Routine Maintenance

["Rex Carz" <rexcarz@domain.elided>]

Seems like I'm on the verge of starting a real thread, so let me elaborate.
Several weeks ago, I posted a note about the 164-S I just bought and
described as "fundamentally sound"  but waaaay behind on preventative
maintenance.  Someone on the list charitably suggested that if I thought a
car needing all that work to get back to snuff was "fundamentally sound,"
perhaps I would like to buy a "fundamentally sound" bridge in Brooklyn.

This car really raises an interesting issue:  How many of you out there
routinely maintain you cars 100% and how many of you only fix it when it is
really broken (won't go)?  Does anyone think there is any middle ground
between these two options?

I can't understand why the PO of my car would want an Alfa with two broken
motor mounts, two broken shocks, a buzzing door lock, a non-functioning
headlight (burnt out bulb socket) and a variety of other little problems
needing to be sorted out (like the CHMSL with 4 of its 5 light bulbs out
that made the brake lamp warning light on the dash come on every time I
stepped on the brakes).  Why bother with an Alfa if you are treating it (and
yourself) like this?  Surely a Chevy Biscayne would make a better beater.

Routine maintenance and care is absolutely essential for any Alfa.  This
164-S has had one new engine (around 20,000 miles ago) and a top end rebuild
(around 10,000 miles ago).  The top end rebuild was required because the PO
didn't replace a leaking hydraulic tensioner until after the timing belt
failed.  I don't know what happened to the first engine -- something about
ingesting a lot of water and bending a con rod I think.

Anyway, the first thing I do on getting this car is take it to Ross
Bonsteel, Albany's resident Alfa expert, and ask him to check it over,
especially the timing belt and tensioner.  Ross checks the mechanical
tensioner installed only 10,000 miles ago (by someone neither he nor I know
and who will remain nameless) and it has been misinstalled (seriously
overtorqued).  So he womps it out (you can't reset the torque, you have to
replace it), and the bimetallic spring that makes the thing work is actually
snapped in two.  My reward for careful maintenance is that now I won't have
to rebuild this engine yet again.  But had this problem gone undetected and
taken out the engine yet again, it would not be the car's fault.  It would
be the fault of the owner buying a complex and sophisticated car and then
not staying on top of the maintenance that such complexity and
sophistication requires.

At 91,000 miles, other maintenance I expect to do as soon as I get my next
paycheck includes:  new front A-arm bushings, ball joints and strut
bearings, new brake rotors and pads front and rear and probably new trailing
arms in the rear.  Once all this stuff is done, the car will really be an
Alfa.  Until then, its just a bunch of worn out parts that want to become
one.

Oh, yes, and new brake flex hoses, which in my view should be replaced every
nine years, whether they need it or not.

What types of routine maintenance are other folks doing (or not doing) out
there?

Rex

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End of alfa-digest V7 #1485
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