Why do undamaged P80s get junked?

[scot850]

Another thought on running cheap older cars. My first visit to Canada in 1979 to visit my school buddy who had returned to Canada and was in Edmonton at the time trying to find meaningful work. He was not wealthy and managed on an A&W salary. I had helped him learn to drive and he knew I had some car knowledge, so asked me to help him find a set of wheels as public transport was difficult getting to and from work on late nights.

With negligible budget we trawled the bomb crater back street car sales places. Even there everything was out of his price range. The last place we walked into he saw his first car. It was a 3 year old Datsun 180B coupe with no straight panels, the rear side windows had been replaced with marine ply, white vinyl hi-back seats and rear shackles added to the rear leak springs. In red , he was in love! I walked up to is and laughed, kicked the front bumper and one of the headlights fell out! Nothing would put him off so we took it for a test drive. Brake warning lights on every time you braked, huge vibration though the drive-line and blown muffler. Add to that no 2 tires the same size or brand it was terrible but with 100k miles the thing ran ok. He paid $100 for it, got it insured and registered and on the way home we stopped at a Midas muffler shop to get a new muffler fitted. That cost more than he paid for the car as all they had was a stainless one! The muffler supervisor came and asked him to take a look under the car as they had found a problem. I got sent in to look. I was horrified to find the 2 transmission (manual) mounting bolts totally missing from the crossmember. Across the road was a hardware store so I went over and got 2 nuts and bolts and spring washer. At the road side I drove it onto the kerb to give enough room to get under the car to fit the bolts. Now the car ran significantly better and no vibrations.

Well blow me down, but that car served him for 4 years in all weathers down to -40C, starting no matter what. In fact in the really bad weather his buddies who laughed at his beater would ask to borrow the car to get their girlfriends home as their fancy new cars would not work. He certainly got the last laugh and eventually sold it onto another buddy who had got tired of his 7 mpg 64 Chrysler Newport!

It made me reassess what was important in a car and how even a car like that was repairable at minimum cost and although I had condemned it to the junk yard it served him well with maintenance.

Neil.

[Krons]

Even aside from the dollar cost, there's a huge expense of energy, materials, waste, and other environmental impacts from creating a new car. It seems much less costly on a global scale to repair than to replace. $3,000 of individual parts must be less impactful than $60,000 of new car.

I agree 100%. Now saving a more fuel thirsty XC90 may not make sense but for cars/wagons absolutely more sustainable.

[abscate]

Extending any car life past 12 years is greener than buying the most efficient car in the world

[wheelsup]

People like easy. It's a lot "easier" to buy a new car, never mind the concept of spending xx months working to buy the thing to begin with.

Meanwhile, many of us will spend a couple hours a month (if that) working on our cars, maybe $200-$500 a year (if that) using salvage and cheap replacement parts, to keep our cars running for years.

If you had the room, you could buy a few spare 850s and park them, and keep your primary running for, likely, your lifetime. Zero depreciation, low maintenance costs, no waiting for shipping parts, and easy trial and error electronic repairs. I bought one with a blown motor, robbed the transmission which I needed along with a ton of other spare parts, and have them sitting in a box above my garage for when they are needed. My exhaust manifold was leaking, so just pulled that out last week, easy $100 saved. Sold the hulk back to salvage.

People complain about money all the time. Where does it go they say? Looking around my neighborhood, a good percentage of peoples income goes towards buying/selling/fixing newer modern cars that cost an absolute fortune to buy and repair.

I confess I did just buy a new car. Well, ordered one. A Ford Maverick. Should be here in September, I've got a build date finally. $26k. Expensive, but honestly it's time. I do intend to keep my 850, which I learned to drive on, for as long as I can however.

[wheelsup]

Extending any car life past 12 years is greener than buying the most efficient car in the world

That concept is lost on 99% of the world, as they scream look at me in the new $50k Teslas.

[scot850]

The young guy I am helping to try and save his first car (a 96 850 NA with nearly 300k miles on it). I told him to consider this. If you buy a $30k car and pay it back over 5 years you have a $500/month car payment (even assuming 0% interest). In the first year you will likely lose close to $6k in value. So first year you are just burning money! By comparison, you can can spend maybe $1500-2000 on his old car (would have been a lot less as it needs a windshield and rocker panel rust remedied) and he will have a nice running car. Chances are he will get 2-3 years at least out of it with some maintenance, maybe more if he wants to keep his first car. AS a new driver it is a safe car to drive, not a road burner but reliable. I have been over the car and it looks not too bad compared to many I have seen. If you buy a $5k car you can expect to spend the same again as no one her maintains cars and they run them till they break in a big way.

He has decided to keep the car and spend the money on it with my help teaching him to wrench on his car.

Neil.

[FireFox31]

I also bought a newer used car recently for an unfortunately high price. My P80 had (and still has) a bunch of problems. I had no time to address them, needed reliable transportation, like having two cars so I can drive one while the other is broken, and had been looking for this exact car for almost 1.5 years. Sure, it sails through inspection, but:

The repair quotes I get from the dealership for this newer car are extreme. $600 for a (incomplete) transmission fluid change, $2000 for all four brake pads and rotors, $1650 for leaking valve covers. Yes, I'll do all these myself. This doesn't address the myriad failure codes I found using a make-specific scanner, all of which are quirks I'd like to resolve. Since the car is newer, the DIY enthusiast base hasn't created the amount of repair content like in cars.

For P80s, I feel like essentially everything which can be known about them has been posted online. We're doing head teardowns, transmission swaps, electronics diagnostics, etc. We've got videos for everything imaginable. Newer cars don't yet have that (though they might some day). With DIY skills and patience to find the info, these old cars seem cheaper to maintain than newer ones. And easier to maintain since they have less complexity.

So is this an argument for rescuing P80s from Craigslist, Marketplace, and auctions houses to restore and sell? Would anyone be sensible to buy a stage 0 P80 from us after we've fixed it up (provided they have a good mechanic)?

[abscate]

It’s only economical for one to do this for yourself or family/friends.

I’ve got 30 hours into the Kat in resurrection hours, that’s $4500 at shop rates. Car is probably sellable at $2500

I probably did the same hours on the T5 in 2013

Cooling group
ETM
Rear delta links
Evaporator

That $4500 of Labour has given me 120,000 miles and 10 years. Not bad.

You can get a solid 5-10 year runner under 5k with your own Labour

[Krons]

It’s only economical for one to do this for yourself or family/friends.

I’ve got 30 hours into the Kat in resurrection hours, that’s $4500 at shop rates. Car is probably sellable at $2500

I probably did the same hours on the T5 in 2013

Cooling group
ETM
Rear delta links
Evaporator

That $4500 of Labour has given me 120,000 miles and 10 years. Not bad.

You can get a solid 5-10 year runner under 5k with your own Labour

Agreed. Not a short term money maker but long term low cost per mile/km.

[jsrnsis]

Why do undamaged P80s wind up in junkyards? I wonder this every time I see one, which is quite often as I browse car-part.com looking for things. Maybe 5% of P80s I see were actually in an accident.

I know a lot of people just don't care about the cars, they're just some old junker to them. Grandma's car passed down to them, they get bored of them, don't think they're worth anything, didn't/couldn't spend the money on preventative maintenance and it built up to a point of the repairs outweighing their value of the car. Or some people just want a new car with carplay and a backup camera.
At least a couple cars I've seen with very nice bodies and interiors, but engines labelled non-functional, or tires worn down to the wires.
I don't know how it is in other places, but these cars don't seem to last very long in the yard before they end up crushed, which irks me because I'll see the same rusted in half toyota with the cab corners rotted out every time I go. Some yards around here say they just pull the engine and transmission and crush the rest.
There's also the people who seem to be determined to cut every wire and snap every part I need to retrieve their part, and then leave all the trim and fittings down in the mud.

What I don't understand is people who buy perfectly working cars just to part out, I've seen a lot of listings where they say everything works, but catalytic converters have been removed.