-sized lawn. Sometimes I can't even complete it on that depending how tall the grass is. Add in edge trimming and blowing away the clippings and then multiply that by a number of lawns or larger properties and I think you would need dozens of batteries. BTW "more convenient and cheaper" are strong arguments when…

I have a 56V electric lawn mower. It takes nearly the full charge of one battery to mow my slightly larger suburban lawn. Trimming and blowing and what not gets handled by my second smaller battery. My largest battery isn't even the largest they make for this model line. I've been on the same two batteries for five years now. I use E-Go.

I'd say your system is just undersized for your needs. Judging by having two batteries, it sounds like your system is one of those based around hand power tools batteries and then attempted to scale those up to lawn mowers. I've mostly heard bad things about this path. There's a lot of other experiences out there.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#228

Post by stefanka »

jbeard4 wrote: post #69

> Over the years, nearly everything on the vehicle has been replaced or repaired, and Campbell says the only original part is likely the body, and even that has had work done on it. It’s the Tercel of Theseus: if every part has been replaced, is it still the same car? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Everything but all the diodes down its left hand side

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#229

Post by Baeocystin »

jmb99 wrote: post #90
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anything with mechanical moving parts is going to last that long, with regular usage, and have original parts. The fact that the owner can keep it going is a testament to the maintainability of combustion engines that don't have high tech computers in them.

> I don't think anything with mechanical moving parts is going to last that long, with regular usage, and have original parts. I know of at least two cars with 800k km with original engines. Both GM small blocks (Gen 2, multiport fuel injection so computer-controlled). Neither engine has been opened since they rolled off the floor in the 90s. They’re not particularly efficient (only about 270HP out of 5.7L) but if ta…

There are definitely a few engine designs out there that won the design lottery in terms of longevity. I know a guy that has close to half a million miles on a Jeep Cherokee with the old AMC 4-liter straight six, and the only engine work done other than plugs and wires is replacing the water pump at 250k. I've got ~186k on my Jeep with the same engine, and it doesn't even burn any oil yet.

Re: Car has more than 1.2M km on it – and it's still going strong

#230

Post by hdgvhicv »

while_true_ wrote: post #132
hdgvhicv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If externalities were correctly priced in to fuel, rare earths, rubber, road wear etc then it would be easy to see, the cheaper the better. But they aren’t, not even close. Oil is massively subisidised by the military before the environmental costs. Brake particulates and tyres don’t cover the cost of microplastics and lung damage, heavy cars don’t pay anywhere near the damage they cause to the roads and bridges etc.…

20 year old cars tend to be heavy polluters because they don't meet the latest emissions standards. Here in California the state will buy old cars and scrap them to get dirty emitters out of service. Also, nearly every day electrical generation is over 50% using solar, wind or hydro so EVs are cleaner here than any ICE vehicle by far.

Well my 20 year old car meets the various clean air zone emission standards that newer cars fail to

However even if it didn’t, if I used it for 200 miles a year would it make sense to buy a new electric car?

It’s never clear cut, and it’s practically impossible to make the best decision in any given case. You can make a regulation which will on aggregate lead to less damage but there will always be exceptions, and on a case by case basis it’s extremely difficult to measure the damage a given scenario applies. How many “units of badness” does buying a new 2 ton electric car before you move it a single mile. Id wager it’s more than an existing petrol car burning 1 litre of unleaded petrol on existing tyres and brake discs.

The difficulty is measuring total impact of the choice. Sure buying a new petrol car and driving 20k miles a year for 6 years will be worse than buying a new electric car and driving 20k miles a year for 6 years. That’s not where the line is.

Post reply on HN