rev up your engines, now if you've been following me for any time you'll know I
tell people to buy used cars so they can save a bunch of money lose depreciation
but sometimes you can go to old in a used car really all cars a lot more
maintenance of modern cars to do you can't just put gas and oil in them and
drive them forever, their maintenance heavy check out this
go to the we go to the engine hiding under here ok this four-cylinder Volkswagen engine has two
carburetors one carburetor here and one carburetor there you got to keep them
clean you got to adjust them and you have to sync them you get a special
gauge measures the vacuum pressure and you have to keep adjusting them so they
both run exactly the same so when you take off one side of the engine doesn't
get more fuel than the other side this is a heavy maintenance thing that has to
be done quite often on these things and to know electronic ignition it has a
distributor which has points and condensers in it you pop the sides off
get a screwdriver there's the other side there's the condenser on the side and
the rotor that spins around to send spark to the spark plug through the
wires now the points are mechanical they open and close to fire that just wears
out over time then you got to replace the points and the condenser is the
electrical part you're good to replace that because that can short out over
time these things can wear out as little as fifteen thousand miles once you
replace the points you have to set them but then you have to set the ignition
timing because they're not all made exactly same seeing the timing light
warm up the engine you got to turn to distribute to get the timing right it's
a lot of work we're a minor car everything's done by computers you don't
adjust anything and it's all electronic it either works or it doesn't work take
this 13 year old matrix the ignition system has never been touched
now it's only got 65,000 miles and the spark plugs are still good the ignition
systems coil on plug so it's all done by computers and nor justing anything
I've never been touched it still runs like a clock so there's a lot more
maintenance on these cars you do look at an old car like this you notice
something's missing what's missing is no air conditioner it may be seven o'clock
in the morning here in Houston but I'm already profusely sweating because it's
July summers here but ever gonna sweat most people are not gonna drive a car
like this without air conditioning in Houston and let's say you buy a more
modern older car that has air conditioning in it you got a car that's
20 years old or older and it's still got an air conditioning system on it
odds are it's gonna need some very expensive work overtime I've had
customers buy cars that hey you couldn't even buy a new compressor for him
anymore you got only buy rebuilt ones which often stink and don't last long I
put floor compressors on that was a Honda and each one went out because they
were just cheaply rebuilt once finally we found an old stock new one and it's
still working to the stay of that one but all systems of course have worn out
and let's say you got when it's got it really hard to get evaporator inside the
dash where you got to tear the whole dash apart to replace it you can spend thousands of
dollars working on these air conditioning systems and still just have
an old car with a patched-up ac system, realize if you
live in a hot climate a really old car with a really old air conditioner may
not be such a smart idea and while we are talking about all cars you're
looking at one first thing you want to look at it scroll under the car look at
the frame now as you can see on this old boat wagon its pristine this thing's
been baby through its whole life it's lived in garages sheltered when it lived up north
it didn't go out in the winter so this is an excellent shape it's a good car
for that if you're looking a really old car and you find the frames all right
bring a little hammer if you hit it crunches in when you hit it don't buy it
once the frames rotten a car would need what's called a frame-off restoration
they've taken the entire car apart to the bare frame and either buy a new
frame have parts built have it welded back together and then put it all
together it's so much hassle it's not something you want to get involved in if
it's a rust bucket let it be somebody else's bucket not
yours no when you look inside these folks are you see it's interiors
actually it's been done over by Pro who really
know what he was doing and this particular one has a four speed standard
transmission they're really dependable but let's say you're looking at an older
automatic you get something that's 40-50 years old with the automatic
transmission odds are it's gonna need some serious expensive work if you can't
even find anybody old enough who knows how to fix those things not as once
where I can be in a 67 and it's time it was a really well handling vehicle it
still handles decently but it's nothing compared to a modern vehicle that has
state-of-the-art suspension tires that have wider grip to them braking systems
that really can stop on a dime and all this thing it doesn't even have power
brakes now this is a more modern VW look here you see the front brakes our disc
brakes it has disc brakes in the front they're
really old ones had drum brakes in the front and the back but even on the back
with the drum brakes here these drum brakes aren't even automatically
adjustable you have to manually adjust the drum brakes now take this matrix it
has disc in the front and drums in the back but the back drums have automatic
adjusters on them so you never have to do anything they adjust themselves so
when you drive but not on this old Volkswagen you have to jack up the car
bend the wheel and if it spins free go to the back and there's an adjusting
bolt and you turn up little bits at a time until it just starts to rub it's
kind of a pain in the butt to do that stage especially I really almost up and
those bolts start to rust on and you either get them too tight or too loose
all the time and if you get a really old car like
this vw generally the suspension system start to sag when they
get that old kind of like people that founders up pretty high but the back
wheel you can see it's much lower the tire is almost touching the fender they
often sang as they age and that's it back you can see the back is really
slanted down because it's just sad from old age unless it's perfectly restored
you're gonna see that a lot of old cars seem going on a road and they're either
sitting this way or this way or sideways one way or the other because Springs
just naturally wear over time and they'll start sagging like people Sagan
as they age, all the rubber gets old a lot of
this has been done over but generally in a big rain or if you go through car wash
water starts coming even this one's got some water that comes in at when it's
raining now at least here in taxes and some other states when there's old is
this they don't have to go through any emissions tusky
when you get inspected just a safety inspection so you don't have to worry
about getting really expensive bills when it comes time to get your car
inspected as long as the brake lights and everything works on it you don't
have to worry about that pollution control stuff that you can end up
spending thousands on if catalytic converters or other parts go bad and
that's one being basically a Volkswagen Beetle design parts are still readily
available all over the world form it's not like you can't get parts form but be
prepared to do some serious maintenance on a vehicle like this as you're driving
around especially if you're crazy enough to buy one and use it as an everyday
driver non stop and go traffic especially in place like Houston where
it's hot and humid the engines can have a tendency of overheating and number
three piston but at least with modern oils full synthetic oils they dissipate
heat better and on this they call it an air-cooled engine but it's really an air
/ oil cooled engine the oil serves a lot of the coolant so use a good synthetic
oil in one of these things hey it's going to run cooler than it will with
just a conventional like a straight thirty that they originally were made
for and that's particularly as you've done by a pro you can see there's no oil
drips under the engine the engine was rebuilt by a pro really know what he was
doing it runs great it doesn't really go oil but if you're thinking about buying
a classic where the engine and transmission wasn't taken apart and
rebuilt correctly you're gonna find every single oil seal any rubber parts
they're gonna be rotten they're gonna leak power steering hoses are gonna
leave generally the power steering rack will start leaking to from old age and
the rubber just deteriorates now realize that the electrical systems on these
older cars are pretty simple if you're planning on putting fancy stereo or
stuff in you're gonna have to upgrade the stuff because if you look at the
charging system this thing only creates 30 amps of power that's it 30 amps many
minor cars have well over 100 amp alternator so if you're gonna try to
soup one of these things up with a fancy stereo system or any kind of electronic
devices you're gonna have to upgrade the
alternators now it can be done there's kits and stuff like that but just
realize you're not gonna be able to buy some old car and just whip in some giant
stereo entertainment system I think it's going to work without draining the
battery and straining the electrical system so if you're the buyer really all
car hey maybe not a bad idea for a Knockaround toy that you can fool around
with but don't think you're gonna buy it and drive the thing 15,000 20,000 miles
a year without spending a whole bunch of time and money fixing it, so if you never
want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that Bell