Use to use KISS for engineering, translated, means, keep it simple stupid. Another one for the history books, the Cruze is nothing like basic, so have to admit with over 60 years of experience in this field, kind of scares the heck out of me too.
Think twice about lowering a window, may never come back up again. Sure easy on that clutch, over 500 bucks for parts and a nightmare to replace on a FWD vehicle. I don't care if people blow their horn at me, yell back, blow it out the other end. But after fully engaged, then hit the gas. Also downshift a lot to save on the brakes, but the way this thing rolls, still have to use them quite a bit.
When my radio started flashing on and off, is this 800 bucks for a new radio? But clammed down, hey this is power problem. Went directly to the ignition relay and found dirty contacts. About 20 minutes later, working fine again, didn't buy a new one, just cleaned the contacts.
My cheap cell phone notifiers me when a software update is available, do you want to load it? If they can do they, why can't they do this with these way overpriced cars?
In 1965 laid out 3,000 bucks for this thing.
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I see by my dates, took this photo in 1975, already had well over 300K miles on it, look at all that stainless steel. Every component in this car was rebuildable, could rebuild the engine driven fuel pump for a buck. Also in 1965 purchases a washer and drier from Sears for 600 bucks, more recently, purchased a Maytag Profession pair for 1,200 bucks, well four year ago, been absolutely trouble free. But twice the price including inflation.
Why haven't appliances like this drastically increased in price like our vehicles have? Automation! In this Buick even the camshaft was hand machined along with a host of other parts. And all these new parts are of the throwaway type, that piece of crap made in China fuel pump is over 250 bucks for the Cruze, and not even close to the hand machining required to make the original casted fully repairable fuel pump used in the Buick.
All I can say with todays automotive we are literally getting screwed to death. Oh, this was also before they were dumping all that road salt on our roads. Not a bad looking car for being ten years old already. And all that stainless steel, not only on the outside but the inside as well, but all with super cheap snap together plastic. And you don't see well paid machinist anymore, all done by the push of a button with automation, spitting out parts faster than you can see them.
Also back then, no such thing as a deductible home or auto insurance plan and the rates were very low. I did have to convert this thing to burn unleaded gas, that was one shock back then. Really knock the lead out of so-called leaded gas, so even if you paid three times the price of it, still would burn your valves out.
We sure went downhill in the last 50 years. Piece of plastic Buick today is over $40K. Just learn to bend over and smile.
