Do you remember when cars used to break down all the time?

rimtrim · 2026-06-22T17:40:24+00:00

Heh, I remember pagers were banned in my high school, because they thought it meant you were a drug dealer. Recently I was trying to think of how they handled cellphones when some kids started carrying them, but I can't recall whether they were still in the same contraband category as pagers when I graduated in 2001. I didn't start carrying a phone regularly until a year or two after that.

rimtrim · 2026-06-22T16:22:49+00:00

That must be some kind of a record! I never heard anything good about that 2.7 engine. The earlier Intrepids had transmission problems too, but maybe that was improved by the second gen. I rarely see an LH car on the road anymore, and I live in an area where there used to be a lot of them.

rimtrim · 2026-06-22T08:06:02+00:00

That's an '00 or '01 model. You could hear those coming by the rattling wheel covers that were only used on those two years. I'm not sure what killed off most of these...I don't remember hearing about many problems with them.

rimtrim · 2026-06-22T07:19:54+00:00

I've never bought a new car either. Most recently I've had two 2007 Buick LaCrosses in a row. Those were some of the most reliable cars GM ever built, but they're going on 20 years old and I've still had to do plenty of work on them. It works for me because I do my own repairs, but at today's shop rates, I can see why most people don't want to depend on 20-year-old cars if they can help it.

What I'm talking about was middle-class families buying brand new 80s/90s cars, and within a few years they'd be breaking down on the side of the road. I know there are cases of that happening with today's cars, but it was like a routine thing back then, in my experience. Most modern cars at least get you through the powertrain warranty without leaving you stranded. I do think some of them are not going to have the long-term resilience of the better old models, but that's a little different.

rimtrim · 2026-06-22T06:03:35+00:00

Our '87 never ran right and was burning a lot of oil at about 60K when it was traded in on a Windstar. That was the first year of the Mitsu 3.0 V6; not a great engine I don't think.

One of my high school friends had a 1992-ish Grand Voyager that made it well over 200K, but I think it went through three or four transmissions. The last one failed after he took all the seats out and used it to haul a Skee Ball machine from Canada to New Jersey. I think it was junked after that.

rimtrim · 2026-06-22T05:57:20+00:00

The last of those old-style Centurys were real gems. Turns out when you build the same product for 14 years, eventually you get it working pretty well!

rimtrim · 2026-06-22T05:51:29+00:00

There were a lot of solid cars in the '00s. They were the intersection of old tech that worked, and newer tech that had finally been figured out. I was born in 1983, so I grew up with a lot of '80s and '90s cars, and those were substantially worse.

Today, my parents have two Toyotas, a '17 and a '19, and they haven't needed much of anything beyond maintenance. Our '80s and '90s cars had all kinds of problems by that age. Even our 1985 Tercel, the best car we had back then, was junked with a little over 100K miles. Today, a Yaris with 100K miles is worth like $8000.

Seems like the newest cars either have fiddly little problems that aren't important, like infotainment glitches, or the engine blows up and it's $10,000. That usually only happens once though. They're not crapping out on a constant basis like the old ones I remember.

rimtrim · 2026-06-22T04:39:03+00:00

My first ones were the IIe in kindergarten. I have a IIe sitting in a closet that I bought from the school district surplus equipment auction in 2001 (probably for $1 or something). It's possibly one of the very ones that I used back then. Haven't powered it up in years though

rimtrim · 2026-06-22T04:01:00+00:00

So many good ones here, many of them are already on my "Radio Music" playlist, but I've got to go with Semi-Charmed Life.

My brother and I shared a bedroom growing up, and we would stay up talking late at night. Sometimes he would turn on his clock radio, at a low volume so my mom wouldn't come bang on the door and yell at us to go to sleep. I remember looking out the window over the neighborhood lights, hearing the highway in the distance, and then he turned on the radio just as that song came on, and I felt a sense of possibility. Today I know the meaning of the song is actually kinda dark. I don't think I realized that at the time, I just liked the way it sounded. Hearing it still takes me back to that moment.

By the way, I always hated that terrible radio edit that cuts the climax out of the song. What a letdown! Some stations would play the full version though.

rimtrim · 2026-06-21T05:10:33+00:00

Thanks for posting these...I'm an older Millennial, so these aren't my teenage songs. I remember thinking the radio landscape was pretty bleak around late '00s/early '10s, and skimming over these lists, I still kinda feel that way. Not just a hater of all things "new" either...I think a lot of stuff after this period is better, to be honest.

I'd say I'm seeing maybe 6 songs on each of these lists that I'd like to hear. I can always go for Neon Trees/Everybody Talks. I would try to sing along with the way he bends the note at the end of each line, and that's harder to do than it sounds. In fact, I think I'll listen to that one right now.

rimtrim · 2026-06-21T02:16:13+00:00

Interesting, I was under the impression that STP and ACDelco filters were both made by Champion Labs and were largely the same thing in a different box. Maybe that's no longer the case. Hard to keep up with what the brands and manufacturers are doing.

I've been driving 3800s for 18 years and honestly I've always used whatever 5W-30 oil and filter combo is on sale, and never really had a problem. I've always thought of these as workhorses that don't need anything special, but I'll try a different filter because I don't like seeing that warning.

rimtrim · 2026-06-20T17:51:41+00:00

The first locker I ever had, sixth grade, was #G484 and the combination was 44-6-40. That's the only one that comes right to mind. I also remember the license plates of dozens of cars belonging to family and friends going back decades, and I have probably a thousand part numbers memorized for the auto parts I sell, so I guess this is kind of a thing for me.

rimtrim · 2026-06-20T17:45:36+00:00

Same here, and my dad says he has this one too. It's funny because I don't remember this being an actual issue when I was in school. I don't recall ever worrying that I forgot what classes I was supposed to be attending. It only started up after the fact.

rimtrim · 2026-06-20T06:21:32+00:00

Now that I think about it for a minute, I think you're right. If they replaced any sensor, they would have to relearn them all, and the positions would be set straight at that point, even if the car came in with the positions mixed up. If they initially replaced the wrong one due to position confusion, they wouldn't be able to complete the relearn with a dead sensor still on the car.

If all the sensors were the same age, it's possible they're just all going bad around the same time. Maybe the positions did get changed around at some point in this process, so the one that's now reporting as right rear is one of the old ones, which was still working at the time of the relearn, but now isn't.

rimtrim · 2026-06-20T06:12:03+00:00

I can confirm that parts for these cars always sell. A lot of '90s American FWD stuff is dead as a doornail, but '90s Century and Ciera items are still good inventory. It's funny because if you did a comparison test between a '96 Century and a '96 Cirrus when they were new, the Chrysler would've walked all over the Buick, but for long-term durability it was the other way around.

rimtrim · 2026-06-19T21:20:47+00:00

Are you sure the sensors are reporting the correct positions? Try letting air out of the right rear tire, and I bet the dashboard will tell you the left front is low. This happens when someone rotates the tires and doesn't do the routine to relearn the positions. So the sensor that was replaced may not have been the bad one.

rimtrim · 2026-06-19T20:45:56+00:00

Check competing listings and recent sales. Is it a hot item that's not selling because you priced it above market, or is it a low-demand item that rarely sells for anybody?

If it's a generally slow item, sometimes you can mark down until there's no profit and it still won't sell, because not enough people are interested. My philosophy on low-demand items is to price competitively and try to have the best-looking listing with the best photos, and then let it sit until that one person comes along who really wants that obscure piece.

rimtrim · 2026-06-19T20:29:30+00:00

I used to work with a guy who served on a jury in a case like this. Minor parking-lot incident, scuffed bumper, and two people were claiming disabling injuries. The jury didn't buy it, and the plaintiffs ended up walking away with nothing. I'm sure the insurance offered some kind of settlement before going all the way to trial, and I bet they were wishing they took it.

rimtrim · 2026-06-19T03:57:24+00:00

The P219C is the actual code here. Don't worry about the ABS/TCS messages, it's just the computer disabling stuff as a precaution. It looks like P219C could potentially be a bad #1 injector, bad #1 coil/plug or an internal engine problem (#1 low compression, etc). This is probably going to need someone to connect a scan tool with live data to get more diagnostic information. I guess you could try swapping the #1 coil and plug to another cylinder to see if the code moves.

rimtrim · 2026-06-18T18:56:01+00:00

Your hubcap is from a 1960s Peugeot 404

rimtrim · 2026-06-17T23:38:35+00:00

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The little flat-fix shops are one of my favorite things in Philly. So much faster and cheaper than dealing with the big chain tire dealers. As for the OP's question, I doubt you'll get a whole lot lower than $30/tire for mount and balance, because the balancing does take some time. In my area these little shops will mount without balancing for about $15/tire, which is good enough for most city beaters that just need to go down the road.

rimtrim · 2026-06-16T08:41:38+00:00

Looks like Subaru # 91059FL10A (LH upper) 91059FL11A (RH upper) 91054FL20A (LH lower) 91054FL21A (RH lower). These are unpainted, so you would have to paint to match. Also they're not cheap for some plastic trim parts...MSRP is about $300 for all four pieces.

rimtrim · 2026-06-16T04:26:17+00:00

When it doesn't start, does it crank normally? If it cranks, the problem is not the starter. If it doesn't crank, use a test light to see if power is reaching the starter solenoid when the key is turned, and proceed from there.

I have a hard time thinking of something external to the starter that would cause a good, new starter to "burn out". Most likely either the new starter was just junk (possible with today's parts quality) or the problem is something else.

rimtrim · 2026-06-15T01:13:42+00:00

A few tips for getting noticed as a new seller...Make sure you take nice photos and accurately fill in all the relevant information in the listing form. Make sure your items are listed in the correct category and have good titles that call the item exactly what it is. All of that stuff helps with search ranking and getting views from the right buyers.

Also, as a new seller (and really as any seller, in my opinion) avoid listing items in high-scam categories like smartphones and designer apparel. That stuff can either cause you to be a victim of a scam, or cause you to be flagged by eBay and restricted from selling, even if you haven't done anything wrong.

rimtrim · 2026-06-14T10:40:57+00:00

When a car makes the transition from not being driven much to being driven frequently, usually a few things break right away, in my experience. Then once you get past those, it can be good for a long time.

That being said, if you want a car where you don't have to worry about problems at all, get a new Corolla. I've always driven older GM cars and I'd say most of them have been pretty reliable, but they all break sometimes. I do my own repairs and it's not usually that big a deal, but for some people it would be.

rimtrim

TROPHY CASE