Actually there's an easy way outta that. Just drill a half inch hole into the top of the tranny somewhere and fill with funnel. Stick a plug or wad of gum in when yer done. Don't worry about overfilling just go down the road with your foot to the floor and what the tranny doesn't want will shower out the overflow hole all over the underside of the car. Hey ,that's anti-rust caoting!!
No offense but these transmissions are very complicated and if you don’t put the correct fluid type at the correct temperature that’s only able to be viewed accurately from a high end scan tool. The trans temp gauges on the dash aren’t accurate at all and is a value from 3 fluid temp sensors in the transmissions where they just average those values to give you a temp on the dash. But hey sealed transmissions pay my bills anyways because diyer who do their own work do a transmission service and 9 times out of 10 they need an overhaul and replacement. So to stop dipshits from trying to work on their vehicles they seal them. It’s not because they want the work at the dealership it’s because the owners are too stupid to have the proper know how and procedures
Black plastic trim that turns gray in the sun and headlights that fade into shower curtains in a few years. Molding adhesives that let go almost as quickly. Ford water pumps that are inside the engine and require huge hassle to fix. Clear coat finish that boils off in sheets from sunlight exposure. Headlight fixtures that require major disassembly just to replace bulbs.
Add vinyl tops(I know a person who had a roof rust out while his car was in the garage due to a vinyl top(on the humid Texas Gulf Coast). Also add fake wood grain sides that look cheap when new and horrible after a few years.
Nissan did that inside the engine water pump thing. Then there’s Volkswagen of which I’ve had hundreds, air cooled, and about 30 water cooled 80s Volkswagens. What the actual eff happened? Replacing a thermostat should not require removing the front clip, half the engine and require 17 different types of fasteners.
@@DavidPawson-d7hYou're 100% right. When they switch the motors in 99.5 from ABA to AEG and went internal water pump, same with AEB to whatever for the 20v blocks, is when everything went downhill. Don't even get me started on the 2.0t series. The five cylinder 07k is pretty good for a modern motor though
My father had a Grenada with a horn rimmed steering wheel and told me the story of it being so cold during the Cleveland blizzard of 1977 that he woke up in the middle of the night hearing the horn blowing in the garage because the rubber contracted so much that the terminals touched.
Wrong... The current systems they're using are wrecking the engines, while the Eaton system for the original 368 Cadillac was robust and didn't hurt the engine at all. The only things lacking were in the ENGINEERS' brains, not in the hardware. I fixed much of their stupidity and drove one for 140,000 miles...
@@rashton5730 I actually put small chrome flat-paddle switches on either side of the radio, so I could lock it in eight cylinders for compression braking, and lock out the automatic antenna.
The seat belt interlock may have been annoying then. But the things they're doing to modern vehicles is worse. I work at a collision repair/ body shop so I'm constantly having to move vehicles around. Most of them beep constantly if the seat belt isn't latched. Which is extremely annoying. But others will automatically shift into park if the door isn't closed or the seat belt isn't latched. And some with parking sensors will lock up the brakes if it thinks you're too close to something. Try moving around a bunch of wrecked vehicles in a tight garage with these annoying 'features'. It's maddening at times. And it actually almost caused an accident last week. The detailer was backing a Jeep out onto the street. When he stopped and put it in 'drive', it automatically put itself into park. While he was in the middle of a busy street. The light had turned green and he was freaking out trying to get it to move. He put his seat belt on. Tried to put it in 'drive' and it still wouldn't work. He had to shut it off then restart it with his seat belt on before the Jeep would let him move. He could've been killed because of a 'safety feature'. These electronic nannies have gone too far!
This is BS. You cannot possibly be killed in a car if you have your seatbelt on and are stopped at a green light. The fastest collision you'd have would be like 20mph. I get your point cavassing cars in and out of a tight storage area but you lose credibility when you slide from that reasonable story into this steaming pile of carp.
Certainly the Vega 2300 engine should have made the list! The sleeveless design of the GM aluminum block was a good idea in theory but horrible in its execution. Honorable mention: the stalk mounted horn on 1980s Ford models.
The Ford Fiesta had the horn on the turn signal stalk in the ‘70s. My friend’s first car was a ‘78 Fiesta. A few years later, I bought a beater 1980 Fiesta. Both had the horn on the stalk. Terrible.
It worked good in sleeveless aluminum Big Block Chevys in Can Am cars that made 800 HP, from about 1969 on. Amazing that it didn't work in the Vega, but it had a piss poor cooling system design too. My next door neighbor had to end up iron sleeving his...🤑
It seemed like a good idea for maximizing elbow room, but the little vent window didn't make up for the lack of a roll-down window. Maybe an awning window, like the ones on passenger vans, would have worked better.
We did too. On my dad's 74 Impala. Then turn the cover over on top of the carburetor and loved the noise it made when you stepped on it. It was a good car. My dad was a seat belt man. I always was too. Even long before the law.
I agree, there's nothing like the sound of a Quadrajet's secondaries cracking open through a flipped cover..."Always flip the lid" would make a great retro T-shirt.
@ericharrison619 Great idea! Dad's Impala had the 350. 3 speed automatic. It was a trouble-free car. Then a 79 Impala, another great car. My first car was a 76 Pontiac Grand Le Man's. A beautiful car. The dashboard looked like airplane controls. Console. Factory 8 track. Those were the days. They all look alike now.
One bad feature that GM still uses to this day: the reverse lights turning on every time you turn off the car or unlock the door. How many people get upset that they think you’re about to back out of the space
While I totally agree, all kinds of European cars used it forever and I assume that's why Ford did on some models. Maybe those models were based on world-market vehicle platforms?
@@philricci2012 I know my old '78 Fairmont did. Now that I think about it, though, I think some of the trucks had them too, probably others. They must've just been trying something new and Euro-inspired.
@@philricci2012 funny enough, the DeLorean had this feature as well. So when Marty hit his head on the steering wheel at the end of back to the future when the car wouldn't start, the horn wouldn't have honked like it did in the movie.
Eliminating wing windows and simple fresh air ventilation systems. Cars made shortly after about 1970 can be miserable to drive in the summer if the air conditioner doesn't work. Before a/c was pretty much standard equipment, vehicles were designed to drive comfortably with windows open. Now when driving with window open wind is uncomfortably hitting you in the face without adjustable wing window convenience.
I know my 68 Caprice ,drop the windows open the Astro ventilation and it is quiet and hair buffering at freeway speeds crack tge window on the out Outback? It pushes your hair straight up the side!
Took me a second.....oh yeah, that stuff. I think I know what you mean. Easily faded, warped, sometimes gets that black mildew-ish build-up that is a b*tch to get rid of. We had 10 year old cars in the '80s, from the '70s, no garage. If you washed, waxed, detailed your car, then there was that area, I guess just throw your hands up, what do you do
I've wondered if that stuff was much different from the plastic that covers most bumpers today. They might have found ways over the years to make it more resistant to degradation from the sun and weather. I've never had a bumper cover fall apart the way the fillers on late-1970s Eldorados did, though if my car gets to be 45 years old, they might do the same thing. I still see the advantage of plastic bumpers in general, and remember the way the chrome ones would start rusting out after a little tap in a parking lot. It's just hard to find materials that can last decades under those conditions.
@@Sheisthedevilyouknowwho-ft9wethe bumper fillers on my unrestored, 49k mile 74 Charger are gray and have all that black mildew-ish staining that doesn't come off no matter how many solvents I tried to use without disintegrating the material. I think one day I'm just going to paint over them.
They are still doing it. I replaced the headliner in a 2014 Porsche last week that would have done my Grandmothers '84 Regal proud with all of the thumbtacks holding it up.
I wonder how many people over the last 50, 60 years weren't aware, the acids on your fingertips, just that scant amount that leaves fingerprints behind, is one of the worst things that breaks down the adhesive most automakers used that hold the headliner to that backing board. Just gently touch the headliner with fingertips, over time it will come loose in the areas touched
The gm diesels were better than any ford idi on the road. Wayyyy more reliable. I had a 6.2 blazer diesel army truck I put 300000 miles on it with only tires brakes oil changes. Faster than any turned up fuel screw idi. Better on fuel. And when world war 3 hits I’m running it on waste oil
The downfall is owners presume that they're maintenance free, which they weren't unfortunately. I had one and knew a number of others with the timing computer as well without problems. I had trouble until I had it to the shop for maintenance then it was great. As the timing setup ages and wears it has to be reset or it gradually goes way out of calibration and hard to start and crappy mileage
A few more to add to the list are Ford's variable venturi carburetors of the late 1970s to the 1980s and 1973 to 1980 GM pickup hoods that are prone to getting bent and kinked.
The variable Venturi’s biggest failure was the total lack of dealer training on servicing these units. When set up properly they actually worked quite well and were quite economical. There were a few real mechanics who understood them and could set them well but not many.
@@AntiZOGZone Drive a car with a properly tuned VV carb, then swap to a conventional 2bbl. It’s a massive downgrade. As another commenter already mentioned, Ford failed to properly train dealership techs to tune and repair these carburetors. Also, flat rate pay encourages quick, shoddy repairs. I worked at a Lincoln-Mercury dealership early in my career. I have personally witnessed a flat rate tech fix a leaking vacuum hose, spray the outside of a VV carburetor with several cans of carburetor cleaner, then charge the customer for a full carb rebuild. That guy got paid 3 hours for the carb rebuild for 10-15 minutes of work.
I love Mercury’s style of the hidden headlights in the early ‘70s. They are seemingly the most “hidden, perhaps due to the “grille” being extended over the headlight doors.
You brought back two memories. I had a Thunderbird with that power window setup. The pins were not available at the time, so I had to devise my own replacement. Happy to report, my version lasted years. Second was the seatbelt interlock. My dad bought a 74 Impala. The salesman said, “Under the seat are two wires. I can’t tell you which one to cut but it’s not the red one (I may be remembering the color wrong). Thank you as always ~ Chuck
@@rashton5730 Nice solution! I didn't think of that back then. I ended up cutting a wooden pencil, and sleeving that with sections of a plastic tube to get the OD correct. I *think* they would have sheared if I had left something in the window, but was just happy that the window worked and it didn't cost anything.
(6) 1/4” nuts work awesome. However, if you have a passenger riding and they accidentally press the window-down button with their knee for a few minutes you’ll get a bang that sounds like a blow out and have you pulled over looking for tire damage 🤣
So many dumb or broken features (or misfeatures), and too few slots in the list. I'll add these for your dishonorable mentions list: the Cadillac V8-6-4, the Chrysler Lean-burn system, the Vega 2.3 OHC motor, and the knee-knocker wrap-around windshields of the late 1950's where the bottom of the A-pillar intruded into the door opening so far as to make entry and exit difficult.
I had those on my '93 Nissan Maxima. When I was going to work I'd have a pen or 2 in my breast pocket and the damn belt would always find its way behind them so that when I turned the car off the pens would tear the pocket. And I'd always forget about that the next time....:-(
@@stephenhanneken3041 And when I try to get out of my 93 Cougar quickly after opening the door the belt tries to wrap around my neck while it moving to the front of the window..
Another great video, Adam. I want to point out that the V6 Oldsmobile Diesel had a water/fuel separator during its production run. Also, GM added a factory separator for the V8 Diesel in 1985 (the last year for the engine production). If they had installed water/fuel separators from day one, it would have made a big difference in the issues that Oldsmobile had with these engines.
The other big deal that hit some folks hard was the need to tow the car to a dealer to purge the air out of the fuel system if one ran out of diesel. I had a friend from a large family and his dad bought 2 Pontiac Grand Prix diesels- and being a teen driver he once ran out of fuel- it was a very costly error.
@@o.c.smithiii2626 Lot of diesels have that problem. Industrial / military diesels normally have a 1 gallon tank that they actually run off of, with a sensor that shut it down when that tank gets low. At least the generators did, 15K & 60K. Never examined the trucks closely enough to see the day tank.
My Cruze had that. Such a PITA to mash it every time I went anywhere. The engine stopping at the first stop light would remind me. I wonder how much wear that did to the starter and the extra load on the battery and electrical system.
I had a 1981 Cutlass Calais with the 350 CI diesel...so bad! luckily since I worked at Cat a guy I knew from the factory swapped it with an Olds 350 Gas engine from his garage set up. Saved me a ton of $$!
My Dad did the same for his 350 diesel pickup. One of the worst things about the early diesels was that when they came out, diesel was considerably cheaper than gasoline, but shortly after that it went higher than gas and never recovered. Also rules on using farm gas in vehicles were tightened and somewhere in that time the red dye was introduced to farm diesel.
In 1981, my father bought a brand new Chevette Diesel, featuring an Isuzu 4 cylinder engine that made a whopping 50 hp. It was like driving a tiny little truck. Its top speed (tested in real life by me) was 80 mph. But, it got more than 50 mpg, so you had that. Oh, and A/C was not an option, because there was not enough horsepower to run the compressor and keep the car moving.
I have 2 features # hide a Way windshield wipers while looking slick when it sleets then snows you have to dig them out of their trough i guess its not a issue in Florida or California the second is lift up door handles when the doors freezes shut there's nothing to pull on to open the door Experience this at 4 am when you leaving for work
I had an uncle that was obsessed with the olds diesels and had like 4-5 of them and ran them into the 90s. And yeah everything you said was right. They sounded like a 18 wheeler at idle. I remember he had this special curved opened end wrench that was for getting the bottom bolt under the fuel injector pump. He also knew to listen for the glow plug solenoid to open to start the car, ignoring the wait to start light.
I owned a 1981 Phoenix that gave me excellent service. We were so happy with it that we bought another in 1982 identically equipped (loaded). That car was a disaster from the moment we picked it up at the dealer (none of the windows would operate nor the AC! In July!!) that was just the beginning of the worst car experience of my life. The oil pump failed (wiped out the crankshaft), the lock up converter worked backwards (engaged only under acceleration due to reverse signals from the computer), complete transmission failure, cruise control could not hold speeds, constantly repairing the electronic control carburetor. Finally the cam lobes wore out on two cylinders (soft cam per the mechanic). I later found out that my trouble free 1981 was built on Oklahoma City but for 1982 production was move to the infamous Tarrytown NY plant. (This was also home plant for the “Dustbuster” mini vans.) Tarrytown was in perennial last-place on the JD Power survey in this era. The worst automobile plant in the USA for years. I won’t even attempt to list the fit and cosmetic issues on my 82. I dumped it after two years, but drove the sweet 81 for a decade.
I borrowed my dad's '80 Citation for a lunch date. It started snowing lightly. I was on a 4-lane and made a lane change when the signal ahead turned red. As I slowed down the car began to spin and ended up off the road. No body damage. My date thought she was going to die. Shook me up, too. Several months later we're out again and the water pump starts to fail, the pulley was visibly wobbly. My date says, "I will never get into this car again!"
Starter interlock was all of 1974 and some of 1975 cars. My dad had a '75 AMC Matador station wagon that had the interlock, although it had been disconnected before he bought the car. My first car was a '74 Impala with starter interlock. I reconnected mine because I knew some people who wouldn't wear seatbelts. This forced them to wear the seatbelt when the rode in my car.
As GM often did, when they worked all the bugs out of something, they would discontinue it. The diesel engines by 1983-84 had almost none of the early issues. They did offer the water separator as an option starting in 1979. The FI pumps were notorious for getting out of sync and the technicians were not properly trained to work on them anyway. The fuel was designed for over-the-road trucks back then, not passenger cars. The number one issue of those early diesels was the owners, most should have never bought them. The average customer only drove about 10-15 miles one way so with all of those short trips, the engine was barely warmed up before it was shut down. Diesels were not designed for those types of hot-cold cycles back then. I know of many back in the days that were cabs and almost never broke down because they were constantly running. Having said all of that, working at an Oldsmobile dealer back then, I made a lot of money on warranty repairs and after warranty, converting them to gas engines was a brisk business.
I had a Cutlass with the 260 V8 diesel and 5 speed manual, and we drove it cross country pulling a small trailer. It did fine until we tried starting from a stop up a very steep slope where it did not have enough low end torque to pull up the hill in low gear (gear ratios to close for that engine). I wish I still had that car, that was a rare special order and got great fuel mileage, averaged over 30 mpg. Kids got bigger and we had another one so traded it for a diesel Suburban.
The TH200C was a flaming pile of rancid dog poo. The early TH200-4R was somewhat better, but GM didn’t really get it fully sorted until the final few years of production. The TH250C was fine in smaller cars. Even the air cooled models found in the Vega and 6 cylinder Nova (identified by the lack of cooler lines, a torque converter with a welded on fan, and big holes in the bell housing) seemed to hold up OK in normal usage. The TH200 failed in everything but the T cars. GM was asking a weak, poorly designed small car transmission to do the same job as a TH350. It didn’t work, and GM was incredibly stingy with their warranty coverage. They behaved the same way Ford has behaved more recently with their Dual Clutch Transmission in the Focus and Fiesta. As my old boss would put it, “tripping over dollars to pick up (save) a dime.” The TH200 fiasco turned off a lot of longtime GM customers. This was in the ‘70s and early ’80s when the big 3 were ceding more and more market share to the Japanese every single year. How incredibly short-sighted!
*A **_'Worst Car Features'_** list actually based on substance,* rather than the RUclipsr's (usually bad) taste! Excellent! Re: the *hidden headlamps*, a huge downside to me is that *while the headlamp doors were often sleek or elegantly designed, when the doors opened, the 'guts' inside were HIDEOUS.* Like opening your suit jacket to reveal a dirty old T-shirt underneath. When open, you were faced with a 'naked' headlight unit inside with no housing or frame around it, and the whole cavity was blah, flat, unpainted, with screws and mechanical bits showing everywhere. The whole open cave looked unfinished and crude. Even as a little boy I recall being both turned off and puzzled why somebody thought this didn't matter. And if you think it was irrelevant because you'd only turn the headlights on at night, well, there must have been *_many times_* people turned them on at other times, because we never had a car so equipped, but I still remember seeing that embarrassment to aesthetics many times in the seventies. _Bleah_
Месяц назад+8
The decline from the TH 400 to the TH 200, was ridiculous.
Early 90s GM 'B'body had express down driver window switches that would mechanically stick down causing the circuit to overload. Caprice also had horn buttons that were difficult to push and would break off inside the steering wheel. Some 80s GM tape stereos had high tension buttons that would pop off onto the floor. FWD Chryslers from the 80s and 90s were notorious for transmission failure. Ford's VV carburetor.
I love how the entire x car lineup is one feature that was bad. A lot of people felt negative towards front wheel drive; that is until they bought a Honda or Toyota, then they felt a lot better. GM was the Japanese cars best salesman
I owned a 1981 Phoenix that gave me excellent service. We were so happy with it that we bought another in 1982 identically equipped (loaded). That car was a disaster from the moment we picked it up at the dealer (none of the windows would operate nor the AC! In July!!) that was just the beginning of the worst car experience of my life. The oil pump failed (wiped out the crankshaft), the lock up converter worked backwards (engaged only under acceleration due to reverse signals from the computer), constantly repairing the electronic control carburetor. Finally the cam lobes wore out on two cylinders (soft cam per the mechanic).
In the future I think some of the ridiculous shifters they keep coming out with will be on a list. What worked fine as a shifter for decades is now often some counter-intuitive electronic pos.
Месяц назад+14
On the some Edsel's, a heat shield was mistakenly left off at assembly. This would cause the servo motor circuit breaker to open. After cooling, it would work again. That teletouch system on my parents Edsel, worked for 10 years without a problem. As a teenager, I replaced the servo motor, and everything was fine. I don't think the system was flawed, as much as those that tried to work on them.
I watched a rebuild of one on Cold War Motors and they said it was the most complicated steering column that they had ever worked on. It took three tries, but they got it repaired.
Месяц назад+2
@@CarsandCatsI watched the whole series on that Edsel. That steering column is unbelievable. Our Edsel Pacer was sold in 1970, with 78k miles. Everything was working perfectly fine, and never needed repairs, including the T/C radio, heater controls, and power brake booster. Oh, the Teletouch shift was only a $10 option.
A great list, Adam. Though, to be fair, the service life of the average car is what, 20 years? So, to me, the Ford vacuum headlamp door motors and window torque pins certainly lasted for their expected service life. Certainly, they are easier to repair that rusty bodies and frames!
Summer of 2022, my 1995 F-250 's driver door window motor gave up. Indeed, had to drill hole in both doors to access the motors. Driver side motor did have the crushed remains of the plastic torque pins. But, almost 30 years of perfect service, very well built truck!!
@@jasonnickell9420I drive a 1996 Ford e250. I think Ford took a nosedive in quality somewhere between then and 2000, just started producing crap. I have the only year of the OBD2 300 i6 engine, which is a neat thing that nobody cares about. I think I don't even really care about that besides that it seems very strange to do so much updating for a single year.... Then put a garbage 5.4L engine in the same body for near another 20 years. Etc etc
I bought a 1976 Pontiac Ventura new with the THM 200 since I had gotten great service from a 1971 Ventura. The trans lasted 10K miles before the dealer replaced it. As soon as I got it back from the dealer I traded it for a Toyota Corolla since the warranty ran out at 12K miles.
In the late '70s, Ford thought it would be a good idea to put the horn activation at the end of the turn signal lever. My mother had a '74 Monaco Brougham (with Interlock and Rim-Blow) that was always in the shop for some mechanical repair (though it was a stunningly beautiful car). She had to rent a car in '79 and was given a Ford Fairmont Futura coupe. She had to use the horn at some point, squeezed the steering wheel and, of course, nothing. Then tried the pads in the center, and nothing. She was furious when she got home, so I looked in the owner's manual and discovered where the horn was. Stupid, stupid idea.
We had the same Fairmont Futura, and my Mom picked me up from the mall, and was spitting mad, cause she could not find the horn..I am sure Ford got many complaints about that, it did change a few years later.
When it would get super-hot in the summer, and the mirror is on the floor when you come back out. Luckily we knew a really good guy, autobody, that would re-adhesive-tape the metal button(that's what he called it) for free, and tell us wait a few days and put the mirror back on. Good ol' Roger
My inside mirror came off at the track when I launched my car at the dragstrip and hit me in the face knocking the right lens out of my glasses. I never found the lens until I changed the carpet years later and it was UNDER it!
Seriously! The Edsel teletouch was barely a blip in automotive design I can't believe it made it to you list. On a side note, I have two of them and never a problem!
A commenter said he'd be afraid of hitting the reverse button at highway speed because it was where the horn should be. I replied back that edsels with teletouch had a lockout feature that prevented that from happening. The engineers at Ford anticipated the stupidity of some of there customers .😅
No, he is correct... the door-jam vents ARE the replacement for the external louvers. The air flows under the back seat into the trunk and then up the fenders to the vents that are outside the weather strip of the doors.
@@marko7843 Okay, so where does the air go after it reaches the trunk? The trunk is sealed. Cover the jam vents and it will be tough to close the doors with the windows up. I have actually tested this!
@@CarsandCats Yes that's true, but you are describing an effect not a cause. The door pressure is following the same route as the ventilation air... from passenger compartment to trunk, turn 180° and then out through the rear fender to the door jam vent. As I said, the jam vent is outside the door seal, thus the passenger compartment is sealed but the trunk is not... and there goes the air. My later GM coupe eliminated the jam vents and put a similar vent with little rubber flaps in the right rear trunk well, beneath the antenna motor - and the doors close very easily.
Adam, I'll add Ford's Variable Venturi carburetor from 1980-82. Usually found on 351 equipped LTD's, and Marquis', it was as dangerous and onerous as the Imperial's Fuel Injection. Stalling, backfires and horrendous throttle response, even when warm. Awful, and I'm a "Ford guy."
@RareClassicCars So terrible was the design, that 351 powered LTD police cars received regular MotorCraft 2V carburetors, instead of losing fleet sales.
My brother became the county expert on the VV carburetors. When they worked properly, the cops liked them because they used enrichment instead of a choke plate and could go flat out even when they were cold, like fuel injection a few years later.
@@douglasrizzo9210 I do not remember ever seeing anything BUT VV 7200s on 351 Crown Vics thru 91, and I worked at a police up-fitter. I will agree they sucked!
I bought a Ford Ranger in 1984 and some jacka$$ designer at Ford decided that placing the horn button at the end of the turn signal stalk was a good idea................dumb idea.
I was so lucky to get a Honda CRX in 88, just before Honda implemented those awful autoseatbelts. I'd love to get a vintage unmodified CRX-Si (which are hard enough to find), but only an '88).
The flow thru ventilation also had another hidden purpose to keep the cabin area pressurized to help eliminate excessive wind noise and whistling from the poorly fitting doors.
I can remember certain large GM vehicles from the mid 70’s like the Buick Electra that would hum like a harmonica traveling at Highway Speeds- there apparently were some rubber flap valves to prevent back-flow of the ventilation under the lip of the deck lid that I guess would get a partial clog or maybe a leaf stuck in them .
I would have to say All older car makers had poor engine sealing, carburetors needed adjustment at least twice a year, cooling systems underperformed in hot weather, suspension systems would wear out quickly, hvac systems were simple but unreliable after a few years. Aaah the good old days!😊
At least the older cars were easy to diagnose and fix. Cars were pretty much at the peak of reliability from the late 80's through early 00's. Everything nowadays is designed by the bean counters and made with cheapest possible components.
These torque pins, and I mean the same exact torque pins we're used on the C4 Corvette on the pop-up headlight actuators. I know because I have rebuilt C4 pop-up headlights and used Ford torque pins. The torque pins are available through [Dorman Help] parts .
I remember looking at a used '83 Imperial in about 1991. Low miles, looked to be in perfect condition, and the price seemed very low compared to what they were new. I asked the salesguy about it, he said: "I'm going to do you a favour. Avoid these at all costs. They're money pits." I still think they nailed the styling. Shame about the engine though.
My first car was a 74 Matador (that was in 1979) had the seat beat interlock 'feature'. Luckily on those anyway, there was a wire under the driver and passenger seats that could be disconnected to defeat it....
Great list! Honorable mention, we had a ‘95 Lumina coupe with the pot metal B-pillar exterior door handles. I got really good at replacing the drivers side 3 times before I sold the car.
Seatbelt interlock. My parents' 1975 Chrysler Town & Country had it. I remember it well. That car suffered from carburetion problems, and would buck, hesitate and sometimes stall when pulling out of our driveway, or even in the driveway. If the car was just being moved or whatever, the seatbelt had to be put on and buckled. I remember my dad being incredibly frustrated with it, on top of the carburetion problems, which were bad enough without that.
GM had the excellent HEI Distributor and they had the ignition module in the base of the distributor and it wasn't an issue they also had Distriborless ignition on the V6 and ign module was mounted right to the side of the block on the transverse mounted engine. so it was at the front of the car and it was right below the exhaust manifold with ign coils attached to it right where it's the hottest and they seemed pretty reliable.
That module set up on the outside of the distributer was used thru 2000. I had a 1990 Topaz that blow thru that module after 5000 miles. Found out the grease put under it was wrong type, dry out and short out. That set up was used from 75 to 2k.
Of all the fords I owned with the tfi on the distributor. I never had an issue with them. But to me it was part of maintenance after a lot of miles to take them off, clean it up and re assemble them with dielectric grease.
@@AntiZOGZone until the crappy little broke on the pickup causing all kinds of intermittent fun ....yeah , that's a party ....ferd and mopar are just as reliable...big block mopars did like to need spark plugs quite a lot for some reason though
I 'rebuilt' the headlight doors in my old '68 Cougar myself, back in the 1990s. Mine stayed open because the external seal for the close function was worn out. I went to the junk yard and found an '81-ish Thunderbird with the seals, and boots, intact. I un-swaged the retainer rings and bought the seals and put them on the Cougar's servos, and swaged the retainer rings back into place, and they worked! One took longer than the other to close, but they did close. I also tried to clean up the pitting on the shafts as best as I could.
In 68 they changed the actuator's for safety. Before vacuum opened the hideaways but a spring inside the actuator closed them, so if you lost vacuum your hideaways would close 😅 I put a set of 67 Cougar actuators in my 1970 Lincoln Mk III, they always stayed down unless the headlights were on 😄 Safety Last 😉 Lol
10:20 I had a couple of '74 LTD's in Australia with demolished window torque pins. I replaced them with steel rollers out of appropriate size bearings and they lasted the 20 years I had them. The wiring didn't supply enough current for window stalling to be an issue, even with separately fed change over relays fitted to each door motor.
Another horrible "feature": Passive shoulder belts. They were so bad that they made them detachable because they would fail to retract or fail to move at all, and you'd have to climb around them to enter/exit the car!
@@biglongcadillac can agree on that but when you buy them a little bit on the rough side and everything is dry rotted it can be a nightmare. Also all the junctions that combine the headlight and windshield doors. Just a lot of fail points. Have a 65 Vette now and having electrical motors makes life much easier beside the fact you can do more to the motor when not worried about vacuum
@druballard8929 yes indeed. My mechanical knowledge is minimal and I got lucky enough to find a garage queen. But I do enjoy the vacuum pull-down on my trunk.
The vacuum operated HVAC controls on my 34 year old Ford still work perfectly fine. The electrical door lock actuators had to be replaced, though, and then the replacements failed too within a year (aftermarket parts). And strangely, a couple of years later, they began working again, and have ever since.
Mid 1980's Volkswagen/Audi products had a similar torque pin power window motor/gearbox, and it had the same problems. I don't think it was the same part but I could be wrong since VAG and Ford cooperated at times back then. I had to replace the whole thing on the drivers side window of my '85 Scirocco Turbo, since you could not replace the pins only. Great video!
#9 1958 Edsel's teletouch Part of the problem was the placement of the shift motor. It was mounted on the side of the transmission right next to the exhaust system. Though there was a heat shield, many a mechanic tossed it when working on the car.
Alot of Edsel had the Shield left off from the factory some had it in the trunk and some didn't have it at all. The heat on the servo could cause the transmission to shift by itself, some had been known to shift into reverse when the car was going down the Highway.
There’s so many, but I think the worst thing ever (so far) is the auto stop/start system on today’s cars. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t hate it. Unfortunately, I suspect, it’s not going away.
@@andydanko7074 There's a small CAFE penalty for having a disabling button--some cars don't have them. They used to say it takes more fuel to restart than about 30 seconds of idling.
In the 90’s I owned a ‘69 Thunderbird with the vacuum operated headlight doors and door locks. The doorlocks worked fine but the headlight doors would open gradually after shut down. My solution was to retrofit ‘67 actuators that did not have the internal return spring. Those actuators would remain in whatever position they were left at shut down.
Other bad ones were the transmissions in the early Ford Taurus. One guy I knew was on the interstate, went in to get some chow, and came back it was DOA. I bought a new 1988....went out one morning to back it out of the garage.....put it in reverse and it took it about 45 seconds to engage.....Got rid of it.
I drove about a dozen 88-mid 90s Tauruses for work. The business owner loved to buy them for $2000. So they were piles. The engines seemed pretty bulletproof. But the transmissions would blow if you looked at them. The cars went 0 to 60 in a week. I floored it in one and the transmission blew out.
Worst feature in my limited driving experience: vacuum windshield wipers. Acceleration 'sucked' all the vacuum and the wipers would stop. Required pulling off the throttle, wiping 1 or 2 cycles, then back on the throttle.
now you're talking old school. We had a 59 Chevy grain truck with vacuum wipers and vacuum powered axle shifter. Good times driving that with 300 bushels of corn behind you and a 261 C. I. six up front. Maybe 45 mph if you could catch a little downgrade, just make sure you start slowing down early, vacuum assist hydraulic brakes were not that great.
Ford's "push the turn signal stalk to blow the horn" feature. The cars used by the driving school I went to in 1981 had Fairmonts(?) with them; both of the cars had broken steering wheel pads, doubtless from people hitting where they expected the horn control to be, then hitting it again harder when the horn didn’t sound the first time. Not sure what bright light came up with that one, but in a panic situation where someone is going for the horn while possibly making major steering inputs, the fine motor control needed to press on the end of the signal stalk may well have left the building.
From what I understand, it is common for the horn button to be on the left stalk in Europe, so Ford tried to make that a thing here so that they could reduce the differences between US and Euro spec versions of their cars and save some money. It didn't go over well, obviously.
My favorite pet peeve with most new cars are the head restraints that force the driver to slouch forward like someone with osteoporosis. I often end up reversing them, so they point backward. They need to bring back depth adjustments they offered in the 1980s.
I bought one as a parts transmission for a TH350 I was rebuilding, thinking that SOME of the parts should interchange. The forward drum had huge lightening holes in it! Everything in it was weak and I used none of it.
The faulty lockup torque converter solenoids on the TH125C transmissions. My dad and I did our own diagnosis on our 84 Celebrity and put in a cutout switch to disable the lockup. Replaced the TCC solenoid for $186. We left the cutout switch in the car just in case the new solenoid ever acted up and it did a few years later at a stoplight. We hit the cutout switch and drove away. A new solenoid and were back in business until i junked the car years later. I remember the common fix by less than honorable dealers and transmission shops were to sell customers on new/rebuilt transmissions.
Amazing that Cadillac sold a high end luxury car with 0-60 @ 18 seconds, where today the mid-5 second 0-60 for the Cadillac Lyriq isn’t considered fast for the class. My how far we have come.
Here another, Hitachi 1 and 2 barrel cabs used on Nissan A series engines 74 to 83, b210, 210, 310, and trucks. Also used on Sentras 83 to 88. These things were a nightmare, vapor locked up so bad in summer and impossible to keep running right.
73 caddy power locks had the solenoid mounted with the rod sticking out the top sealed with a rubbers bellows thing that eventually failed. Freezing rain would drip into the solenoid and freeze the locks on or off. Once the water was in there it would melt and freeze every day. I remember many times pouring hot water into the door to melt the frozen solenoid. All they would have had to do was mount it upside down and use a lever to work the lock. Also had vacuum everything and wipers that would eventually refuse to stop when the grease used in the wiper motor would get hard and prevent engagement of a lever in the mechanism.
My dad wouldn’t even rebuild a 200 THM transmission because he said they were too cheaply made and weren’t worth the trouble. We’d sometimes replace them with a 350 which would fit with a few modifications underneath
Imagine a Chevy Vega with a TH350. Sure, it may leak coolant everywhere due to overheating, it may blow its head gasket, and it may rust worse than a GMT800 truck and a second gen ram put together, but at least the transmission is reliable. I honestly kinda want a Vega. My 1966 Oldsmobile has been extremely reliable since I replaced the last bit of rubber fuel hose, would give me something to spend my money on. Especially if I did something dumb and swapped a GM Atlas I5 into it.
My choice would be the Auto start and stop engines that they use today. It's quite frustrating to have a modern car that stalls out because you forgot to push a stupid button. Beyond that, if you don't push the button and allow your car to stall out, you actually get worse fuel mileage, so it doesn't even do what it is supposed to do, which is save on fuel consumption.
And all start stop systems have a counter which disables the starter. Toyota is 2,000 times. Til the system bricks until the dealer replaces the $tarter$ with dealer only reset of the counter.
Adam, my mom's '72 Caddy Coupe De Ville would get 21mpg, on the FREEWAY,(55mph), with her 472 cu. in. and 16 city, (driven gently), when it was tuned up right!
As always, learning from Adam, I didn't know about the 2 minute wait on the early Olds 5.7. Makes sense, I had a '82 6.2 diesel, I was told by a mechanic those had 6 volt glow plugs,(obviously 12 volts going to them),and thats why they get so hot in seconds. After I heard that, I thought : isn't that dangerous(?), guess not. The V6 4.3 diesel had less problems from the jump(more head bolts per cylinder) compared to the 5.7 Used in front drive cars, the mileage some people got is impressive , for the '80s or now. Pretty sure I've read or seen vids, 38 mpg, and that version was reliable (sure, it came out years later)
78, the first year, those engines were especially junk. In hot weather, you had to wait 30 seconds, before starting. In the winter, you froze your ass off, waiting up to 2 minutes to start. If it would start.
What was it, the 59 Lincoln engine. Internal power steering pump. Really. Mentioned on one episode of a TV show, the one in Norfolk, where the room they meet customers looks like a diner.
@@russellstyles5381 You have that upside down and backwards my friend. Through 1969, Lincolns had EXTERNAL power steering pumps that were unusually powered by being bolted directly to the front of the crankshaft pulley. This was because the interval electric wiper had not been invented yet, and while Cadillac might have given you 3-speed wipers, Lincoln gave you infinite-speed wipers with hydraulic motors. For reliability, they decided not to run them off a belt as usual. As a side note, those hydraulic wiper motors were so powerful that GMC bought the rest of them for the looong wiper arms of their GMC motorhomes from 1973-78.
@@marko7843 I'm not going to binge that show to get details, sorry. He was complaining about stopping leaks. Had to go through 4 or 5 different sets of gaskets and seals.
My dad had two different 78 Cadillacs and more than once on a cold winter night everyone would be awakened to the horn blowing away and the only way to get it to stop was to pull the batter cable. What apparently would happen is the cover in the center of the wheel would contract in the cold and cause the horn to blow.
Great segment, Adam. I wonder if you’ve ever done a segment on an issue that Ford Motor Company had with the transmission selector slipping out of gear. My mother was at a gas station as I recall in the early 80s putting gas in her 1979 Mark V. A woman pulled up in a newer Lincoln Continental and left the car running exited the car to get directions. The car slipped out of park and into reverse and careened around the gas station. The driver attempted to enter the car and the door knocked her over and my mom saw the Lincoln run over the woman killing her. After that horrible incident, my mother later received a notice from Ford Motor Company about depressing the emergency brake when putting the car into park and never leaving the car unattended with the engine running. Have you ever heard of this incident with Ford motor company transmission selectors?
Fox based cars with the gear selector on the columb were well known for this issue. I worked in a shop where the tech pulled an 84 T Bird on an alignment rack, put it in park, got out to set the front steering plates while the car was still running, and it dropped into reverse all by itself. He tried to jump in the moving car but the open door knocked him over, and the car went back 30 ft, through the service manager's desk and pinning him to a brick wall. Our showroom was on the other side of said wall and customers went scrambling, as they could see through our giant plate glass windows what was coming. After that, corporate told us to always shut these Fords down upon exit. Even still, we did have an 82 Granada roll away 1 time in our parking lot but it was shut off and luckily the curb stopped it. I don't recall any of the full sized RWD Fords having this issue, just the Fox based cars.
I knew you were going to point out that the Edsel trans control was electric while the Chryslers were mechanical, but it kills me that Rolls Royce used a servo motor for DECADES on the sides of the Turbo 400 trannies they bought from GM... Also, I just can't believe they put Turbo 200s behind V8s or turbo V6 Grand Nationals!
I've really come to enjoy your videos. Thanks for using your own voice in this age when so many video makers are using computer generated voices. Your videos are great. I just subscribed to your channel.
Sealed automatic transmissions, that you cant check fluid level, or top up easilly yourself.
Actually there's an easy way outta that. Just drill a half inch hole into the top of the tranny somewhere and fill with funnel. Stick a plug or wad of gum in when yer done. Don't worry about overfilling just go down the road with your foot to the floor and what the tranny doesn't want will shower out the overflow hole all over the underside of the car. Hey ,that's anti-rust caoting!!
I've seen that on RUclips. The fill port is only accessible when the car is on a lift.
If it leak it's worthless
You sound like a rim blower
No offense but these transmissions are very complicated and if you don’t put the correct fluid type at the correct temperature that’s only able to be viewed accurately from a high end scan tool. The trans temp gauges on the dash aren’t accurate at all and is a value from 3 fluid temp sensors in the transmissions where they just average those values to give you a temp on the dash. But hey sealed transmissions pay my bills anyways because diyer who do their own work do a transmission service and 9 times out of 10 they need an overhaul and replacement. So to stop dipshits from trying to work on their vehicles they seal them. It’s not because they want the work at the dealership it’s because the owners are too stupid to have the proper know how and procedures
Black plastic trim that turns gray in the sun and headlights that fade into shower curtains in a few years.
Molding adhesives that let go almost as quickly.
Ford water pumps that are inside the engine and require huge hassle to fix.
Clear coat finish that boils off in sheets from sunlight exposure.
Headlight fixtures that require major disassembly just to replace bulbs.
wet belts
Add vinyl tops(I know a person who had a roof rust out while his car was in the garage due to a vinyl top(on the humid Texas Gulf Coast). Also add fake wood grain sides that look cheap when new and horrible after a few years.
Nissan did that inside the engine water pump thing. Then there’s Volkswagen of which I’ve had hundreds, air cooled, and about 30 water cooled 80s Volkswagens. What the actual eff happened? Replacing a thermostat should not require removing the front clip, half the engine and require 17 different types of fasteners.
@@DavidPawson-d7hYou're 100% right. When they switch the motors in 99.5 from ABA to AEG and went internal water pump, same with AEB to whatever for the 20v blocks, is when everything went downhill. Don't even get me started on the 2.0t series. The five cylinder 07k is pretty good for a modern motor though
The peeling clear clear coat problem was caused by the EPA banning certain chemicals. It was not the manufacturers fault and has been fixed.
My father had a Grenada with a horn rimmed steering wheel and told me the story of it being so cold during the Cleveland blizzard of 1977 that he woke up in the middle of the night hearing the horn blowing in the garage because the rubber contracted so much that the terminals touched.
A co-worker had a Mustang with that feature that made the horn blow in hot summer weather.
Rim-blow.
I had a '70 LTD with horn actuators under rubber on the two steering wheel spokes that did the same thing.
My grandpa had one too,and it was notorious for it to happen in even slightly cold days.
Caddy's 4 / 6/ 8 was pretty tragic.
And current AFM system. Doesn’t even save gas and it kills lifters and cams
Wrong... The current systems they're using are wrecking the engines, while the Eaton system for the original 368 Cadillac was robust and didn't hurt the engine at all. The only things lacking were in the ENGINEERS' brains, not in the hardware. I fixed much of their stupidity and drove one for 140,000 miles...
Cut the purple wire going to the tranny and the 4/6/8 identifies as a V8 😂
@@rashton5730 I actually put small chrome flat-paddle switches on either side of the radio, so I could lock it in eight cylinders for compression braking, and lock out the automatic antenna.
Came looking for this reply! What a great concept - but the computer technology needed to accomplish the task simply didn't exist.
The seat belt interlock may have been annoying then. But the things they're doing to modern vehicles is worse. I work at a collision repair/ body shop so I'm constantly having to move vehicles around. Most of them beep constantly if the seat belt isn't latched. Which is extremely annoying. But others will automatically shift into park if the door isn't closed or the seat belt isn't latched. And some with parking sensors will lock up the brakes if it thinks you're too close to something. Try moving around a bunch of wrecked vehicles in a tight garage with these annoying 'features'. It's maddening at times. And it actually almost caused an accident last week. The detailer was backing a Jeep out onto the street. When he stopped and put it in 'drive', it automatically put itself into park. While he was in the middle of a busy street. The light had turned green and he was freaking out trying to get it to move. He put his seat belt on. Tried to put it in 'drive' and it still wouldn't work. He had to shut it off then restart it with his seat belt on before the Jeep would let him move. He could've been killed because of a 'safety feature'. These electronic nannies have gone too far!
I park cars for a living, I'd like this comment more than once if I could. Fukk these new nanny ninny cars that spy on us and sell the data!
Couldn't agree more.
NHTSA is part of the reason.
I agree
This is BS. You cannot possibly be killed in a car if you have your seatbelt on and are stopped at a green light. The fastest collision you'd have would be like 20mph. I get your point cavassing cars in and out of a tight storage area but you lose credibility when you slide from that reasonable story into this steaming pile of carp.
Certainly the Vega 2300 engine should have made the list! The sleeveless design of the GM aluminum block was a good idea in theory but horrible in its execution.
Honorable mention: the stalk mounted horn on 1980s Ford models.
The stalk mounted horn was my first thought
The Ford Fiesta had the horn on the turn signal stalk in the ‘70s. My friend’s first car was a ‘78 Fiesta. A few years later, I bought a beater 1980 Fiesta. Both had the horn on the stalk. Terrible.
It worked good in sleeveless aluminum Big Block Chevys in Can Am cars that made 800 HP, from about 1969 on.
Amazing that it didn't work in the Vega, but it had a piss poor cooling system design too. My next door neighbor had to end up iron sleeving his...🤑
The sleeveless design was just missing some modern engine coatings (Nikasil, Alusil, Plasma Spray Coating, etc.).
My 78 Fairmont had the stalk-mounted horn control.
Another bad GM feature was the 1978-87 4 door A/G body fixed rear windows
It seemed like a good idea for maximizing elbow room, but the little vent window didn't make up for the lack of a roll-down window. Maybe an awning window, like the ones on passenger vans, would have worked better.
I've got a G Body Bonneville, I always thought it was funny the windows don't roll down.
True, no one who sat in my backseat was happy about that especially if they had to smoke
I think the K Cars also had fixed rear windows.
@@engineer_alv only the 1981 models. They gained roll down rear windows in 1982.
As kids, we used to love moving the climate control levers when the car was parked so we could hear the hissing as the leftover vacuum did its work.
We did too. On my dad's 74 Impala. Then turn the cover over on top of the carburetor and loved the noise it made when you stepped on it. It was a good car. My dad was a seat belt man. I always was too. Even long before the law.
So true. I’m definitely guilty of this.
I agree, there's nothing like the sound of a Quadrajet's secondaries cracking open through a flipped cover..."Always flip the lid" would make a great retro T-shirt.
@ericharrison619 Great idea! Dad's Impala had the 350. 3 speed automatic. It was a trouble-free car. Then a 79 Impala, another great car. My first car was a 76 Pontiac Grand Le Man's. A beautiful car. The dashboard looked like airplane controls. Console. Factory 8 track. Those were the days. They all look alike now.
Guilty..Cheers!
Dash mounted infotainment and touch screen controls. You can FEEL knobs and know where to find them without having to look away from the road.
AMEN
This
true. I hate capacitive HVAC and volume controls.
100% Touchscreens in cars should be outlawed.. Complete driving distraction.
Tesla: we're all looking at you (I had one as a rental this summer: awful, I hated dealing with that thing.)
One bad feature that GM still uses to this day: the reverse lights turning on every time you turn off the car or unlock the door. How many people get upset that they think you’re about to back out of the space
Should be illegal,same with red turn signals
I seriously can't believe this was EVER a thing, let alone is STILL a thing...
Ford’s horn on the turn signal stalk was not a very intuitive feature.
While I totally agree, all kinds of European cars used it forever and I assume that's why Ford did on some models. Maybe those models were based on world-market vehicle platforms?
@@The_sinner_Jim_Whitney Fairmont and Zephyr of the late 70’s/early 80’s.
@@philricci2012 I know my old '78 Fairmont did. Now that I think about it, though, I think some of the trucks had them too, probably others. They must've just been trying something new and Euro-inspired.
@@philricci2012 funny enough, the DeLorean had this feature as well. So when Marty hit his head on the steering wheel at the end of back to the future when the car wouldn't start, the horn wouldn't have honked like it did in the movie.
I only experienced this once in a rental but it was horrible. When you need to honk you need to react quickly. The most idiotic idea I’ve ever seen.
Please do a video of all your amazing collection of cars?
The GM THM200 transmission was perfectly fine in the application it was designed for -- the Chevette.
😂😂😂 yeah, not a '77 Pontiac Bonneville like the one we had. We had it in the mid-'80s, you could tell it wasn't a TH350 (or th400) when you drove it.
Or the Citation...
@@B0xlife1 Citation was a front wheel drive car. I don't think it used the TMH200.
@@B0xlife1 Citation used the front-wheel-drive TH-125 transmission.
Not sure about that. Had one fail in a Chevette. GM automatics drove me into a love of manuals.
Eliminating wing windows and simple fresh air ventilation systems. Cars made shortly after about 1970 can be miserable to drive in the summer if the air conditioner doesn't work. Before a/c was pretty much standard equipment, vehicles were designed to drive comfortably with windows open. Now when driving with window open wind is uncomfortably hitting you in the face without adjustable wing window convenience.
I know my 68 Caprice ,drop the windows open the Astro ventilation and it is quiet and hair buffering at freeway speeds crack tge window on the out Outback? It pushes your hair straight up the side!
The first 6 years I drove was in a car with no A/C, in Florida. I don't remember it being a problem. Wings were great!
Love the "butterfly windows" I remember
Even better was the kick panel vents on 50s-60s cars that gave you're legs/feet a breeze.
@spamfriedmice4800 Remember opening those up when they hadn't been used in a while! The crap that would fly from under the dash!
GM’s extensive use of cheap plastic bumper fillers that over time rots away.
Took me a second.....oh yeah, that stuff. I think I know what you mean. Easily faded, warped, sometimes gets that black mildew-ish build-up that is a b*tch to get rid of. We had 10 year old cars in the '80s, from the '70s, no garage. If you washed, waxed, detailed your car, then there was that area, I guess just throw your hands up, what do you do
Those open gaps in those rotted plastic bumper panels looked especially atrocious on Cadillacs.
I've wondered if that stuff was much different from the plastic that covers most bumpers today. They might have found ways over the years to make it more resistant to degradation from the sun and weather. I've never had a bumper cover fall apart the way the fillers on late-1970s Eldorados did, though if my car gets to be 45 years old, they might do the same thing. I still see the advantage of plastic bumpers in general, and remember the way the chrome ones would start rusting out after a little tap in a parking lot. It's just hard to find materials that can last decades under those conditions.
And GM wasn't the only one.
@@Sheisthedevilyouknowwho-ft9wethe bumper fillers on my unrestored, 49k mile 74 Charger are gray and have all that black mildew-ish staining that doesn't come off no matter how many solvents I tried to use without disintegrating the material. I think one day I'm just going to paint over them.
Foam backed mouse fur headliners that ALL hang down after a while. I guess the cars just weren’t designed for ten or more years.
Yes! My parents 84 Celebrity had that crap.
Cigarette smoke defeated the glue holding up the foam, rapidly accelerating headliner failure.
They are still doing it. I replaced the headliner in a 2014 Porsche last week that would have done my Grandmothers '84 Regal proud with all of the thumbtacks holding it up.
@@bugdrvr I was about to comment that my '04 Cayenne has the same problem. No thumbtacks yet, just a couple of binder clips at the rear edge.
I wonder how many people over the last 50, 60 years weren't aware, the acids on your fingertips, just that scant amount that leaves fingerprints behind, is one of the worst things that breaks down the adhesive most automakers used that hold the headliner to that backing board. Just gently touch the headliner with fingertips, over time it will come loose in the areas touched
the 'lean burn' system was pretty horrible,and also the gm diesel's left something to be desired
The gm diesels were better than any ford idi on the road. Wayyyy more reliable. I had a 6.2 blazer diesel army truck I put 300000 miles on it with only tires brakes oil changes. Faster than any turned up fuel screw idi. Better on fuel. And when world war 3 hits I’m running it on waste oil
The downfall is owners presume that they're maintenance free, which they weren't unfortunately. I had one and knew a number of others with the timing computer as well without problems. I had trouble until I had it to the shop for maintenance then it was great. As the timing setup ages and wears it has to be reset or it gradually goes way out of calibration and hard to start and crappy mileage
@ not true at all. There’s no learning for a timing computer. It’s pretty simple. Just change your oil and you’re fine
A few more to add to the list are Ford's variable venturi carburetors of the late 1970s to the 1980s and 1973 to 1980 GM pickup hoods that are prone to getting bent and kinked.
The variable Venturi’s biggest failure was the total lack of dealer training on servicing these units. When set up properly they actually worked quite well and were quite economical. There were a few real mechanics who understood them and could set them well but not many.
Do you remember the hood brace kits they sold at J.C. Whitney?
I hated the VV carb and it didn't work any better than a conventional carb a lot would replace with a fomoco 2 bbl carb which was just fine
@@CarsandCatsDerek Bieri (Vice Grip Garage on RUclips) is still selling them.
@@AntiZOGZone Drive a car with a properly tuned VV carb, then swap to a conventional 2bbl. It’s a massive downgrade. As another commenter already mentioned, Ford failed to properly train dealership techs to tune and repair these carburetors. Also, flat rate pay encourages quick, shoddy repairs. I worked at a Lincoln-Mercury dealership early in my career. I have personally witnessed a flat rate tech fix a leaking vacuum hose, spray the outside of a VV carburetor with several cans of carburetor cleaner, then charge the customer for a full carb rebuild. That guy got paid 3 hours for the carb rebuild for 10-15 minutes of work.
I love Mercury’s style of the hidden headlights in the early ‘70s. They are seemingly the most “hidden, perhaps due to the “grille” being extended over the headlight doors.
I loved my '70 LTD headlight doors.
Use of cheap pot metal on exterior fixtures such as mirror mounts. After a couple of years they were full of holes
That and pot metal badges that would be pitted after sitting ooutside
You brought back two memories.
I had a Thunderbird with that power window setup. The pins were not available at the time, so I had to devise my own replacement. Happy to report, my version lasted years.
Second was the seatbelt interlock. My dad bought a 74 Impala. The salesman said, “Under the seat are two wires. I can’t tell you which one to cut but it’s not the red one (I may be remembering the color wrong).
Thank you as always ~ Chuck
I just filled the gear/cog in with Bondo and made it one piece 😂 Never had one fail 😄 Lol
@@rashton5730 Nice solution! I didn't think of that back then. I ended up cutting a wooden pencil, and sleeving that with sections of a plastic tube to get the OD correct. I *think* they would have sheared if I had left something in the window, but was just happy that the window worked and it didn't cost anything.
(6) 1/4” nuts work awesome. However, if you have a passenger riding and they accidentally press the window-down button with their knee for a few minutes you’ll get a bang that sounds like a blow out and have you pulled over looking for tire damage 🤣
“Rim blow” is definitely the most awkward feature name ever, that’s for sure 😂
Why?
The marketing people were real squares, just didn't get the innuendo!
@@michaelwhite2823rim job
So many dumb or broken features (or misfeatures), and too few slots in the list. I'll add these for your dishonorable mentions list: the Cadillac V8-6-4, the Chrysler Lean-burn system, the Vega 2.3 OHC motor, and the knee-knocker wrap-around windshields of the late 1950's where the bottom of the A-pillar intruded into the door opening so far as to make entry and exit difficult.
I would add the front door track automatic seatbelts used in many U.S. cars even including some Aston Martins.
I had those on my '93 Nissan Maxima. When I was going to work I'd have a pen or 2 in my breast pocket and the damn belt would always find its way behind them so that when I turned the car off the pens would tear the pocket. And I'd always forget about that the next time....:-(
@@stephenhanneken3041 And when I try to get out of my 93 Cougar quickly after opening the door the belt tries to wrap around my neck while it moving to the front of the window..
I vowed never to own a car with this feature. Never did.
I'm sure glad that feature didn't stick around too long.
And yet the exact reason my sister refuses to buckle up while driving is specifically because this feature doesn't exist anymore lol
Another great video, Adam. I want to point out that the V6 Oldsmobile Diesel had a water/fuel separator during its production run. Also, GM added a factory separator for the V8 Diesel in 1985 (the last year for the engine production). If they had installed water/fuel separators from day one, it would have made a big difference in the issues that Oldsmobile had with these engines.
The other big deal that hit some folks hard was the need to tow the car to a dealer to purge the air out of the fuel system if one ran out of diesel. I had a friend from a large family and his dad bought 2 Pontiac Grand Prix diesels- and being a teen driver he once ran out of fuel- it was a very costly error.
They were still garbage!
@@o.c.smithiii2626 Lot of diesels have that problem. Industrial / military diesels normally have a 1 gallon tank that they actually run off of, with a sensor that shut it down when that tank gets low.
At least the generators did, 15K & 60K. Never examined the trucks closely enough to see the day tank.
Adam, They should have never gotten rid of horn rings!
The idle-stop systems in almost all new cars sold today!!
@@bigcrowfly Oh god it’s awful!
I bought a Hybrid just to avoid that.
But all that complexity will save several ounces of fuel. Lmao never pay for system itself tho
So glad I dodged that bullet by getting a 2016 Subaru before I even knew it was coming.
My Cruze had that. Such a PITA to mash it every time I went anywhere. The engine stopping at the first stop light would remind me. I wonder how much wear that did to the starter and the extra load on the battery and electrical system.
Many of those can be overridden.
I had a 1981 Cutlass Calais with the 350 CI diesel...so bad! luckily since I worked at Cat a guy I knew from the factory swapped it with an Olds 350 Gas engine from his garage set up. Saved me a ton of $$!
My Dad did the same for his 350 diesel pickup. One of the worst things about the early diesels was that when they came out, diesel was considerably cheaper than gasoline, but shortly after that it went higher than gas and never recovered. Also rules on using farm gas in vehicles were tightened and somewhere in that time the red dye was introduced to farm diesel.
In 1981, my father bought a brand new Chevette Diesel, featuring an Isuzu 4 cylinder engine that made a whopping 50 hp. It was like driving a tiny little truck. Its top speed (tested in real life by me) was 80 mph. But, it got more than 50 mpg, so you had that. Oh, and A/C was not an option, because there was not enough horsepower to run the compressor and keep the car moving.
My 83 Dodge with the 2.2 had a compressor cut out. Step on gas, lose a/c.
I have 2 features # hide a Way windshield wipers while looking slick when it sleets then snows you have to dig them out of their trough i guess its not a issue in Florida or California the second is lift up door handles when the doors freezes shut there's nothing to pull on to open the door
Experience this at 4 am when you leaving for work
ahahhahhah, you poor guy! I can only imagine!
My 71 Custom 500 had hide-a-way wipers, never had an issue...In Northern Minnesota
Left hand lug nuts on one side of the vehicle. Chrysler used this set up for a while. Some other makes may have also.
My ‘63 Catalina had left-hand lug nuts, but same-year GP didn’t!
There was a time when nearly all vehicles had left hand threads on the drivers side lugs
Ford F-series 1970s
@@jeffgadget5350 I have had several F series trucks and never found one from the 70's with left hand threads on the lugs
Is safer, Mopar was leading on safety 💯
I had an uncle that was obsessed with the olds diesels and had like 4-5 of them and ran them into the 90s. And yeah everything you said was right. They sounded like a 18 wheeler at idle. I remember he had this special curved opened end wrench that was for getting the bottom bolt under the fuel injector pump. He also knew to listen for the glow plug solenoid to open to start the car, ignoring the wait to start light.
I owned a 1981 Phoenix that gave me excellent service. We were so happy with it that we bought another in 1982 identically equipped (loaded). That car was a disaster from the moment we picked it up at the dealer (none of the windows would operate nor the AC! In July!!) that was just the beginning of the worst car experience of my life. The oil pump failed (wiped out the crankshaft), the lock up converter worked backwards (engaged only under acceleration due to reverse signals from the computer), complete transmission failure, cruise control could not hold speeds, constantly repairing the electronic control carburetor. Finally the cam lobes wore out on two cylinders (soft cam per the mechanic).
I later found out that my trouble free 1981 was built on Oklahoma City but for 1982 production was move to the infamous Tarrytown NY plant. (This was also home plant for the “Dustbuster” mini vans.)
Tarrytown was in perennial last-place on the JD Power survey in this era. The worst automobile plant in the USA for years. I won’t even attempt to list the fit and cosmetic issues on my 82. I dumped it after two years, but drove the sweet 81 for a decade.
I borrowed my dad's '80 Citation for a lunch date. It started snowing lightly. I was on a 4-lane and made a lane change when the signal ahead turned red. As I slowed down the car began to spin and ended up off the road. No body damage. My date thought she was going to die. Shook me up, too.
Several months later we're out again and the water pump starts to fail, the pulley was visibly wobbly.
My date says, "I will never get into this car again!"
If your borrowing Citations, how are you ever going to afford a woman!!???🤷
Yes that Citation was pretty scary in low traction situations.@jeffmiller3150
@@jeffmiller3150
Did you marry her? I threw up in my date's car once. We've been married 32 years.
@@jeffmiller3150 lol.
Starter interlock was all of 1974 and some of 1975 cars. My dad had a '75 AMC Matador station wagon that had the interlock, although it had been disconnected before he bought the car. My first car was a '74 Impala with starter interlock. I reconnected mine because I knew some people who wouldn't wear seatbelts. This forced them to wear the seatbelt when the rode in my car.
As GM often did, when they worked all the bugs out of something, they would discontinue it. The diesel engines by 1983-84 had almost none of the early issues. They did offer the water separator as an option starting in 1979. The FI pumps were notorious for getting out of sync and the technicians were not properly trained to work on them anyway. The fuel was designed for over-the-road trucks back then, not passenger cars. The number one issue of those early diesels was the owners, most should have never bought them. The average customer only drove about 10-15 miles one way so with all of those short trips, the engine was barely warmed up before it was shut down. Diesels were not designed for those types of hot-cold cycles back then. I know of many back in the days that were cabs and almost never broke down because they were constantly running. Having said all of that, working at an Oldsmobile dealer back then, I made a lot of money on warranty repairs and after warranty, converting them to gas engines was a brisk business.
I had a Cutlass with the 260 V8 diesel and 5 speed manual, and we drove it cross country pulling a small trailer. It did fine until we tried starting from a stop up a very steep slope where it did not have enough low end torque to pull up the hill in low gear (gear ratios to close for that engine). I wish I still had that car, that was a rare special order and got great fuel mileage, averaged over 30 mpg. Kids got bigger and we had another one so traded it for a diesel Suburban.
The TH200C was a flaming pile of rancid dog poo. The early TH200-4R was somewhat better, but GM didn’t really get it fully sorted until the final few years of production. The TH250C was fine in smaller cars. Even the air cooled models found in the Vega and 6 cylinder Nova (identified by the lack of cooler lines, a torque converter with a welded on fan, and big holes in the bell housing) seemed to hold up OK in normal usage. The TH200 failed in everything but the T cars. GM was asking a weak, poorly designed small car transmission to do the same job as a TH350. It didn’t work, and GM was incredibly stingy with their warranty coverage. They behaved the same way Ford has behaved more recently with their Dual Clutch Transmission in the Focus and Fiesta. As my old boss would put it, “tripping over dollars to pick up (save) a dime.” The TH200 fiasco turned off a lot of longtime GM customers. This was in the ‘70s and early ’80s when the big 3 were ceding more and more market share to the Japanese every single year. How incredibly short-sighted!
I cant hear "rim blow" without giggling. I'm such a child lol
I understand the blow but not the rim part. Please explain.
@@michaelwhite2823Ha ha trouble Maker 😅
@@AntiZOGZone *innocent look*
@@michaelwhite2823 If you Google the common vulgarism "rimjob", you won't want any further explanation.
🏳🌈
*A **_'Worst Car Features'_** list actually based on substance,* rather than the RUclipsr's (usually bad) taste! Excellent!
Re: the *hidden headlamps*, a huge downside to me is that *while the headlamp doors were often sleek or elegantly designed, when the doors opened, the 'guts' inside were HIDEOUS.* Like opening your suit jacket to reveal a dirty old T-shirt underneath.
When open, you were faced with a 'naked' headlight unit inside with no housing or frame around it, and the whole cavity was blah, flat, unpainted, with screws and mechanical bits showing everywhere. The whole open cave looked unfinished and crude. Even as a little boy I recall being both turned off and puzzled why somebody thought this didn't matter.
And if you think it was irrelevant because you'd only turn the headlights on at night, well, there must have been *_many times_* people turned them on at other times, because we never had a car so equipped, but I still remember seeing that embarrassment to aesthetics many times in the seventies. _Bleah_
The decline from the TH 400 to the TH 200, was ridiculous.
Early 90s GM 'B'body had express down driver window switches that would mechanically stick down causing the circuit to overload. Caprice also had horn buttons that were difficult to push and would break off inside the steering wheel.
Some 80s GM tape stereos had high tension buttons that would pop off onto the floor.
FWD Chryslers from the 80s and 90s were notorious for transmission failure.
Ford's VV carburetor.
I love how the entire x car lineup is one feature that was bad. A lot of people felt negative towards front wheel drive; that is until they bought a Honda or Toyota, then they felt a lot better. GM was the Japanese cars best salesman
Consumer Reports magazine was the salesman for hondos and toyadas. All our Pontiacs ran flawlessly for years
Unfortunately many other people had a different experience
I owned a 1981 Phoenix that gave me excellent service. We were so happy with it that we bought another in 1982 identically equipped (loaded). That car was a disaster from the moment we picked it up at the dealer (none of the windows would operate nor the AC! In July!!) that was just the beginning of the worst car experience of my life. The oil pump failed (wiped out the crankshaft), the lock up converter worked backwards (engaged only under acceleration due to reverse signals from the computer), constantly repairing the electronic control carburetor. Finally the cam lobes wore out on two cylinders (soft cam per the mechanic).
In the future I think some of the ridiculous shifters they keep coming out with will be on a list. What worked fine as a shifter for decades is now often some counter-intuitive electronic pos.
On the some Edsel's, a heat shield was mistakenly left off at assembly. This would cause the servo motor circuit breaker to open. After cooling, it would work again. That teletouch system on my parents Edsel, worked for 10 years without a problem. As a teenager, I replaced the servo motor, and everything was fine. I don't think the system was flawed, as much as those that tried to work on them.
I watched a rebuild of one on Cold War Motors and they said it was the most complicated steering column that they had ever worked on. It took three tries, but they got it repaired.
@@CarsandCatsI watched the whole series on that Edsel. That steering column is unbelievable. Our Edsel Pacer was sold in 1970, with 78k miles. Everything was working perfectly fine, and never needed repairs, including the T/C radio, heater controls, and power brake booster. Oh, the Teletouch shift was only a $10 option.
Wow $10! That was some amazing technology for the time. Especially since it floated and didn't turn with the steering wheel.
A great list, Adam. Though, to be fair, the service life of the average car is what, 20 years? So, to me, the Ford vacuum headlamp door motors and window torque pins certainly lasted for their expected service life. Certainly, they are easier to repair that rusty bodies and frames!
Summer of 2022, my 1995 F-250 's driver door window motor gave up. Indeed, had to drill hole in both doors to access the motors. Driver side motor did have the crushed remains of the plastic torque pins. But, almost 30 years of perfect service, very well built truck!!
@@jasonnickell9420I drive a 1996 Ford e250. I think Ford took a nosedive in quality somewhere between then and 2000, just started producing crap.
I have the only year of the OBD2 300 i6 engine, which is a neat thing that nobody cares about. I think I don't even really care about that besides that it seems very strange to do so much updating for a single year.... Then put a garbage 5.4L engine in the same body for near another 20 years. Etc etc
I bought a 1976 Pontiac Ventura new with the THM 200 since I had gotten great service from a 1971 Ventura. The trans lasted 10K miles before the dealer replaced it. As soon as I got it back from the dealer I traded it for a Toyota Corolla since the warranty ran out at 12K miles.
In the late '70s, Ford thought it would be a good idea to put the horn activation at the end of the turn signal lever. My mother had a '74 Monaco Brougham (with Interlock and Rim-Blow) that was always in the shop for some mechanical repair (though it was a stunningly beautiful car). She had to rent a car in '79 and was given a Ford Fairmont Futura coupe. She had to use the horn at some point, squeezed the steering wheel and, of course, nothing. Then tried the pads in the center, and nothing. She was furious when she got home, so I looked in the owner's manual and discovered where the horn was. Stupid, stupid idea.
We had the same Fairmont Futura, and my Mom picked me up from the mall, and was spitting mad, cause she could not find the horn..I am sure Ford got many complaints about that, it did change a few years later.
Rearview mirrors glued to the windshield are a bane of my existence. I've never seen a windshield-header/roof-mounted rearview mirror fall off...
When it would get super-hot in the summer, and the mirror is on the floor when you come back out. Luckily we knew a really good guy, autobody, that would re-adhesive-tape the metal button(that's what he called it) for free, and tell us wait a few days and put the mirror back on. Good ol' Roger
My inside mirror came off at the track when I launched my car at the dragstrip and hit me in the face knocking the right lens out of my glasses. I never found the lens until I changed the carpet years later and it was UNDER it!
@@Sheisthedevilyouknowwho-ft9we I think I tried 3 different mirror adhesives before I found one that worked - Loctite.
Seriously! The Edsel teletouch was barely a blip in automotive design I can't believe it made it to you list. On a side note, I have two of them and never a problem!
A commenter said he'd be afraid of hitting the reverse button at highway speed because it was where the horn should be. I replied back that edsels with teletouch had a lockout feature that prevented that from happening. The engineers at Ford anticipated the stupidity of some of there customers .😅
The flow through ventilation went from those louvers to putting them in the door jams, which seems to work fine.
No, that's so you can close the door with the windows up.
No, he is correct... the door-jam vents ARE the replacement for the external louvers. The air flows under the back seat into the trunk and then up the fenders to the vents that are outside the weather strip of the doors.
@@marko7843 Okay, so where does the air go after it reaches the trunk? The trunk is sealed. Cover the jam vents and it will be tough to close the doors with the windows up. I have actually tested this!
@@CarsandCats Yes that's true, but you are describing an effect not a cause. The door pressure is following the same route as the ventilation air... from passenger compartment to trunk, turn 180° and then out through the rear fender to the door jam vent. As I said, the jam vent is outside the door seal, thus the passenger compartment is sealed but the trunk is not... and there goes the air.
My later GM coupe eliminated the jam vents and put a similar vent with little rubber flaps in the right rear trunk well, beneath the antenna motor - and the doors close very easily.
Adam, I'll add Ford's Variable Venturi carburetor from 1980-82. Usually found on 351 equipped LTD's, and Marquis', it was as dangerous and onerous as the Imperial's Fuel Injection. Stalling, backfires and horrendous throttle response, even when warm. Awful, and I'm a "Ford guy."
Good point
@RareClassicCars So terrible was the design, that 351 powered LTD police cars received regular MotorCraft 2V carburetors, instead of losing fleet sales.
@douglasrizzo9210: I remember the chronic stalling.
My brother became the county expert on the VV carburetors. When they worked properly, the cops liked them because they used enrichment instead of a choke plate and could go flat out even when they were cold, like fuel injection a few years later.
@@douglasrizzo9210 I do not remember ever seeing anything BUT VV 7200s on 351 Crown Vics thru 91, and I worked at a police up-fitter. I will agree they sucked!
My '74 Duster had the starter interlock. I found the weight sensors when I pulled the bench seat out of it and wondered what the heck they were for!
Betting most were disconnected. Like the one on lawn mowers.
I bought a Ford Ranger in 1984 and some jacka$$ designer at Ford decided that placing the horn button at the end of the turn signal stalk was a good idea................dumb idea.
A lot of old Ford trucks and busses had that. Took a while to get used to not beeping as you went to flick the indicator
The French did that for decades.
I've worked on many a Ford in my day. I think you just described their whole design department.
Turning next to a bunch of bikers - you remember never to be doing that again..
@@heikkiremes5661 Conclusive proof that it's a bad idea.
Automatic seatbelts were the bain of my existence, I'm glad they didn't stick around too long.
I was so lucky to get a Honda CRX in 88, just before Honda implemented those awful autoseatbelts. I'd love to get a vintage unmodified CRX-Si (which are hard enough to find), but only an '88).
The flow thru ventilation also had another hidden purpose to keep the cabin area pressurized to help eliminate excessive wind noise and whistling from the poorly fitting doors.
I can remember certain large GM vehicles from the mid 70’s like the Buick Electra that would hum like a harmonica traveling at Highway Speeds- there apparently were some rubber flap valves to prevent back-flow of the ventilation under the lip of the deck lid that I guess would get a partial clog or maybe a leaf stuck in them .
I would have to say All older car makers had poor engine sealing, carburetors needed adjustment at least twice a year, cooling systems underperformed in hot weather, suspension systems would wear out quickly, hvac systems were simple but unreliable after a few years. Aaah the good old days!😊
Ford Model T, if the radiator sprung a leak, cracking an egg and dropping it in was known to stop the leak, not under a lot of pressure 😁
At least the older cars were easy to diagnose and fix. Cars were pretty much at the peak of reliability from the late 80's through early 00's. Everything nowadays is designed by the bean counters and made with cheapest possible components.
How old is "older?"
lean burn
Ah but they're so much fun to start on a cold day. You can practically make a morning of it.
These torque pins, and I mean the same exact torque pins we're used on the C4 Corvette on the pop-up headlight actuators. I know because I have rebuilt C4 pop-up headlights and used Ford torque pins. The torque pins are available through [Dorman Help] parts .
😂😂😂😂Make that "power window" motor sound again. I can't stop laughing😂😂😂 You are too funny, Adam.
I will!
@11:24 🙄😬
Please do more noises in the future.
The belt buzzers and such. And other dings and dings.
I have owned many late sixties early seventies Lincoln's, that is EXACTLY how they sound 😅 Lol
I know a few people who replaced the plastic ford torque pins with ball bearings.
Those or some nuts (like 5/8" or something like that)
@@rrice1705 2 5/16" nuts in each hole. Did it many times until Dorman started selling pin kits in ths HELP aisle, lol.
I remember looking at a used '83 Imperial in about 1991. Low miles, looked to be in perfect condition, and the price seemed very low compared to what they were new. I asked the salesguy about it, he said: "I'm going to do you a favour. Avoid these at all costs. They're money pits."
I still think they nailed the styling. Shame about the engine though.
You may have come across the only honest car salesman in the universe 😂
Bought one new, 1983, pure junque!!!
My first car was a 74 Matador (that was in 1979) had the seat beat interlock 'feature'. Luckily on those anyway, there was a wire under the driver and passenger seats that could be disconnected to defeat it....
Great list! Honorable mention, we had a ‘95 Lumina coupe with the pot metal B-pillar exterior door handles.
I got really good at replacing the drivers side 3 times before I sold the car.
I did that on my ‘96 regal coupe several times. Oddly enough it was never an issue on my ‘90 Beretta.
The Lincoln Continental in the 60s used vacuum operation on everything and when it failed it was a nightmare to work on and fix.
Seatbelt interlock. My parents' 1975 Chrysler Town & Country had it. I remember it well. That car suffered from carburetion problems, and would buck, hesitate and sometimes stall when pulling out of our driveway, or even in the driveway. If the car was just being moved or whatever, the seatbelt had to be put on and buckled. I remember my dad being incredibly frustrated with it, on top of the carburetion problems, which were bad enough without that.
Ford putting the Tfi module on the distributor in the 80s. It overheats and fails always at the most inopportune time.
GM had the excellent HEI Distributor and they had the ignition module in the base of the distributor and it wasn't an issue they also had Distriborless ignition on the V6 and ign module was mounted right to the side of the block on the transverse mounted engine. so it was at the front of the car and it was right below the exhaust manifold with ign coils attached to it right where it's the hottest and they seemed pretty reliable.
That module set up on the outside of the distributer was used thru 2000. I had a 1990 Topaz that blow thru that module after 5000 miles. Found out the grease put under it was wrong type, dry out and short out. That set up was used from 75 to 2k.
Of all the fords I owned with the tfi on the distributor. I never had an issue with them. But to me it was part of maintenance after a lot of miles to take them off, clean it up and re assemble them with dielectric grease.
@@sf-dn8rh At least on Mustangs and F series they movies it to the fender apron in 1994.
@@AntiZOGZone until the crappy little broke on the pickup causing all kinds of intermittent fun ....yeah , that's a party ....ferd and mopar are just as reliable...big block mopars did like to need spark plugs quite a lot for some reason though
I 'rebuilt' the headlight doors in my old '68 Cougar myself, back in the 1990s. Mine stayed open because the external seal for the close function was worn out. I went to the junk yard and found an '81-ish Thunderbird with the seals, and boots, intact. I un-swaged the retainer rings and bought the seals and put them on the Cougar's servos, and swaged the retainer rings back into place, and they worked! One took longer than the other to close, but they did close. I also tried to clean up the pitting on the shafts as best as I could.
In 68 they changed the actuator's for safety. Before vacuum opened the hideaways but a spring inside the actuator closed them, so if you lost vacuum your hideaways would close 😅 I put a set of 67 Cougar actuators in my 1970 Lincoln Mk III, they always stayed down unless the headlights were on 😄 Safety Last 😉 Lol
10:20 I had a couple of '74 LTD's in Australia with demolished window torque pins. I replaced them with steel rollers out of appropriate size bearings and they lasted the 20 years I had them. The wiring didn't supply enough current for window stalling to be an issue, even with separately fed change over relays fitted to each door motor.
Ford's inexplicable moving of the horn to the turn signal switch.
Another horrible "feature": Passive shoulder belts. They were so bad that they made them detachable because they would fail to retract or fail to move at all, and you'd have to climb around them to enter/exit the car!
5:58 What a gorgeous interior. It looks like a high-quality Hi-Fi stereo console from the early 60s.
What about all the vacuum operated stuff. Pop up headlights, wipers, door locks, etc. always a nightmare compared to their electrical countetparts
I wrote this before I saw you mentioned it. Had all that stuff on my 68 and 70 Corvette. Always a nightmare
Vacuum accessories on my 70 Eldorado all work fine. Maintenance is the key.
@@biglongcadillac can agree on that but when you buy them a little bit on the rough side and everything is dry rotted it can be a nightmare. Also all the junctions that combine the headlight and windshield doors. Just a lot of fail points. Have a 65 Vette now and having electrical motors makes life much easier beside the fact you can do more to the motor when not worried about vacuum
@druballard8929 yes indeed. My mechanical knowledge is minimal and I got lucky enough to find a garage queen. But I do enjoy the vacuum pull-down on my trunk.
The vacuum operated HVAC controls on my 34 year old Ford still work perfectly fine. The electrical door lock actuators had to be replaced, though, and then the replacements failed too within a year (aftermarket parts). And strangely, a couple of years later, they began working again, and have ever since.
Mid 1980's Volkswagen/Audi products had a similar torque pin power window motor/gearbox, and it had the same problems. I don't think it was the same part but I could be wrong since VAG and Ford cooperated at times back then. I had to replace the whole thing on the drivers side window of my '85 Scirocco Turbo, since you could not replace the pins only.
Great video!
#9 1958 Edsel's teletouch Part of the problem was the placement of the shift motor. It was mounted on the side of the transmission right next to the exhaust system. Though there was a heat shield, many a mechanic tossed it when working on the car.
Alot of Edsel had the Shield left off from the factory some had it in the trunk and some didn't have it at all.
The heat on the servo could cause the transmission to shift by itself, some had been known to shift into reverse when the car was going down the Highway.
@@mylanmiller9656 Add moisture and electricity. A disaster in the making.
Thank you for another (non-guitar-solo) presentation, always love your posts.
There’s so many, but I think the worst thing ever (so far) is the auto stop/start system on today’s cars. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t hate it. Unfortunately, I suspect, it’s not going away.
Second thing I do after putting on the seat belt is disabled the start stop😊
@@andydanko7074 There's a small CAFE penalty for having a disabling button--some cars don't have them. They used to say it takes more fuel to restart than about 30 seconds of idling.
winner winner chicken dinner
@@ralphl7643auto stop start should really only be on hybrid cars.
Try finding a new capacitor for that system, by the way
The newest car that is even somewhat acceptable to me is about 2014. Anything newer from any marque is just a solid NO.
In the 90’s I owned a ‘69 Thunderbird with the vacuum operated headlight doors and door locks. The doorlocks worked fine but the headlight doors would open gradually after shut down. My solution was to retrofit ‘67 actuators that did not have the internal return spring. Those actuators would remain in whatever position they were left at shut down.
Other bad ones were the transmissions in the early Ford Taurus. One guy I knew was on the interstate, went in to get some chow, and came back it was DOA. I bought a new 1988....went out one morning to back it out of the garage.....put it in reverse and it took it about 45 seconds to engage.....Got rid of it.
Was that the AXOD? I knew a guy that ended up going through three or four of them.
I drove about a dozen 88-mid 90s Tauruses for work. The business owner loved to buy them for $2000. So they were piles. The engines seemed pretty bulletproof. But the transmissions would blow if you looked at them. The cars went 0 to 60 in a week. I floored it in one and the transmission blew out.
@@jn1mrgn Interesting, my mom had several Vulcan 1st gen Tauruses, never had any failure, most had over 300K when she gave them away.
@@misters2837 why did she own more than one if they were so reliable?
Worst feature in my limited driving experience: vacuum windshield wipers. Acceleration 'sucked' all the vacuum and the wipers would stop. Required pulling off the throttle, wiping 1 or 2 cycles, then back on the throttle.
now you're talking old school. We had a 59 Chevy grain truck with vacuum wipers and vacuum powered axle shifter. Good times driving that with 300 bushels of corn behind you and a 261 C. I. six up front. Maybe 45 mph if you could catch a little downgrade, just make sure you start slowing down early, vacuum assist hydraulic brakes were not that great.
Ford's "push the turn signal stalk to blow the horn" feature. The cars used by the driving school I went to in 1981 had Fairmonts(?) with them; both of the cars had broken steering wheel pads, doubtless from people hitting where they expected the horn control to be, then hitting it again harder when the horn didn’t sound the first time. Not sure what bright light came up with that one, but in a panic situation where someone is going for the horn while possibly making major steering inputs, the fine motor control needed to press on the end of the signal stalk may well have left the building.
From what I understand, it is common for the horn button to be on the left stalk in Europe, so Ford tried to make that a thing here so that they could reduce the differences between US and Euro spec versions of their cars and save some money. It didn't go over well, obviously.
Back in the day I would cut pieces of brake line to replace the torque pins. Hey, I worked at a used car lot.
Niiiiice 😁
I just filled them in with Bondo and made the gear/cog one piece. 😂 Turned the window into a guillotine but no wirwirwirwir ever again 😉 Lol
My favorite pet peeve with most new cars are the head restraints that force the driver to slouch forward like someone with osteoporosis. I often end up reversing them, so they point backward. They need to bring back depth adjustments they offered in the 1980s.
Whiplash
Surprised the Chrysler Ultradrive transmission didn’t make the list
He did mention it briefly. Now I want to research it
THM 200 - the cellophane transmission..
I bought one as a parts transmission for a TH350 I was rebuilding, thinking that SOME of the parts should interchange. The forward drum had huge lightening holes in it! Everything in it was weak and I used none of it.
The faulty lockup torque converter solenoids on the TH125C transmissions. My dad and I did our own diagnosis on our 84 Celebrity and put in a cutout switch to disable the lockup. Replaced the TCC solenoid for $186. We left the cutout switch in the car just in case the new solenoid ever acted up and it did a few years later at a stoplight. We hit the cutout switch and drove away. A new solenoid and were back in business until i junked the car years later. I remember the common fix by less than honorable dealers and transmission shops were to sell customers on new/rebuilt transmissions.
Why did you wait years to junk it!!???🤷
Amazing that Cadillac sold a high end luxury car with 0-60 @ 18 seconds, where today the mid-5 second 0-60 for the Cadillac Lyriq isn’t considered fast for the class. My how far we have come.
The crushing burden of govvie fuel and emission regs and still trying to have a car that could be sold.
Here another, Hitachi 1 and 2 barrel cabs used on Nissan A series engines 74 to 83, b210, 210, 310, and trucks. Also used on Sentras 83 to 88. These things were a nightmare, vapor locked up so bad in summer and impossible to keep running right.
Nylon timing teeth.
73 caddy power locks had the solenoid mounted with the rod sticking out the top sealed with a rubbers bellows thing that eventually failed. Freezing rain would drip into the solenoid and freeze the locks on or off. Once the water was in there it would melt and freeze every day. I remember many times pouring hot water into the door to melt the frozen solenoid. All they would have had to do was mount it upside down and use a lever to work the lock. Also had vacuum everything and wipers that would eventually refuse to stop when the grease used in the wiper motor would get hard and prevent engagement of a lever in the mechanism.
My dad wouldn’t even rebuild a 200 THM transmission because he said they were too cheaply made and weren’t worth the trouble. We’d sometimes replace them with a 350 which would fit with a few modifications underneath
Imagine a Chevy Vega with a TH350. Sure, it may leak coolant everywhere due to overheating, it may blow its head gasket, and it may rust worse than a GMT800 truck and a second gen ram put together, but at least the transmission is reliable.
I honestly kinda want a Vega. My 1966 Oldsmobile has been extremely reliable since I replaced the last bit of rubber fuel hose, would give me something to spend my money on. Especially if I did something dumb and swapped a GM Atlas I5 into it.
@@lsswappedcessna believe it or not, the early Vegas actually used an air cooled version of the THM 350 . They later replaced it with the 200.
@@dmandman9 Huh, interesting!
My choice would be the Auto start and stop engines that they use today. It's quite frustrating to have a modern car that stalls out because you forgot to push a stupid button. Beyond that, if you don't push the button and allow your car to stall out, you actually get worse fuel mileage, so it doesn't even do what it is supposed to do, which is save on fuel consumption.
And all start stop systems have a counter which disables the starter.
Toyota is 2,000 times.
Til the system bricks until the dealer replaces the $tarter$ with dealer only reset of the counter.
@@fastinradfordable That makes it even worse than I thought.
Adam, my mom's '72 Caddy Coupe De Ville would get 21mpg, on the FREEWAY,(55mph), with her 472 cu. in. and 16 city, (driven gently), when it was tuned up right!
As always, learning from Adam, I didn't know about the 2 minute wait on the early Olds 5.7. Makes sense, I had a '82 6.2 diesel, I was told by a mechanic those had 6 volt glow plugs,(obviously 12 volts going to them),and thats why they get so hot in seconds. After I heard that, I thought : isn't that dangerous(?), guess not. The V6 4.3 diesel had less problems from the jump(more head bolts per cylinder) compared to the 5.7 Used in front drive cars, the mileage some people got is impressive , for the '80s or now. Pretty sure I've read or seen vids, 38 mpg, and that version was reliable (sure, it came out years later)
78, the first year, those engines were especially junk. In hot weather, you had to wait 30 seconds, before starting. In the winter, you froze your ass off, waiting up to 2 minutes to start. If it would start.
Any motor with an internal water pump
Saab had an internal water pump that you had to rebuild . You also had to know which one you had so you could order the right one.
Chrysler 2.7 V6
What was it, the 59 Lincoln engine. Internal power steering pump. Really. Mentioned on one episode of a TV show, the one in Norfolk, where the room they meet customers looks like a diner.
@@russellstyles5381 You have that upside down and backwards my friend.
Through 1969, Lincolns had EXTERNAL power steering pumps that were unusually powered by being bolted directly to the front of the crankshaft pulley. This was because the interval electric wiper had not been invented yet, and while Cadillac might have given you 3-speed wipers, Lincoln gave you infinite-speed wipers with hydraulic motors. For reliability, they decided not to run them off a belt as usual.
As a side note, those hydraulic wiper motors were so powerful that GMC bought the rest of them for the looong wiper arms of their GMC motorhomes from 1973-78.
@@marko7843 I'm not going to binge that show to get details, sorry. He was complaining about stopping leaks. Had to go through 4 or 5 different sets of gaskets and seals.
Chrysler Lean Burn system and GM Northstar V8.
My dad had two different 78 Cadillacs and more than once on a cold winter night everyone would be awakened to the horn blowing away and the only way to get it to stop was to pull the batter cable. What apparently would happen is the cover in the center of the wheel would contract in the cold and cause the horn to blow.
I thought I was the only one. 😮
🏳🌈
Great segment, Adam. I wonder if you’ve ever done a segment on an issue that Ford Motor Company had with the transmission selector slipping out of gear. My mother was at a gas station as I recall in the early 80s putting gas in her 1979 Mark V. A woman pulled up in a newer Lincoln Continental and left the car running exited the car to get directions. The car slipped out of park and into reverse and careened around the gas station. The driver attempted to enter the car and the door knocked her over and my mom saw the Lincoln run over the woman killing her. After that horrible incident, my mother later received a notice from Ford Motor Company about depressing the emergency brake when putting the car into park and never leaving the car unattended with the engine running. Have you ever heard of this incident with Ford motor company transmission selectors?
Fox based cars with the gear selector on the columb were well known for this issue. I worked in a shop where the tech pulled an 84 T Bird on an alignment rack, put it in park, got out to set the front steering plates while the car was still running, and it dropped into reverse all by itself. He tried to jump in the moving car but the open door knocked him over, and the car went back 30 ft, through the service manager's desk and pinning him to a brick wall. Our showroom was on the other side of said wall and customers went scrambling, as they could see through our giant plate glass windows what was coming. After that, corporate told us to always shut these Fords down upon exit. Even still, we did have an 82 Granada roll away 1 time in our parking lot but it was shut off and luckily the curb stopped it. I don't recall any of the full sized RWD Fords having this issue, just the Fox based cars.
I knew you were going to point out that the Edsel trans control was electric while the Chryslers were mechanical, but it kills me that Rolls Royce used a servo motor for DECADES on the sides of the Turbo 400 trannies they bought from GM...
Also, I just can't believe they put Turbo 200s behind V8s or turbo V6 Grand Nationals!
Sad because the early Buick G-Body Turbo-Coupes had shitty Q-Jet Turbo 3.8L engines, but had the TH350C - A fine transmission!
@@misters2837 Yep, we had an '82... You can find it in the dictionary, as the definition of "turbo lag". 😝
I've really come to enjoy your videos. Thanks for using your own voice in this age when so many video makers are using computer generated voices. Your videos are great. I just subscribed to your channel.
You're very welcome!
When I was 8 or 9 my neighbors bought a new big olds. It was loud, smokey, & I remember the adult's complaining about it.