Upset with Porter Cable/Delta !!

[Mike Berger]

[Tom Woodman]

The days of relying on brand names to judge quality (of any kind of goods) is long gone. Brand names are bought and sold every day. Get to know the guys at your local rental center... they'll tell you in a hurry what's crap and what isn't. Tom

[Leon]

Yeah, I have not heard of any Jaguar owners having to put a Chevy V8 in to make the car run any more. :~)

[Doug Miller]

That's sad, in so many ways.

[Swingman]

I don't think it's "mechanical quality" so much as engineering, as a science, has advanced sufficiently to produce more "consistent crap".

Used to be that each individual sports car had mechanical characteristics/quirks all it's own, and that was part of the fun of owning one.

[Charlie Self]

Let's not forget that Ford owns Jaguar, today, too. But with snowmobiles back in the '70s, I recall doing an article for, I believe, Camping Journal, as a round-up. It was an impossibility, so I ended up calling about 18 of the top sellers and covering their machines, while adding in two or three that had novel features.

Haven't even thought about sleds in more than two decades. Snowfall in south central VA doesn't add up to that kind of outdoor play, but I can recall in Albany, NY in the late '60s where snow got so severe they had to use snowmobiles (borrowed) for emergency vehicles...ambulances and what not. Had to be a rough, cold ride for the patients.

[Dave Hinz]

We've got a patient-hauling-trailer for snowmobile incidents. For the record, it's also damn cold being the EMT holding c-spine traction while the wind blows up the back of your jacket for the duration of the snowmobile segment of the transport. DAMHIKT.

[Greg G]

From the lips of an experienced 50's/60's era English car owner?

I shiver with a curious mix of nostalgia and pain when I think of some of the cars I used to drive and service - but there remains one unfailing truism - they definitely had character.

Had a customer who owned a really old MG with actual threaded knock-offs and wire wheels. He ran it into a ditch and had to replace the right spindle - only problem was, he could only find a left spindle in the local scrap-yards. (It must have been a common problem back then - running into ditches and such...)

The car spent the remainder of it's life in one ditch after another as the wheel repeatedly fell off. He didn't have the sense to safety wire the knock-off into in place, and couldn't/wouldn't pay to have it fixed right.

Now THAT's a Character...

Greg G.

[Swingman]

Not exactly, but the next best thing ... I had that rare uncle, a bachelor college professor (sort of a Hugh Hefner about town), who would give his 16 year old nephew a pint of whisky and the keys to his current sports cars to take on a date ... included a couple of different Alfa Romeo's, more than a few MG's, and at least one Mercedes rally car (300SL?) ... we loved each and everyone, jointly.

And I was often his "advisor" when he went sports car shopping trips ... then he had to go ruin it all by getting married (and all this time he'd been instructing me in the philosophy of not buying the cow when the milk was free)

.. Can you imagine getting away with that today?

[David]

Even the model that came out immediately before the 3450 RPM (the 1.5 HP) motor model was nicer. It lacked a few features of the later model, but at least the earlier model ran more quietly and smoothly. I had both models for a brief time. The 1 HP model (the model before they upped the HP to 1.5) was pretty decent. I wouldn't have kept the 1.5 version in my shop if it were free. Seriously.

dave

[Mark & Juanita]

Having seen all of the British autos I ever care to, I would say that it wouldn't have taken much to improve a British auto's mechanical quality.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Mark & Juanita]

Would certainly agree with that. Bought a PC cordless drill in 1999 (Pentair era). Nice drill, but at about 1 to 1 1/2 years old, I wound up shaking plastic parts out of it (not really sure what they were a part of, I think they were part of a guide for the forward/reverse switch). This was for a drill that had never been dropped nor abused in any way. That was the reason I decided not to replace the batteries when they went, but bought a Milwaukee to replace it. The difference in quality between the two drills is staggering and apparent. It's just so obvious which one was "value-engineered" and which one was engineered for value.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Leon]

I have a friend that bought a PC cordless drill. Parts fell out of it also... He went back to Craftsman. LOL

I did however buy another PC Speed Bloc last week, my old one pooped out after only 16 years.

[Lew Hodgett]

SFWIW, when FoMoCo bought Jag, it took 35 mqn hours to assemble one vs less than 1 hour for most FoMoCo units.

Reducing direct labor and getting rid of the "Prince of Darkness" electrical system were great starts to improve the reliability of the Jag.

Personally, I wouldn't have one.

Nothing personal, just not my type of vehicle.

Lew

[Lew Hodgett]

Was that the factory PC service center in Ontario or somebody in L/A?

Doesn't take much huh?

Lew

[evodawg]

It used to be in Ontario right off Miliken but now has moved to Riverside and the name is now Black and Decker

[Charlie Self]

What? Buying the cow?

For an interesting couple of shots of old sports check the MG TC on my web site, and the 1934 Jaguar SS1.

Just read a babbling book that said the SS100s were the first Jaguars, in 1936. Well, I didn't exactly read it. Paged through to points of interest. When I catch a writer telling me that Plymouth had such and such power, and in the very next sentence, no para break, he babbles on about Pontiac, I know he got his notes confused, his mind in a whirl, and didn't do the work of rereading and rewriting. And nobody proofread the blinking thing. I thought lack of proofreading was a trendy, today sort of thing, but this book was out in '78 or so, and I caught an earlier one by the same guy doing the same stuff. Expensive books in their day, too.

[George]

What I like is the way they pay attention to the trail markers as they blast through. You take the recovery sled in for six miles before you find them. A quarter mile from another road. Of course, at the speeds they travel, the color - trail number code - rather than the mileage is about all they _might_ catch. Digital cell phones are a help, as long as they're not in a swale.

It was nine winters before I recovered my first _sober_ snowmobiler. Says a lot.

[George]

Wire wheels was what made them a "sports car" to my insurer. With solids, the MGA, even the DOHC, was an "economy" car. Guess which kind I had - according to his paperwork.

The 120 Jag I rebuilt afterward had knockoffs too. Seems there were holes for safety wires, though my memory is starting to fade.

[Mike]

But at least the Brits designed cars so they went round corners, 50 years later it's something the Yanks still have considerable difficulty with.