[Vwdiesel] Driving old cars (Am I the only one?)

[mikitka]

I agree with you Sandy, I plan on driving my 91 jetta diesel for a long
time. I did notice that the brake lines didn't look to healthy. The car is
from New Hampshire originally so it was exposed to the northern salt. But
the body isn't doing to bad other than rust on the bottom of the windshield.

Nick

-----Original Message-----
From: vwdiesel-bounces at vwfans.com [mailto:vwdiesel-bounces at vwfans.com] On
Behalf Of Sandy Cameron
Sent: April 17, 2011 9:28 AM
To: vwdiesel at audifans.com
Subject: Re: [Vwdiesel] Driving old cars (Am I the only one?)

At 10:36 PM 4/16/2011 -0700, you wrote:
>I've been driving my '85 TD Jetta lately while I iron out some issues >with
my '00.  I drive daily through a huge metropolitan area. 

Yes, it's a conundrum. My daily driver is a 22 year old Jetta A2, and I
would rather drive that, or even set out on a transcontinental trip,
knowing, all things being equal, of arriving without incident, than set out
in my A3, or mother's buick.

The biggest concern would be breaking down in a seedy area of a city, with
the parts buzzards sitting on the fences.

As for reliability, in nearly a million miles of dieseling, the only thing I
would do, for concentrated urban driving, would be to replace ALL of the
brake lines (steel and rubber) about every 5 years.

Those have been the only surprise threats to continuing mobility I have
encountered. Fortunately, always near home. Had one this spring just leaving
the driveway.

In heavy winter salt country, the lines disolve quickly, and a sudden jab
(urban drivivg?) on the brakes can result in a line pop, followed by soft
pedal and 2 wheel brakes.

The driveway incident started as a pad that dropped it's friction material,
followed by a brake jab, and line pop in the OTHER circuit, leaving me with
only (fortunately functional) the handbrake.

Carefully backed it back in to the driveway and took the other car.

When this happens in urban traffic, it's frightening, and at least can
result in a change of underware.

More important to be able to stop than to go.

Sandy

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