Random thoughts

First random thought: Why do lifetime parts never look as cool as rebuildable parts that break down every once in a while? Is it impossible to make a really cool car part that actually works? I suppose Ferrari is doing that now, but I do not see them turning 100,000 miles all the time with out a single break down and limited maintenance. Now Toyota on the other hand, they built soul-less Japanese crap-box cars, but they sure do work! During this gas pedal extravaganza I have had the chance to check out some of their gas pedals. Not cool. Boring is too exciting a word to describe the pedals. And yet my Alfas all have awesome gas pedals. In fact I cringe when I see those stupid screw on covers that tuners put on their pedals. If the pedals were functional and sexy to begin with, the kids would not have to mess with them.

Second random thought: Just found out the other day Alfas are actually reliable!! Or at least they used to be. I was talking to fellow Alfa owner Marshall St. Amant about the reliability of the Milano and Spider and he scoffed at my numbers. I was quite proud of the fact each car had done a minimum of 10,000 miles between breakdowns. He immediately offered up the fact his GTV6 bought from new back in the day did over 75,000 miles without ever leaving him on the side of the road. That is not to say it did not need occasional “maintenance” at an inopportune time, but it never left him stranded. Not bad for an Italian car from the 80s!!

Third random thought: This has been a really sad and depressing month for cars. On the national level we have the whole Toyota gas pedal thing. Sure, I do not like them, but every car company deserves a chance. Problems that are really hard to solve and cause damage to the company’s image are not good. Better get a solution quick!! On the more local level we have my Milano incident. The details are contained elsewhere in this newsletter. On a following weekend Brad Way was having great difficulty changing some seals in his spiders brake system. Why are robust and long-lived seals always hidden behind really delicate and expensive parts that refuse to come off the car? Going back a couple weekends I had to replace the water pump on our Jetta, twice. The first one was great for about a month. Then it started weeping. Brand new water pumps do not weep!! After a thorough investigation to make sure I did not do anything wrong, it was confirmed the water pump was not leaking, it was weeping from the weep hole. Oh well, at least it is an easy item to change. The Germans really thought this one through. Other car companies could learn from them. And finally, this past weekend, Marshall’s racecar had a breakdown that put it out of commission for the foreseeable future. Seems like there is some really bad car-ma floating around right now. You have been warned!

Fourth random thought: Getting to work on a modern car is really an eye opening experience. Automotive engineering has come a long ways since the last new Alfa graced these shores. While not all of it has been good, some of it has been great!! For instance, the advent of “lifetime” fluids and extremely long oil change intervals has made maintenance chores much lighter. In fact, I am even considering incorporating some of these modern fluids into my own fleet. Of course modernity comes at a price. While my Alfas will happily drink down whatever I put in them, the VWs in our garage are pickier. While doing the water pump changes I learned about a proprietary coolant called G12 used exclusively by VW. It is purple or pink depending on if you get old G12 or new G12+. Either way it is neat stuff. Other owners have found this antifreeze makes internal corrosion of aluminum engines a thing of the past. And to make sure you have the right stuff, VW has added a chemical that turns the purple goodness into brown badness if someone tops up or mixes in the wrong stuff. Not sure what that does other than sell more G12, but it is neat to be able to know for sure you have the right stuff and nothing else.

Another interesting feature of a modern car is how things are sealed. My Alfas have gaskets on the water pumps. Each time you change the thing you have to scrape off the old gasket and clean the mating surface on the block. Not so on the modern VW 4 cylinder. Their water pump seals to the block using an o-ring that fits in a hole in the side of the block. There is nothing to scrape off. There are no gasket sealers to apply. If you are not changing the fluid you can pop the old pump off and shove the new one on and lose less than a quart of coolant! Amazing!!

And what is up with the timing belt intervals? The factory has no set mileage to change the belt!! The shop manual says 90,000 miles tops. Common knowledge among enthusiasts is 60,000 miles. That is double our old v6 Alfas! To top it off, you do not have to take half the car apart to do it either.

My only complaint so far is the strange fasteners. I am sure there is a really good engineering reason for using a torx head on many of the fasteners. All I know is I need to buy some extra tools. The other side of the coin is the really awesome hose clamps they use!! Have you seen the ones you remove with just pliers? You simply squeeze the ears and wiggle it off. How simple is that!! And VW even paints little arrows on the hoses to show the correct orientation of the clamp to the hose to the fitting. Wow.

Ok, enough random thoughts. Go get a beer and get greasy with your car.