Grandpa, tell me bout the good ole days............

[ultrarunner]

Owned a few 4wd and the most fun and problem free over 22 years is the Samurai...

Haven't spent a nickel on repairs and only expenses a couple of batteries and fluids... Oh and a $10 grommet for gearshift.

The finest 4wd is the Range Rover... amazing technology but expensive to repair and always something needing attention...

As new perfect paint, body, interior and drives like a dream. Over 90k new maybe 5k used

I could get 3 times what I paid for the Suzuki today as I paid for it in 1998.

 

[ultrarunner]

Literally thousands of mods and accessories for Model T cars and also a lot for Model A's...

Innovation unleashed...

 

[Oaktree]

All the apartments have millivolt wall furnace...

Never a single thermostat call in 20 years for entire building... how I wish for yesterday!

Mercury is easily recycled and never goes bad and sealed in a glass vial.

I wonder how many batteries to dispose generated over decades?

Never bought an Edison Bulb for a tenant.... Tenants don't buy compact florescents... at least not in Oakland... several of the energy saver fixtures went bad so more waste...

Yeah, just more instances of (presumably) well-intentioned politicians not thinking things all the way thru. You're right, unless you break it, that mercury thermostat was perfectly safe, if a bit low-tech but it lasted almost forever.

I wonder how much money is being saved with CFLs and/or LED fixtures. The problem is the cheap-o power supplies in them...yeah, the LEDs themselves might last 20 years, but if the power supply goes bad after 2 what have you gained? Yeah, prices on them have come down, but they're still way more expensive than old bulbs.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Some of that is personal choice. Very few people NEED to be reachable anytime, anyplace. For the rest of us, there's no need to carry a cellphone 24/7, yet there's such a fear of missing something that most do these days.

As far as 4WD goes, I've really come to like the Quadratrac in the last 2 Jeeps I've had. RWD most of the time, but if the tires start to spin it shifts power to the front wheels as needed.
I rarely pay bills online, but the option is nice to have if I space it and discover that my Visa bill is due tomorrow.



Well, incandescent bulbs burned out too, and if someone wasn't smart enough/willing to change a CFL they probably won't change an incandescent either.
I thought the batteries were only a backup in modern thermostats, that they were also powered from the furnace/AC.



Yeah, school was almost never cancelled when I was growing up. I'm sure it's a liability issue.

Liability issue? The teachers didn't want to make up the time later. We too went to school come hail or high water, and that included snow.

 

[MossRoad]

I did too, usually after a few drinks.
The way I should have said it was 100 years ago with one wheel drive and those super skinny tires and 20 horsepower...to me that's impressive. There are other better videos also. Most modern trucks, Hummers, etc hardly are ever driven on grass.
Imagine what roads were like then? Even in the 50s I remember lots of dirt (not gravel) dirt roads. Mud after rain, fording creeks.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of those videos and man, even though our roads seem bad some days, they didn't even have roads in a lot of places. I wonder if it was the skinny tires that put more weight on the ground that gave them good traction VS the wider tires of today. Plus, they were pretty light machines to begin with.

 

[Jstpssng]

Another take on waiting to shift into 4WD until after you need it... this only applies to newer vehicles. I drove up an unplowed road today; not a lot of snow, but what was there is heavy and hard to push through. I came back to the highway and slowed to check for traffic then stepped on the gas... just as I went into the snowbank and the truck died because I hadn't turned the ****ing traction control off. I once had a Toyota with a bad plug wire, and acted the same as my truck today.

I tried to get up another road but turned around when my tranny started getting warmer than I like to see it. Heading back out I tapped the brakes to slow for a washout... instead the ABS kicked in. I was doing about 20 mph on the snow covered road when I stepped on the brakes; I was doing about 20 mph when I crashed through the washout, then stepped on it to keep from getting stuck there. Luckily that time I'd remembered to disengage the TC.

 

[user.69169]

Mud Trucks at The Buck Motorsports Mud Bog 6-29-219 - YouTube

Still tryin to figure dis out.

 

[Jstpssng]

Mud Trucks at The Buck Motorsports Mud Bog 6-29-219 - YouTube

Still tryin to figure dis out.

I wonder if the driver of the S10 at 3 minutes realized that he wasn't' moving.

 

[ultrarunner]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of those videos and man, even though our roads seem bad some days, they didn't even have roads in a lot of places. I wonder if it was the skinny tires that put more weight on the ground that gave them good traction VS the wider tires of today. Plus, they were pretty light machines to begin with.

Several of the Montana neighbors used an old Model A for hunting and some of the pictures are extreme...

The narrow tires provide excellent traction unless flotation needed then not so good... they actually do well in fresh snow too...

Vanadium steel and lots of forged components... chassis is very flexible and steel spoke wheels of tremendous strength... probably why so many survived.

 

[Fuddy1952]

Literally thousands of mods and accessories for Model T cars and also a lot for Model A's...

Innovation unleashed...

One I saw was a log splitter. You just jacked the driven rear wheel up, remove wheel and put this giant cone on. Cone was threaded like a wood screw. I'm sure it worked but had to be unbelievably dangerous!