Wheel bearings falls under “safety” for me. A seized wheel bearing can cause a wheel to lock up and cause a serious accident. In extreme cases the wheel can come off, or it could start a fire.
While you’re in there, check them lower control arm ball joints. Those suzies have a way of stepping out of line if those get worn too badly.
Technically, if you have to spend more on the vehicle than it is worth second-hand, it is “mechanically totalled”. Most people send them on before they get here, which is why less than 10% of vehicles makes it this far, and those that do… cost their own value in maintenance to keep them there.
Done that Dec 2022 - the whole shebang cause after 23 years I started to seriously dislike it when she “drifted” a teeny bit on a flat road. Now she drives like a brand-new car. Tight and nippy on the steering. So what that cost R11k after 23 years, a LOT of dirt roads at 80km/h too, her sweet spot.
Yeah, had a car or two like that …when you realize the bank balance is disappearing into a bottomless pit - more in the workshop than on the road.
Suzy is wear and tear. Big bulky parts - “strip to quote” repairs. Once replaced properly they can easily last another wot, 10(?,) years?
Cause no matter where I spend the money, on a new car ito capital and interest every X years or fix Suzy every 10 years? There is a cost to owning a vehicle long time, or a new vehicle every ±10 years.
The earliest main repair was the suspension (bladvere) at the back … caravan pulling got them a wee bit pap. That was 17 years ago. New alternator after 18 years. Stupid me could have had it repaired for a fraction of the cost at the right repairer.
Once repairs are done they tend to last another wot, ±10 (?) years … after having lasted ±18-24 years already at no cost bar services.
Dang, 308k km on the clock, she now has her 4th brand new set of tires, Dec 2022 put on.
Parts are big and bulky, thick solid metal, thick cables … no “touchy-feely” small parts.
Also look at it this way … if I spend R50k on her today, drive out of the shop, and the car is totaled, I get the cash back for the latest repairs, another way to look at it, maybe, being such an old workhorse.
All I know is the R16 455.50 was totally uncalled for now … all because of a f$&%^k wrong waterpipe clip. School fees maybe?
When does one call it “quits” on this “Unicorn”?
So far, the sums make sense to me … but what if I’m wrong? What am I missing?
The more I write my thoughts down here … the more I realize… I’m going into a maintenance phase after wot, call it ±24 years (?), fixing stuff due to wear and tear, not weak parts. Not parts designed to “fail” after X years forcing one to buy a new car, being more cost-effective than maintenance.
All because the parts replaced last again 10 years plus. Parts being sturdy enough to last this long in the first place.
Cheaper than a new car with finance …
Will I do this with a “new” 2nd hand Isuzu … probably not when they sell for between R80k - R120k. the good ones. They can have a “dud-clip” on a waterpipe, as an example.
Do I want a brand new car, 5 years 100k warranty, that lasts maybe 10 years before it is too expensive to keep on the road?
300k km is actually not a lot for these vehicles. I think your intended “investment” is probably a wise one. There is some meat left on the bone here.
For myself, if this was my long distance vehicle… it would be gone. Replaced with something younger. If it is just a putter-around-locally sort of car, it seems like a no-brainer.
I have somewhat the same “bet” going on with the i3’s large 400V battery pack. Replacing that will cost about half as much as the entire car is worth. But after you did that, you have 8-10 years of motoring before it gets anywhere near the same state, and I could in all likelihood have the car’s value assessed and insured for at least half of that extra value. Plus, the old pack that comes out is worth something, and the new pack (if something does happen) is worth something too. Spending 50% of what the car is worth in maintenance… may in fact be worth it, if you keep the thing another decade.
But personality is also important. My own personality type is sometimes described as a “divorce risk”, because we’re the kind of people who get “fed up” and then that old skedonk must just go. Reason leaves the room.
Thankfully I’m also a little stubborn, so as far as my marriage goes, it will take a lot to drive me that far. But cars are open game… break down on the side of the road twice… you’re practically signing your eviction notice
On that topic. About 7 months ago (or so, all blends into one these days) I replaced the belt on my 8-year old tumble dryer. Yesterday it broke the belt again. I had known this was a risk. My research on the topic suggested that other worn parts (some kind of tensioner) goes out and causes the new belt to fail very quickly. So I already know this machine needs at least a new belt, a new tensioner, and probably several rollers on which the drum is mounted (they are all noisy). On top of that, it frequently stops before the load is finished and complains about the lint filter being dirty (when it isn’t) because something is up with the moisture sensor.
I am therefore looking, in all likelihood, at spending around half of what the thing is worth on repairs. And you know… that sort of thing gives me the itch.
I then discovered that the heat pump models are no longer double the price of the condensor units. They are not even 1.5 times. They are becoming affordable. So you can guess what happened
It’s actually an argument against really old ICE vehicles (ie when you’re up to 40 years or so, and have had multiple engine swaps). At that point, saying that a car can last that long… kinda runs up against some counterarguments
As a a joke, just last night, said something similar to that broom …
Same body, seats bar some new sponges on 2 seats
Same engine bar gaskets, pipes
Same rims, suspension bar rubbers, and some bushes
Heng, even the OEM jack. (I have a new one, a big mother one … used never)
… and I have a picture too!!
But that broom … yeah, one can get their fooking fast on some make & models of vehicles …
Now here is a mind-tumbler for you. Human cells regenerate over time. Your skin is practically replaced every few weeks. Every 7 to 10 years, basically your entire body is replaced.
Are you still the same you?
That opens up significant questions about the continuity of identity. We generally accept that you are the same you that you were shortly after conception, because of that continuity, but if that is what we say… then identity cannot be up merely to the atoms that make up something.
Besides, I don’t trust atoms. They make up everything.
1.5Mil some have driven them with the OEM parts, bar rubbers/gaskets etc. The normal wear and tear stuff. So yes, she is now “driven in”.
Long distance, the perfect vehicle for that if you can drive at ±90km/h to get ±11km/l. Suzy can do ±140km/h but dang man, now that causes a HUGE racket. Also, at that speed, don’t ever even think of braking fast or worse, taking a corner fast. Nope. It is like solid solid solid … not solid … over you go.
Jip, I’m also 100% the “divorce risk” personality. When it is done it is done …
Example. We had a Crappy, sorry, Chevy Spark, for a few months.
The day the gearbox link broke the 2d time, it is a plastic thing and no parts in SA, had to import one from a Jhb scrapyard. Each time, near-engine removal is required to replace it. Broke a 3rd time, fixed it with draad … Divorce. We Buy Cars picked up a bargain for an “appel en 'n uie”, washed and polished, in the street.
Lost BIG on that Crappy … cost nearly double what we paid for it to be repaired 4 times - and it was checked before we bought it. We sold it for 1/4 of what we spent on the Crappy.
This taught me … never ever buy a car because your daughter & her Mom love it because it looks cute, so light on fuel Dad, and it is cheap!!! It is cheap for a blerrie reason people!
Love her more and offer her a 1999 250 Isuzu Diesel bakkie instead … that did not go down well at all. Mom said NO so fast my head spun!
My list:
1.3 Volkswagen Beatle … one of my first favorites. Sold it for a big profit.
Colt Galant at one time, short time … Divorce!
1.3 Mazda … what a pleasure to fix. A drunk arsehole drove into me.
1.6 Ford Bantam … aw man, what a jewel. Sold it for a nice profit when the kid came.
Old 350 Mercedes Benz … credit card maxed out when you filled that tank.
1.3 Golf … your drive and stay dry, but a pleasure to fix.
Honda Balade … aiiiii … now THAT thing could take a corner … but speedbumps not at all.
Diesel Corsa Bakkie … Divorce! 3 times the side shaft was replaced under warranty.
Lots of 1.6 Toyota Corollas … lots. Drove them all that the 5th gear had to be replaced due to wear.
1.3 Tazz … awesome thingy that. Written off from a fender bender.
Got Suzy - still have her
Chevy Spark - Divorce! NEVER again EVER.
Chevrolet Avio … solid car, still have it.
Polo
Pattern … simple cars, no computers. Services, and tires are quite affordable … bar the Balades tires.
Polo, sigh … we bought our daughter the Polo, book value R147k, paid R100k, Avis car from a Zimbawian … and promptly she wrote it off. Drunk person ran in front of her, she flipped the car over a concrete ditch, then flipped it over a fallen lamp pole, flipped it once more before it landed over the ditch on the wheels. 3 complete summersaults in that Polo.
She walked away with a shocked expression and a slightly sprained wrist … I kinda like Polo’s a lot now. Insurance paid out the difference … a once-in-a-lifetime deal that Polo was.
That’s terrible. I mean, it is probably about on par with a modern Fortuner/Hilux, so not terrible-terrible, but it would drive me nuts.
It is why I bought a RAV4 for more money than the evergreen Fortuner which is technically (space/practicality wise) a better vehicle. Because at 90km/h the RAV4 will give me 16km/liter. I can do 150km/h and still get 11…
“Appel en 'n ei”. Expression is from Dutch and for whatever reason we kept the spelling in Afrikaans. Did make it back into German too, as it does with these
Edit: I assume that “vir 'n appel en 'n eier” just doesn’t sound as nice, so we kept the shorter Dutch word.
Used to do 200km in 1h 8min consistently, km driven versus time it took, as the speedo was maxed in the Corollas. Balade, I got a teeny bit concerned now and then.
… and the roads where better, less traffic too.
That came to a “pletterstop” the one night on Sir Lowry’s Pass when at night, raining, I completed 2 x 360s without going over the solid line, wiping out the side light of the headlight against the crash barrier coming down the pass after driving from PE to Cpt in just under 5 hours … rain all the way from Plett.
Wife’s B/Day the Saturday, I missed my plane the Friday evening in PE. Did that a few times, missing planes. I know the pilot you see.
Just one of those moment we get in life that stops you “dead” in your tracks. No pun.
So when I got Suzy, it was like a match made in … no, match made for the road.
Now I cruise everywhere … stop everywhere, the trips have become a journey.
Don’t miss the speed at all anymore. Just a journey now.
To be fair, I don’t drive that fast as a rule. But on the last trip to Namibia, I was on my own and just seriously g*tvol at one point and I pretty much pegged it at 160km/h. Indicated, so real speed would have been lower. Still got more than 10km/liter.
In my Diesel Corolla I got 20km/liter when doing 110km/h.
Now there is a car you can pick up for around the same price as your Suzi… and they are seriously underrated. Man, I loved that thing.
Pal had a VW diesel … Divorce instant when he had to replace the injectors for it. Bad fuel.
Same as my Dad, Nissan X-Trail … bad diesel, man, he coughed up for those 4 injectors.
Suzy, one can service them, or replace the tips only or buy band new … if they are worn out, after you have used what Hayes Motors always say … have you used a can of Wurth Injector cleaner?
No, then go away and do that first as it solves the issue 99% of the time.
Yes, you have, ok, now let’s have a quick look.
By the way … this titbit, helped me make up my mind … thank you.
With @Phil.g00 broom vid … me telling the wife similar before that, even more confirmation. I’m maintaining not rebuilding Suzy. Vehicle still very much at is core OEM parts.
I did not. But I enquired about the cost. It was about 4k per injector to rebuild. Which is a lot, granted, but at almost 200k km the car was not smoking and there was no indication that any of it would be needed soon.
It was in need of new glow plugs, at around R1500 each, which I thought wasn’t too bad.
Other than that, it was on the second set of brake pads/disks (because first owner was a tad hard on it), and I replaced only the alternator. Original struts, exhaust, everything. Religiously serviced annually, which was no cheap job either: The Diesel filter is swapped on every service and is not cheap.
Doesn’t look like much, but unlike the cheap “every day” 1.6 petrol “Professional” spec, this had 16" alloys from the factory, slightly lower profile wheels (205/55/16, same as the 3-series BMW incidentally) than its cheaper cousin, it has those little flaps behind the wheels to aid with the last drop of fuel consumption, rides just a little lower, a sprinkling of chrome in the front grille (again, unlike its cheaper cousin), fog lights (on the advanced-level spec), and though it was no speed demon, it could do a 0-100km/h in about ten seconds, which again left many unsuspecting traffic-light dashers behind in the Diesel smoke. It was no slouch either and overtaking was a pleasure.
This was not one of Toyota’s best engines. The AD series had a few teething issues in the beginning. Luckily they were mostly solved by the time they made it to SA.
This engine first came out in the Avensis, that weird “executive” car that nobody who actually wanted that kind of car actually bought. You bought the Lexus instead. It was also used in the Verso, though I almost thing that was the 1AD-FHV which had a slightly larger Turbo. There was also a Diesel version of the Auris that had the same engine. Around 2014 they stopped using the AD engine, and started using a smaller 1.4 liter Diesel (1ND-FTV), which was significantly down on power (66kW vs the 93kW of the 1AD). The AD engine was still used in the RAV4 as the 2.2 liter Diesel 2AD-FTV, which is what I’ve got in my RAV4 right now.
That ended in 2019, when the new RAV4 came out, which is only available in petrol and hybrid. Toyota no longer makes Diesel passenger vehicles. You want that low end punch, you must buy a Hybrid now.
Turns out, she was not at “fault” (age). It was my fault.
See, when she got new waterpipes, there was some water missing after months. I eventually had that looked at … problem is, the pipe in question, on the side of the engine, deep down, need a torch to see it, dripped only when she was on “heat”, sorry, temp.
So no one could ever see it leaking. Never a puddle when you switch off. You had to know where to look and what to look for … Isuzu mechanic > 24 years.
When she came back the last time, we went the weekend away … and the pipe finally slipped.
Bugger.
Fixed now, the head was slightly damaged between pistons 2 and 3, whatever that meant, nothing else. Block is still solid, pulling strong again, even less noise inside the cab (yeah, it is a noisy car) … I like it.
What I don’t like, can now hear the wife giving me “driving instructions” again. Sideseat driver.
I’m now adding some tech to warn me, display + buzzer when the water is overheating… enough of this human-bloody-errors nonsense.
Going to have this, or similar added, and get a display/buzzer inside.
So you blew the head gasket. And the head itself sustained a little bit of damage in the process.
The head gasket is essentially a large seal does three things. It keeps the explosions inside the cylinders. It keeps the oil in the oil channels. And it keeps the water in the water channels. It is a big old seal that keeps oil, water, and explosions away from each other.
When a head gasket fails, you can get 1) water getting into the cylinders, 2) oil in the water or water in the oil, 3) exhaust gasses pushing into the cooling system, 4) exhaust gasses getting into the oil system, aka crankcase, 5) exhaust gasses getting into the adjacent cylinder.
In the case of water getting into the cylinder, the car will end up making a white smoke. Water vapour. If exhaust fumes get into the oil channels, you get smoke out of the dipstick hole. If it gets into the water channels, the water is “boiling” all the time, or you think it is, it will tend to blow the water out of the radiator/reservoir making you think it is boiling. If the leak is small, you may only see the coolant bubble. Coolant will discolour over time. If water gets into the oil, the oil gets a milkshake colour and consistency, or you might see a film of oil in the top of the radiator.
When this “seal” blows through, it creates a small channel between the block and the cylinder head (or top) where fluid can flow between two areas where it should not flow. In the case of exhaust gasses, flowing through this channel can also damage the material itself. So what your mechanic is telling you, is that when the gasket blew, it blew between cylinders 2 and 3, and while the engine was running in this condition, a little bit more damage occured to the cylinder head.
One would hope they at least skimmed the head to make sure it is perfectly flat. If you don’t do that… it will just blow again soon.
What’s kinda interesting between “cylinders 2 and 3”, is this. In a 4 cylinder engine the outer two pistons move together, and the inner two move together. So that the engine is balanced. The firing order is 1-3-4-2, which means cylinder 2 has an intake stroke when cylinder 3 has a power stroke, and vice versa. That means that a hole between cylinders 2 and 3 means some of the exhaust gas is pushed into the neighbouring cylinder instead of out via the exhaust. Or that is my guess. So you were doing some internal EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) via the head gasket
Edit: Even worse, when one cylinder has a compression stroke, the other is having an exhaust stroke, which means a part of the compression (needed for ignition on a Diesel) was escaping towards its neighbour which has the exhaust valve open. Car probably ran like crap, right?
In an engine this old it is probably not an “open deck” design. Your newer stuff is open deck, or semi-open deck, so this really cannot happen (I’m wrong… of course it can happen). Picture… one in the back is closed deck. One in the front is open deck.
Was sent to an engineering place. Both times. For exactly this reason yes. Seems it is the default action when the head gasket gets replaced.
I weighed up the costs of:
driving from from Farmstall to Farmstall … ek is innie dwang klaar. Knew I was in for min ±R20k, worst case a new reconditioned engine for ±R60k
versus the extra costs on top of that for:
2.1) towing her in on a Sunday to Cpt from Hermanus or from along the road. The closer I got to Cpt, the cheaper it would be if I had to stop.
2.2) extra costs for leaving her at local repairers in the area … them having to get parts in from Cpt,
2.3) the extra collection of Suzi ± two weeks later again with no 1-year guarantee to smile about.
To tow her is easy …not. That is IF the tow car can do it, not all passenger cars can. Cause with no power steering your arms are going to get really tired, not to mention the risk of no brakes bar the handbrake down the hills, the passes. So I canned that idea instantly.
Hence I took the chance … guestimate of ±R60k … if I lost “the bet” at ±R20k. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Thanks for this … I did not know all of this, but my “gut helped me out”:
water getting into the cylinders
oil in the water or water in the oil
exhaust gasses pushing into the cooling system - blow the water out of the radiator/reservoir
exhaust gasses getting into the oil system, aka crankcase,
exhaust gasses getting into the adjacent cylinder.
My gut told me to:
Check the oil each time - so I would have seen smoke out of the dipstick/milkiness in the oil every time when we stopped before having a beer (non-alcoholic for me) with her cooling off. Yes, we made the trip fun.
Water was blowing out of the reservoir, our first hint of “hier is die drama”. 4-6l refill each time after I could get the radiator cap safely off.
Checked the exhaust when driving for any “color” coming out.
She now goes to one place and one place only to work in the engine compartment … Hayes Motors. Finish en klaar.
… and I now know where to look for water leaks… with a damn torch, deep inside the compartment.
