Built like a Mercedes (?)

You can do the same for many regions. I would say that Finland was similar
to Canada with harsh Winters and much forest with seldom graded roads.
Sicily and lower Italy would have similar conditions to American desert
regions.
So in what way are American conditions harsher? Please don't say
'overloading' like some other idiot because that happens all over and most
especially in Asia. It's not speed. Its not climate. It's not the quality of
roads. So what is it? The people? There are idiots who drive like maniacs
everywhere.

Huw

 

I'll pop in a personal comment here.

When I visited Norway in 1976 I drove on some roads that had been 'trashed' by
the previous winter. The pavement had been entirely broken up and it has to be
replaced every year.

One day , my car looked like I had rallyed it all day long !

Graham

 

Bingo!!

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

DTJ wrote:

....Take a look

Heh heh! That's like using the statistic that 35% of auto accidents
with injuries or fatalities involve drinking and driving, therefore the
problem *must* be drivers who don't drink since the overwhelming
majority of drivers involved in such accidents had not been drinking.
An example of how statistics can mislead to the erroneous conclusions.

I'm not saying your opinion of Outlook Express is right or wrong, but
the logic of your example doesn't support your conclusion.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

It seems I may indeed have missed that bit but how typical an example are

Tossing an educated guess, I'd put myself about mid range. A quarter the
pickups in this town do get babied to one degree or another, another 25-40%
get used to capacity, and the remainder have various levels of use, most of
which involves overworking them on the rated capacity by the manufacturer.
While some conclude this is "overloading" by idiots, most of us look to see
what the equipment rating is, and follow that, not the sales rating.
Frankly, if the vehicle will do the work day in and day out, it probably
isn't overloaded.

Of course, "overloading" comes in two forms. Too much load, or flat out
abusing the vehicle. I've seen plenty of pickups survive much more than they
should have with no effect to their performance.

I'll readily agree that a large number of the half tonners and the SUV's
never leave pavement. And yes, there are a number of people that buy a truck
because they like it, regardless of use. However, to think that all pickups
are driven lightly is flawed thinking.

I would also caution anyone reading my personal example to be aware of the
circumstances. I am not one who condones overloading a vehicle. However, it
is worthy of note that the truck I have is rated at 12,000 lbs on its tires
and axles, which is extreme for a vehicle rated to carry less than a ton.
Secondly, in my situation, loading 7000lbs of sand bags seemed to be the
lesser of two evils, as we were working to stem a leak in the dike. My
choice was to either help out and risk the truck being damaged, or do
nothing and risk the house being flooded. As it was, no harm came to either.
--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

When I visited Norway in 1976 I drove on some roads that had been 'trashed' by

You should visit Mamrora here. It's like that too.

 

Not on my planet. Sorry, I was there and I remember well (not to mention
that I own 3, two of which are daily drivers even today.) Now that may
have been true of the remaining 40s and early 50s vintage cars which
were still onthe road in the 60s, but NOT of the cars BUILT in the 60s.

 

I agree, but my premise is just that the rate of phase-in of the
earliest controls (particularly the catcon, which requires feedback
mixture control on larger engines) was ahead of the engineering of the
time. I'm not saying that it SHOULDN'T have been done, but that perhaps
a more gradual phase-in would have been better.

Not a modern digital system.

Exactly- and that was one of the things most needed (and available with
feedback carburetors).

And went "phut!" with the same regularity

I will give GM credit- they got reliable true processor-controlled full
feedback digital fuel injection working and in mass-production way
before most other manufacturers. Too bad it went on crappy engines like
the HT4100....

My wording was incorrect. They weren't "exempt," but they could MEET the
target grams/mile emisisons levels WITHOUT things like catcons (in some
cases), air injection, OSAC, and all the other kludged emission controls
that had to be thrown at the bigger engines of the day. Hence, they
didn't suffer the same reliability degradations. The 79 2L Mazda inline
4 I once owned (which also put me off Japanese cars forever, but that's
another story) had a catcon and EGR. Period. No air injection, no OSAC,
no 'Lean Burn,' not even any electronics. Also no torque, and a Mikuni
carburetor that shouldn't have ever seen production but that again is
another story....

 

No, the claims above are just flat wrong.

 

That's primarily because business people don't know shit about technology.

I have this discussion with my wife. I had trained her NOT to top post
in reply to emails.

She kept getting messages back from other attorneys saying "you didn't
say anything". They were so lazy, they didn't even scroll down to see
her replies.

YMMV
Marty

 

Exactly, lazy slobs top post.

People who take the time and energy to actually be considerate, trim
there messages, and post at the bottom of the relevant quoted content.

Marty

 

I totally agree.

The importance of trimming cannot be underestimated either. Proper trimming alone
answers most of the 'criticism' that top-posters offer.

Graham

 

This is called anecdote. Just because you foolishly overload your
vehicle, doesn't say anything about US truck usage in general.

In my personal experience, US roads are excellent (with some
variation), and most light trucks (4 wheelers) don't get very heavy use.

 

Since we seem to be drifting back on-topic I'll add that in the UK at least, most
users of light trucks tend to use proper commercial vehicles rather than pickups when
they have a regular need to carry heavy(ish) loads.

Like this here..... Popular with builders for example....

http://www.ford.co.uk:80/opera/onestop/tos_overview/tos_dropside/-/-/-/-

Graham

 

Where else would John Delorean get bad ideas from?

In tht year Subaru sold it's SEAC lean burn engine - and Honda sold
it's lean burning CVVC - neither of which even had a cat.

 

You never drove a Ford back then I assume.

 

My first car was a '68 Ford. I never owned a >>GM<< back then (and only
once since).

 

True enough, though history suggests that the industry would in that case
have simply waited for the (later) deadline to do the R&D, giving us
nothing but a few years more of dirty car exhaust.

Closed-loop operation appeared with EFI in '77, before feedback
carburetors appeared.

Agreed, though there was still a fair amount of emission control
engineering (good and bad) that went onto smaller Japanese cars in the US
market that got left off in other markets. 3-valve engines (MCA-jet),
Honda CVCC, and a whole host of add-on emission devices and Frankencarbs
that were every bit as devillish as those installed by Detroit.

DS

 

He is very good at tall stories.

Ford Transit, Isuzu forward control, Nissan Cabstar, LDV and other almost
bonnetless or forward control commercial vehicles dominate the load carrying
sector between 1 ton and 6 ton capacity. Very few indeed are used for non
commercial purposes as you know. In contrast to the majority of 1 ton
pickups, these are seldom all wheel drive.

Huw

 

Well I was a mechanic in the sixties and seventies and did a LOT of
valve jobs. Replaced a lot of lifters and camshafts, particularly on
GM engines - liftes on mid sixties inline sixes, camshafts on eights (
more in the seventies) and lots of rocker problems on 351 and 400
fords. Lots of Mopar timing chains. Lots of GM timing gears (plastic
gears turned to popcorn) again nmore in the seventies. Lots of
re-rings too.
Lost count of the 235 and 261 Chevy sixes I overhauled.Lots of (nasty)
flathead mopar valve jobs too, and even a couple cracked heads.
Lots of bad cams and lifters in early (big block) 318 mopars too.
The VAST majority long before 100,000 miles - and at 100,000 virtually
any car was considered pretty well worn out. Yes, there were
exceptions - and some of them you'd never expect, like the '61 Morris
850 apart for the first time at 196000 miles, and those you would
expect, like the '63 slant six valve job at about 130,000 because the
valves were not adjusted often enough and burned.