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Make Older Cars Last Longer And Beat The Recession

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Mar 15, 2009 5:57 pm US/Mountain

Make Older Cars Last Longer And Beat The Recession

Good Question: How do you make your car last?

Written by Alan Gionet
Reporting
Alan Gionet
DENVER (CBS4) ― They're out there on the road. How about a 1980 Chevrolet K-10 pickup with 295,000 miles on it CBS4 got a look at in Aurora? We need our cars to last, especially now with the recession holding down car sales. Mark Dorsey showed off the Honda he bought for his son. It's about to roll past the 200,000 mile mark.

"We do a bit of the math, but by the time you figure the cost of a new car and the hassle of buying one, maintaining this one has really been the key," Dorsey said.

They change the oil and fluids regularly. They recently did the suspension. That wasn't cheap, but it worked out better for the Dorseys than a new one.

"Read your owner's manual and in the back of your owner's manual there are scheduled services both normal and severe," Steve Mancinelli of Mancinelli's Auto Repair said. "Now for the majority of people here in the Denver area, we drive under severe conditions."

The reason Mancinelli says is that Colorado has extremes of temperature, dust and altitude.

"A perfect example here our coldest day was 18 below zero and our warmest day in the summer was 104," Mancinelli said.

If nothing else that results in a lot of expansion and contraction that can loosen and wear parts.

So now you know to change the oil and fluids often. CBS4 asked about the expensive oils. Mancinelli says they're worth it. The cheaper oils he says begin to break down rapidly after 3,000 miles.

What goes first on cars these days?

"What kind of goes without warning are a lot of electronic parts. You know electronic parts it either works or it doesn't work," Mancinelli said.

What can help keep electronic parts from wearing out? Get the crud off of them.

"Grease acts as an insulator and it will retain heat and won't allow things to cool properly."

But cleaning it can be tough. The magnesium chloride used on many roads these days is very corrosive. Lakewood has stopped using it because it was rotting the wiring on plows. Washing the underside of a vehicle is very important. Many newer cars have splash shields underneath and that helps, but you need to wash the underbody and even the engine. The problem is, not shorting things out.

"You want to protect the electronic connections; you know wrap them with plastic and use rubber bands."

Mancinelli likes to use some expensive additives to rid older engines of carbon buildups. You can buy some of them at auto parts stores. He uses BG.

"You literally would have to grind it off if you were going to get it off conventionally. So this is a very, very corrosive chemical, it mixes with the fuel in the tank."

Eliminating the carbon buildup can also make an engine run more efficiently.

Which cars does Mancinelli think will last the longest?

"Our highest mileage vehicles that come into our shop are Hondas, Toyotas."

Although it may not be the cars, he says but the owners.

"Both of those car companies many years ago got their customers used to scheduled maintenance on the cars."

And then Mancinelli posed this question: These days what is American and what is foreign? Good question. Maybe that's another story some day.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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