Boy did I stir up a Hornet's nest...


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Posted by Brian in Oregon on Wednesday, April 25, 2001 at 1:12PM :

In Reply to: Re: new vs. old posted by Aaron A. Arnold on Wednesday, April 25, 2001 at 9:15AM :

I'd say the old Studebaker is doing pretty good with three engines in 48 years. Especially considering the original engine probably was designed for only 10K to 20K miles between overhauls. Are any of the new trucks going to be on the same engine in 48 years? I doubt the electronics will hold up that long, and I doubt finding replacement parts will be as easy as finding points are now.

I can understand the comfort part. But the flip side of that coin is - what are you going to compromise in the way of off-road capability to get it? There is no such thing as a free lunch.

I can't speak for the new Dodge pickups, but my brother-in-law was in for a rude shock when his wife dented the quarter panel in their new supposedly rough-tough Suburban. The panel caved in quite easily, whereas a PW would have shrugged it off. And it could only be bondo'd. The body appears to be a sandwich of thin sheetmetal with foam plastic between it. A dent puller tears it up, you cannot dolly it out from the other side, and you cannot weld a tab on it to pull it out w/o lighting the foam up, or at the very least melting it. A Suburban today will not take the punishment one from the 1980's will.

The new trucks have their place, but I really doubt they are going to take the abuse the older trucks did, and I doubt as many of them will be around when they reach the age our old PW's and army trucks are. For one thing, the cost of replacement parts is enormous. That will reduce the value quickly once age and wear and tear take their toll. I see a lot of decent running and looking cars from the 1980's being sold dirt cheap, because no one wants to spend a lot of money for repair parts. They have been relegated to the disposable catagory. In other words, they have little value. As mdern trucks become more expensive to repair, they eventually will go this route as well. Probably not as bad as the cars, but I'll bet that a 2000 truck will be worth less in 20 years than a 1980's truck, simply because the ruggedness has been compromised away, and the repair parts are so expensive.

A new truck does fulfill one important function - when leased, it can be written off for work, and this is a big incentive. (It can too when bought, but different figures are brought into play.)

As for the comparison of an old PW to an old Corvette, and the PW costing more when new, I suppose that's supposed to justify the trucks today costing $40,000 and being cheaper than a Vette. Well, again, if you tok the $50,000 and up that a Vette costs, and sunk it into a collector car, or even an AC Cobra big block kit car, you'd have something that would be a decent ride and would leave the Vette far behind. Imagine an AC Cobra kit car with an aluminum block and aluminum head big block in it. I'd do one of those long before I'd buy a new Vette. What could you do with an M37 or PW if you sunk even HALF the cost of a modern truck into it?

But back to my original point... As each year goes by, we see more and more substitution of thinner metal, more plastic, more electronics (often resulting in more unreliability), more lightweight parts that don't hold up and other shortcuts to try and boost fuel consumption and pare weight. The older trucks were designed with a healthy overload factor in mind. Many folks used 3/4 and 1 ton trucks like they were 2 tonners. A yard of gravel along is 2800 to 3000 lbs. That's over the limit of a 1-tonner by 50%. Yet it was common practice. Will a new 3/4 or 1 ton truck today take that kind of overload abuse? Personally, I doubt it. Many components are rated right at the limit with little or no overload factor. I've seen what this does when light trucks today are used in fleets. They don't hold up as well as older light trucks did. (Referring to 1/2 tonners here.)

In my opinion, in general, trucks are costing more and returning less.





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