<VV> Corvair Fuel Mileage - not much Corvair anymore

[Les]

     Sure, just about any new car will do 100k without much maintenance 
- but god help the next owner (or the current owner if he wants to keep 
the car a long time) if he gets one that hasn't been maintained! 
Everything will fail at once! And not just little things - probably the 
engine will be fatally sludged, and the transmission will be choked to 
death on black gunk.

What you want is to be the second owner of a modern car that's been 
properly maintained - and that means swapping every fluid at about 60k 
miles (including all the 'lifetime' ones like trans and brake), 
belts/pullies about the same, oil at 5k. Do THAT and drive that same car 
forever.

Les

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Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:33:55 -0400
From: Bryan Blackwell<bryan at skiblack.com>
Subject: Re:<VV>  Corvair Fuel Mileage - not much Corvair anymore
To: shortle<shortle556 at earthlink.net>
Cc: Virtual Vairs<virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Message-ID:<6BCE8532-46ED-4F17-B05B-31480236588C at skiblack.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

In my experience a new car - say in the last ten years or so - doesn't need any fluids besides oil and coolant for the first 100k.  Spark plugs go just fine for 100k, as do most of the bulbs.  Now, you might do better using the 'severe service' maintenance schedule if you want to get very far into the next 100k miles, but yes, the new cars will do 100k with very little attention.  My oldest bought a 90k mile 2000 Marquis last year, and it ran just fine on the OE plugs that were scheduled to be changed when we got it.

Having said that, I've found that a Corvair with an electronic ignition and good carbs will go a lot further on a set of plugs - 30k or so - and of course no points to adjust.  So that really makes them more like a newer car, do all the fluids every three or four years, plus an oil change every 5k or annually.  The biggest difference is the lube points - the new cars have almost none, although I silicone the CV joint boots on my Neon every oil change or so.

--Bryan

On Apr 20, 2011, at 10:11 PM, shortle wrote:


> >  But I'm convinced the biggest reason manufacturers are including free maintenance and longer warranties is so they can sell their products in todays world. Yes modern cars will go 100k with only oil changes but they will still need air filters, brakes, lite bulbs,etc. Do the spark plugs really go 100,000 without some misfiring and setting off warning lites? Are "sealed" transmissions truly never needing oil changes as a car salesman may state? Or is it that "every" car driven really is in extreme use needing more maintenance than the manufacturers proclaim?