Distributor autozone sucks compared to motorcraft?

  • Sponsors (?)


Working where I work has taught me one thing. That one thing is that all newer cars suck. If you're lucky to have one, that hasn't given any issues with over 100k, pat yourself on the back. You've done something right. My mustang service plan said it needed a decarb intake cleaning every 15k....some said 30k. All the direct injection cars build heavy carbon on the valves. Certain driving styles can reduce it. Type and grade fuel helps some. Type of oil helps...but eventually they will all hang valves if not cleaned.

Vw and Audi are the worse...followed by BMW / Mini. Chevy is right behind them all and should come with spare intake and exhaust variable valve timing solenoids, but they don't. The Chrysler products are plagued with TIPM issues, transmission problems, and charging system problems. Let's not forget how they left casting sand in the cooling systems. Subaru has problems with the high pressure fuel pumps eating themselves....but they don't come with spare pumps and camshafts in the trunk.

Mike knows this about BMW but he's in denial. They still don't require you to travel with an ECU or Vanos solenoid. They don't even require you to have a sand blaster loaded with walnut shells ( even though I recommend it ).

I carry a tool kit, water, multimeter, test light, a couple bulbs, and a cell phone when I take my car out. The bulbs are there just because it's really a given that one will eventually blow. There used to be TFI modules and all types of stuff I used to carry in my other cars. One of them liked eating clutch cables so I kept a spare in the trunk. Unless I have a repetitive issue I won't be carrying spare parts anymore.
 
One in a million. Might want to consider buying a lottery ticket.

Kurt
Now there’s an idea. If I win the lottery, I can hire a tow truck to follow me around everywhere, since I don’t trust my car. That way I don’t have to sell my car, or carry spare parts. Win win win
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Working where I work has taught me one thing. That one thing is that all newer cars suck. If you're lucky to have one, that hasn't given any issues with over 100k, pat yourself on the back. You've done something right. My mustang service plan said it needed a decarb intake cleaning every 15k....some said 30k. All the direct injection cars build heavy carbon on the valves. Certain driving styles can reduce it. Type and grade fuel helps some. Type of oil helps...but eventually they will all hang valves if not cleaned.

Vw and Audi are the worse...followed by BMW / Mini. Chevy is right behind them all and should come with spare intake and exhaust variable valve timing solenoids, but they don't. The Chrysler products are plagued with TIPM issues, transmission problems, and charging system problems. Let's not forget how they left casting sand in the cooling systems. Subaru has problems with the high pressure fuel pumps eating themselves....but they don't come with spare pumps and camshafts in the trunk.

Mike knows this about BMW but he's in denial. They still don't require you to travel with an ECU or Vanos solenoid. They don't even require you to have a sand blaster loaded with walnut shells ( even though I recommend it ).

I carry a tool kit, water, multimeter, test light, a couple bulbs, and a cell phone when I take my car out. The bulbs are there just because it's really a given that one will eventually blow. There used to be TFI modules and all types of stuff I used to carry in my other cars. One of them liked eating clutch cables so I kept a spare in the trunk. Unless I have a repetitive issue I won't be carrying spare parts anymore.
Mehhh….Im denying nothing. I’m back in our service department daily. Everything will fail sooner or later, and the more complicated they make these things, that complexity just adds to the likelihood that somethings’ gonna break.

Whether you can say that all Audi’s do this, or that all BMW’s/Chevrolet’s/Subaru’s do that, seems like more of a denial to me.
We get the guy with the 250k mile BMW every now and then. ( probably cost him a bagillion dollars to get it there).

The point i was making about the new car over the old one was simple. If you can’t trust your old car to get you there, then take your new(er) one instead. But trying to anticipate what’s gonna break on any of them and carrying around a bunch of spare parts is laughable.

The first time I took the red car to MW where I met you, The freakin thing developed a leak in the radiator on saturday.
( Should’ve had one of those in the trunk I guess). I put stop leak in to fix that, but it caused a heater core rupture instead, and I got to smell that all the way home.
When I drove the Orange car to Mississippi three years ago, I was white knuckling the steering wheel worrying about the old engine failing on me ( remember,..it was full of “Mike engineered”, one off complexity), But I finally just came to terms with it, and figured whatever breaks is gonna break, and just drove. Nothing broke.

The last time I took the Monster to PC fla. I had a slightly loose strut mount bolt, and it was allowing intermittent front end vibration. That was something that could’ve been detected had I DRIVEN the car first before taking the trip, but again, how do you anticipate that? Getting it back home, and fixing it required figuring out what was wrong ( i originally thought it was a defective spindle) removing the tire, caliper, and rotor, and took a big assed torque wrench to pull that nut tight enough to lock the strut, and keep it from moving.

I never would’ve attempted none of that on the side of the road, or in the hotel’s parking lot.

Drive the car, and quit freakin worrying. Whether it’s an old assed one like what we all own here, or a new one, the only thing that needs to be anticipated is that something might go wrong, and get insurance with towing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
I have insurance with towing. I’m not necessarily worrying. I drive the car and I enjoy it. I carry a few extra small things with me. It’s my preference. Each person will act upon their preferences too.

To shift gears a little bit, here’s a question;

We have these older cars where sometimes good parts are getting scarce. Do any of you look for and attain spare parts for your cars and keep them at home base? What kind of stuff do you like to keep around?
 
Specifically with regards to the Foxbody, yes I seek out and stash spare parts, particularly electronics. It’s not necessarily because I feel my car is unreliable, but because these parts are getting 1) harder to find and 2) lower quality these days vs 10-15 years ago.

I have a pile of ECUs, older motorcraft/OEM TFIs and other electronics and switches I’ll come across. Wiring harnesses as well get labeled (repaired if necessary) and tossed into a bucket just in case.

I have a couple spare busted T5s. Wasn’t my intention to stockpile them but with the price of t5 parts climbing I decided it was worth it to hang onto these.

I’ve reduced the amount of parts I have overall dramatically the last year. Not necessarily spares, but just hoarding of good fox parts I’ll never use but are harder to find these days.

some of the stuff can still be rebuilt. Bearings are somewhat standard and obtainable.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
That’s just nuts, but I can see that price continuing to go higher as more and more crap the bed and don’t get repaired. There will always be some that won’t be able to go aftermarket ECU and will be forced to buy a used ECU.

I can see those reaching 4-figures in 5-10 years, of course some of that might be the rise in prices across the board for EVERYTHING lately.

I just noticed 93 Cobra intakes are now fetching close to $1k on eBay for NOS or immaculate examples. They were $400-600 a couple years ago.
 
BTW, if computer chip shortages continue, availability of aftermarket ECU’s will be affected. That will drive prices of used ones up.

Just think, a thief who might break into my car looking for a gun under the seat might totally miss the more valuable spare ECU I’m lugging around everywhere. I should call my insurance company and add that to the declaration.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: 2 users
Maybe Audis can’t be trusted to drive over 50 miles w/o having a spare ecu in the trunk?

Uhh wait…

Maybe it’s VW’s?

Maybe because they’re the same car,…

Maybe both?
Kurt, Mad Mike put it more nicely that I was going to, and probably kept me from being censured. VW building a premium compact that is disposable has sucked the fun out of my oldest’s first car, a used “New Beetle”. The dash warning lights play whack a mole. Now I have the ECU fixed so it will talk with the $25 Wal-mart scanner, it still will not talk with the snap on one to read the ABS codes. And the secondary air pump went out while I was getting the ECU immobilizer delete programmed. It is putting out two codes and likes to intermittently sound like a Siamese cat being pulled backwards through a key hole. An M-1 Cardone rebuilt secondary air pump is $400+ from the local FLAPS, $200 at Rock Auto, (and less for brands I do not know or trust enough to last long enough to sell the dung beetle.)
 
Last edited:
Or, is it because you have all that on the shelf along with 5L5? You guys are hoarding all the ECU’s and driving the price up through supply and demand affects

I mean yes, you are right. Hoarding does drive up prices. It’s a vicious cycle however because in order to stop it, you need to create the perception of an ample supply and trying to dump them ECUs while there is perceived value.

short of LMR contracting someone out to build ECUs and offering them for $299, the hoarding of certain parts is only going to get worse as supplies dry up.

my hanging onto ECUs is less about me wanting to sell them for $1k each down the road and more about making sure I can still drive the car if 10 years from now some govt ruling comes down the pipe requiring a factory ECU as part of inspection.

I have seen hoarders on the FB groups as well. There’s the guy who was buying broken ECUs for $150 and repairing them. I wouldn’t necessarily label him a hoarder as they were all for sale. There’s a guy on the motorsports FB group that buys up all the 93 cobra intakes he can, refinishes them and resell. Again not technically a hoarder, but it’s removing all the “cheap” intakes from the market and replacing them with pricey ones makes the intake unobtainable for many. Then there was the local guy who (pre-pandemic) bought up 03-04 cobras (perfectly good, running driving cars) and parted them out. He would refuse offers on the whole car because “they are worth more parted out”. Now when I look around locally, I can’t find a clean terminator for under $30k

These fox bodies are becoming more expensive to own and/or restore for many reasons other than the availability of parts. Part of me feels sad for the guy who scraped together a few bucks to buy a $2-3k rough driver, and the group as a collective let’s him know it needs $3-4k in parts just to make it safe(er) and reliable.
 
Thats nice Mike has the T-5's. They are $800 broken on CL. My issue is the salt and pepper shakers. Those are really going to be a problem as the years go by, and they dry out. Almost every time I get in my car I have to shake the shakers to get my car to start.
 
  • Surprised
Reactions: 1 user
Define running lean? The computer will actually bounce between rich and lean constantly. Based on what my dual wideband is showing it bounces between 14.2 and 15.5 once it has reached steady state conditions (idle or cruising at steady speed).
Define running lean? The computer will actually bounce between rich and lean constantly. Based on what my dual wideband is showing it bounces between 14.2 and 15.5 once it has reached steady state conditions (idle or cruising at steady speed).
sorry for late response but Im still on this.As for lean my afr is in the 20s!Thats with the original a9l.Its weird My car is a 89 maf 5 speed ,I also have a microsquirt but I cannot run it as maf with the microsquirt so I have to run it sd.When sd the car is running rich at 12 to 13s.I sent apl to get rebuit recently.I tried diffent maf that are also maching injectors and still lean.Plugs white.What could cause car to run lean with my original a9l but run rich with microsquirt?I was assuming the maf but I tried another one still same.O and lean is at idel.Not sure what it should be at wot