british-cars
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: comp nerd

To: british-cars@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: comp nerd
From: sanders@hydra.unm.edu
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 94 18:39 MDT
regarding the choice of britcars for sole-transport and cost-effectiveness...

A compelling argument to buy, for example, an MGB is that it is most likely
THE least expensive car to operate and maintain.  I usually receive 
raised eyebrows from this contention but I actually do feel that this is
the case.  I used to think old VWs were cheapest, and they may have been,
but I was shocked at the costs incurred when my neighbor's van needed work.
The stereotype is that parts for foreign cars are expensive and are hard
to find.  Well, I also own 3 US cars including what I would consider a
generic domestic mobile - an 82 mustang.  I have found that parts for any
of these vehicles are more expensive than corresponding MGB parts and are
rarely as easy to obtain relative to a quick phone call to Moss etc.
Certainly maintaining an older britcar is do-able and avoids paying shop
rates to (often) incompetents who happen to have the required diagnostic
electronics.  Good luck trying to fix a recent vintage injected car. I'm
quite at home under the hood of MGs but couldn't even figure out that an
injector wire coming off was the cause of poor-running on the 92 cherokee. 

Given the generally low startup cost (an MG in very good shape is rarely
worth as much as a 5-year old econobox), low maintenance/restoration
costs, and typically good gas mileage, britcar ownership can be quite 
economically justifiable.

John Sanders
Albuquerque NM


However, that is if you can avoid getting over-enthusiastic about it/them
(cf shipwrights disease and variants).


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>