More reliable than a modern?

[supercass]

Just taking stock of my disastrous association with a Citroen 1.6 Sensodrive which has done a low annual mileage now has a burnt out valve and needs a new engine and has been sold basically for scrap value. Loss of confidence in the car reduced the enthusiasm to argue about the value. In about the same low mileage as my TR7 it has had in addition to routine servicing:
Three coils, these are about £200 each
Thermostat housing.
Alternator
Radiator
Replacement roof cable guides. A trip to an independent some 120 miles away with a half open roof to sort this as to resolve this Citroen would only fit a new roof cassette at about £4500. It really needed a new vinyl roof (vinyl slide as it is called). Thankfully I didn't spend the £1500 or thereabouts Citroen wanted for supply only.
It had broken down more times than I can remember and on more than one occasion momentarily lost drive for no apparent reason.

My TR7 some 25 years older has the original coil, the original radiator, the original thermostat housing, the original alternator. The roof mechanism is original although the top has been replaced. It has had a new gearbox mounting. It is due new front shock absorbers still having the original fitments all round. The rear bump stops perished and were replaced. It has had a new fan belt and as can be expected with 80's quality exhausts more than one new exhaust. It has had a couple of TRE's. The clutch is original and works as it should. I can't think of any major expenditure. If it did need a new coil it would cost about £30. I have had it from new and I can't recall it breaking down apart from a flat battery or similar.

Perhaps I'm not comparing like with like but were / are TR7's as unreliable as they were made out to be?
supercass

[Cobber]

No wonder I've always avoided Shitroens!

[Hasbeen]

I agree, once I had put my neglected 7 on the road it was remarkably reliable.

It is not all new cars, but perhaps a French/German thing. My ladies last private car, a Mazda 2 did 175,000 kilometres using only consumables. Her company supplied Peugeot 2006 felt like it spent half it's life at the dealers waiting for warranty replacement parts.

By 29,000 kilometres it has spent a month waiting fro a new front subframe, 5 weeks waiting for a new rear subframe, & another month waiting for a replacement inlet valve. You couldn't give me a Peugeot.

When the hood of my daughters Peugeot 306 refused to work, the Peugeot dealers quoted $2000 to look at it. A local back yarder mechanic fixed it for $200.

My brother in law, running a very large multi franchise dealership in Sydney had to rent a warehouse to store all the Audi cluttering up his workshop, while waiting for warranty replacement parts.

Perhaps European manufacturers can't produce cars to Asian standards, or perhaps they send the junk to Oz, & don't bother supporting their cars with the necessary parts. What ever it is, anyone down under would be mad to buy any European stuff today.

Hasbeen

[Cobber]

All French stuff like Poogoats etc. is and always was to be avoided, they used to make great cars once, upmarket things such as Delages, Talbot-Lagos, Delaheyes and of course Buggatis.....(the modern Buggati does not really count as French being a VAG product) but with the mass production stuff, they started to lose their way after WW2 and by the mid 70's they were totally lost.
There was of course the odd interesting design, but usually more trouble than they were worth.

[saabfast]

Never had a problem with the TR7, always starts first time (with electronic ignition) even though it stands around most of the time. Having said that, the Saabs do not give me problems either, despite far more complex electronics. My wife has a Pug 207 but as she only does 1500 miles a year it is hardly comparable. However, the one fail she did have was the clutch at about 40k! It was not the actual clutch, the release bearing failed completely. This is like an old toy, thin pressed steel and absolute rubbish. The guy who changed the clutch for us used to be a Peugeot mechanic (now Audi) and knew the problem immediately from the awful noise it made, said they were known rubbish parts. It now has decent LUK parts.

[FI Spyder]

I've been pretty lucky with my cars. I had the diodes go on my Dodge Colt (Mitsubishi) and a similar thing on my '62 Hillman station wagon (although I think that was more the alt. wires shorting out and melting. I had the capacitors go in the ICU (intermediate control unit) which controlled the accessories in my '91 Integra. That was a known fault in all that generation Integra. You could solder in upgraded capacitors if you could get the unit out as the wiring was pretty short (that was back in the day when circuit boards had discrete components). As for my Volt, no problems yet (only had it 6 months) other than unlocking door handle button and loosing compass on dash but I think that's more to do with the 12V AGM battery being original 5+ years old and getting close to best by due date. It is only used to power on the computers at start up and unlock doors, electrical outlet door and release pressure in gas tank when fillng when car is off and as it gets close to 12V (or below) it starts losing some functions. A new battery should reset it which is in the cards next time Canadian Tire has a good sale (Canada day?).


As for the TR7? Never had any issues to speak of. Leaking coolant hose (11 years old), wiper parking switch needing adjustment (11 year since last adjustment, which probably on the edge of working), replaced clutch (after slipping clutch o steep incline it would judder), wire broken that feeds 12V to dash lights (removed radio one too many times), loose (worn) + battery clamp to cable. Nothing major.

[saabfast]

OK, that brings back memories with the TR7 to cloud the blue sky thinking. The clutch did go when a torque spring in the friction plate broke and jammed it, a front damper failed completely when I was changing the bump stops and gaiters, steering gaiters have needed changing a few times due to lousy modern rubber etc. I am sure there are others but I sort of consider these things service consumables to give it the benefit of the doubt!

[busheytrader]

My dear departed Dad always used to say "the more gadgets there are to go wrong on a car, the more they're likely to go wrong"

In the 60's and 70's he always bought upmarket cars that were 2 to 3 years old, mostly Jaguars then Ford Granadas but always steered away from electric windows, sunroofs, aircon and the like if he could. Unlike my Uncle who had countless fully loaded versions which suffered from all sorts of associated failures etc.

My wedge is fairly basic compared to my fully loaded MX5 daily driver. Not much has gone wrong on the wedge in 32 years (apart from the clutch pin fulcrum and failed heater matrix seals problems) The MX5 is approaching 100,000 miles (56,000 since we bought it 6 years ago) on a 55 plate and has been almost 100% reliable so far

[skertonman]

Am hoping so, as I've just put my TR back on the road as a regular driver after letting son take my modern daily driver off me.

Hoping that the heater works now that winter is on it's way.

[Beans]

In the 30 years of TR7 ownership I have had only a few reliability issues with my TR7's.
But most were related to lack of use (water pump leaks) or just general wear caused by old age and high mileage.

And a few brake downs caused by external influences
• Like dirt in the fuel tank causing the electric fuel pump on 't Kreng to get stuck during a trip to Britain


• Losing a rear caliper after a few days of high speed driving through rural Scotland


• A broken propshaft on top of the Timmelsjoch caused by a design fault (BL related )


• A massive oil spill due to lost oil filler cap;


• And the last one so far was water in the fuel tank caused by incorrect handling while the car was being recovered after the propshaft failure;

[busheytrader]

How did that happen Beans?

[johnnyj]

When I was a kid my dad was really into his cars. He always went for older ones and I remember his Austin Westminster A110, Wolseley 6/110 and the Vanden Plas 4 Litre "R" which was his pride and joy. He later moved to "moderns" which included a Renault 20 which ended up needing about 3 new camshafts, and a Citroen XM which was full of gadgets and always broke down.

My TR7 only broke down once, when the fan pulley fell off at speed and put a hole in the radiator and sump during a trip to Italy in the 90s.

John

[Beans]

How did that happen Beans?

Which one?

[busheytrader]

Water in the fuel tank after propshaft failure.

[Beans]

4 Weeks after the breakdown on the Timmelsjoch the car came back with a fully soaked interior,
and had clearly been stored in a very wet place (probably under a waterfall )
This caused havoc with the paint underneath the fuel filler cap, resulting in blocked drains around the filler neck.
This in return caused a fair amount of water to enter the tank through the vented filler cap
http://tr7beans.blogspot.com/2013/08/10cr-preparations-part-3.html

Needles to say we didn't use water based paint for the full respray that was needed ...