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[Lizzie Zoom]

Yes dad was "lucky" in as much as up until '69 all his cars were company cars were company cars replaced at maximum 2 yearly intervals. If they didn't start/broke down he simply phoned a garage to get them fixed.When Super Snipe production ended he wanted a P5B but grandad[his dad] wouldn't allow it so he got a MkIV Zodiac Executive which as it turned out was his last company car.When buying privately he bought a Wolesley 18/85 which was then joined by a 5yr old Silver Cloud III,they were then both replaced by a Mercedes 280CE pillarless coupe which was then replaced[because once in the garage he couldn't open the door wide enough to get out!]by a '74 Escort MK1 1300XL which he owned until he passed away in '77.

Yes, the company car is always the best car, or at least it was (apart from all the mileage I had to do) but now the taxman has, I believe, all but killed that "perk" off!

[aaronjb]

Some rose tinted spectacles there I think.
Modern cars still breakdown but the failures tend to be either electrical or major mechanical ones, neither of which are fixable at the roadside.

Yup - once upon a time I could have easily found a coolant leak (which her Mini appears to have sprung in a large way) with a pressure test .. now there are so many coolant hoses & pipes hidden from view in the cramped engine bay that I really only have one hope, and his name isn't Bob! Much less being able to open the bonnet, look at a wet hose and go "Ah, I'll just change that one, take me two minutes..".

As noted elsewhere, I have to do the stem seals as well - a job I know I could have done more quickly on an A-series

[Kevin Wood]

As noted elsewhere, I have to do the stem seals as well - a job I know I could have done more quickly on an A-series

.. but the cost of being able to do that is having a car that stops every time you go through a puddle!

[aaronjb]

As noted elsewhere, I have to do the stem seals as well - a job I know I could have done more quickly on an A-series

.. but the cost of being able to do that is having a car that stops every time you go through a puddle!

  True!

[Lizzie Zoom]

Some rose tinted spectacles there I think.
Modern cars still breakdown but the failures tend to be either electrical or major mechanical ones, neither of which are fixable at the roadside. The AA, RAC, Greenflag, National Breakdown etc are just as busy as they always were, and that doesn't include the smaller more recent providers.
Anyone who has worked for manufacturer's warranty providers will tell you that they're busy too; the company I worked for had at least five people on the road, and meeting colleagues at main dealers happened every week. We were at Maidstone Mercedes so often that they told us to just unload cars without checking in first!
You could proably convince me that cars designed in the 90s and 00s  were better than ones from 20 years earlier, but the increased complexityand cost of getting work done means that we've gone backwards; for instanc3 the cost ofa replacement clutch can easily kill a £1000 everyday car

You may well be right there

However, I am sure that what I saw with my own eyes and heard within the (adult) driving community around me at the time, then my own experience on the road from the late 1960's, that the type of breakdown was usually more serious with serious engine failures.  Maybe the TYPE of breakdown we are now talking about has changed?  Here is a Which list of the 10 ten most common breakdowns, which importantly is echoed by the likes of the AA.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2011/08/top-10-reasons-for-car-breakdowns-263068/

https://www.theaa.com/breakdown-cover/advice/top-ten-breakdown-causes

I suspect, from what you say Nick, that the complexities of modern cars, with all their electronic wizardry, has made all the difference from a reliability point of view, in the positive (carburetors, distributors, capacitors, points, etc have all gone), bujt the systems themselves can have "computer" troubles.

It is an interesting subject, but either way I still love with nostalgic eyes those big, heavy, British, cars of the 1950's into 60's.

[Kevin Wood]

What the above tells me is that most of what we call "breakdowns" today would have been called "lack of common sense" in the 1960s / 1970s. 

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

Ignition related faults could very often be repaired or bodged in days gone by, and drivers often knew how to do so, through necessity.
As electronics have taken over this role, they have become much more reliable, but not usually repairable at the roadside when things do go wrong..
Few drivers have any knowledge or interest in how their cars work anymore. They think of them as tools for a job the same as a washing machine or fridge.
Hence the prevalence of Kia,s and the like infesting the roads.

[Lizzie Zoom]

Ignition related faults could very often be repaired or bodged in days gone by, and drivers often knew how to do so, through necessity.
As electronics have taken over this role, they have become much more reliable, but not usually repairable at the roadside when things do go wrong..
Few drivers have any knowledge or interest in how their cars work anymore. They think of them as tools for a job the same as a washing machine or fridge.
Hence the prevalence of Kia,s and the like infesting the roads.

How true that is.

I think the car industry has encouraged that by virtually saying no one but a motor technician - not mechanic - needs to lift the bonnet outside of the servicing intervals.  All the youngsters around me never lift their bonnets until something goes wrong, even to check the oil and water!  As you say, they have little interest in what makes their cars tick as I believe, unlike my generation, they never think they will ever (need to) work on the engine; I expected to do so to keep my old banger going, and attended evening classes to learn car mechanics, along with an uncle teaching me a lot more about the internal combustion engine, as the car which now would never pass an MOT needed content attention to keep going! As I have touched on in my posts, I HAD to keep maintaining the carburetor settings, cleaning the distributors contacts, checking the HT leads, cleaning the plugs ( to keep the oil deposits to a manageable level!) and just keeping enough oil and water going around the engine.

 The modern youngster does not (they think) face that challenge with the cars of today, and with the advancement of electric cars they could well be right!

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

Ignition related faults could very often be repaired or bodged in days gone by, and drivers often knew how to do so, through necessity.
As electronics have taken over this role, they have become much more reliable, but not usually repairable at the roadside when things do go wrong..
Few drivers have any knowledge or interest in how their cars work anymore. They think of them as tools for a job the same as a washing machine or fridge.
Hence the prevalence of Kia,s and the like infesting the roads.

Yep...often something simple like the points closing up or a cracked HT lead.

[Raeturbo]

Managed to squeeze 100 out of my mk 3 Zodiak loved that car, bench seat, Gollum er I mean column change, (sometimes)     But it was merciless on fuel even in those days. Remember the colour changing rectangular speedo.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

Managed to squeeze 100 out of my mk 3 Zodiak loved that car, bench seat, Gollum er I mean column change, (sometimes)     But it was merciless on fuel even in those days. Remember the colour changing rectangular speedo.

Always liked the Mk3 Zephyr and Zodiac.

The Mk4 with the long bonnet and short boot was quite odd.

[ronnyd]

Managed to squeeze 100 out of my mk 3 Zodiak loved that car, bench seat, Gollum er I mean column change, (sometimes)     But it was merciless on fuel even in those days. Remember the colour changing rectangular speedo.

Always liked the Mk3 Zephyr and Zodiac.

The Mk4 with the long bonnet and short boot was quite odd.

Yes, and on the four pot you could stand between the rad and the front of the engine to work on it.

[Lizzie Zoom]

Managed to squeeze 100 out of my mk 3 Zodiak loved that car, bench seat, Gollum er I mean column change, (sometimes)     But it was merciless on fuel even in those days. Remember the colour changing rectangular speedo.

Always liked the Mk3 Zephyr and Zodiac.

The Mk4 with the long bonnet and short boot was quite odd.

I always liked the ones in Z Cars Opti

I also somehow liked Fancy Smith

[BazaJT]

Z cars ones were Mk III Zephyr 6s [I could only afford the Zephyr 4] and all were painted yellow as it appeared "whiter" on screen than white ones would have.The boot on the Mk IVs was[iirc] more spacious than it looked from the outside with the spare wheel[at least on the Zodiac Executive] was mounted under the bonnet and angled backwards over the front of the engine.Ford managed to pull off the trick of making the "wood" in the interior look/feel like plastic formica and the leather seats look/feel like PVC ones!

[Lizzie Zoom]

Z cars ones were Mk III Zephyr 6s [I could only afford the Zephyr 4] and all were painted yellow as it appeared "whiter" on screen than white ones would have.The boot on the Mk IVs was[iirc] more spacious than it looked from the outside with the spare wheel[at least on the Zodiac Executive] was mounted under the bonnet and angled backwards over the front of the engine.Ford managed to pull off the trick of making the "wood" in the interior look/feel like plastic formica and the leather seats look/feel like PVC ones!