Tough little cars

Back in the 1980s, I once almost bought a Datsun 1200 manual. When I inspected it, there was a problem starting the car, but the guy selling said that that wasn’t a problem. “They’re tough little cars, Datsuns”, he said. He fidgeted under the bonnet a bit, then told me, “Start her, mate”. I had never driven a manual at that stage, so didn’t think to engage the clutch. Oh, and I forgot to tell he was on crutches.  

“No worries, mate”, he said after I had very apologetically gotten him to his feet again. He was very decent about it, or more likely, very desperate to sell his Datsun. “They’re tough little cars”, he reiterated. For example, if you had transmission problems, he said, you simply got a used gearbox at the wrecker’s. “Seventy-five bucks and just whack it in, mate.”

So, forty years on, when my 2008 Toyota Corolla could only take off in third gear and then had to go straight to fifth, I naturally wasn’t too worried. We would whack in a replacement gearbox at little cost.

Our mechanic likes to have a chat, or a monologue anyway, and declared that Toyota Corollas were “tough little cars”. “My son”, he went on to say, “who’s also a mechanic, bought a Corolla as his first car, and I tell all my children and grandchildren, buy a Corolla as your first car, because they’re tough little cars”.

His son’s had done 550,000 “kays” in his, never a problem, still going. “Changes the fluids after every race. He races it, you see, in those police races, you know.”

“Yes”, I said, although I had never heard of police races.

“He often comes third, you know, in his little Corolla, against all those Commodores and what-have-you, but… he changes the fluids after every race.”

“Mine”, I say, “has only done 200,000 kays, and the gearbox seems to have given up the ghost”.

He nodded. “That really surprises me”, he said, “that really surprises me, because they’re tough little cars, Corollas are”.

I left my car at the mechanic’s and walked back home.

“Where’s your car?”, yelled Wazza from his porch. He was still in his Spiderman pyjamas but wearing a red bandana McEnroe-style and a pair of Blues Brothers sunnies. The fact that he fits into Spiderman pyjamas is a recent development, down to Ozempic, an unforeseen side-effect of the miracle drug. You can always find Wazza on his front verandah, unless there’s sport on free-to-air TV. Doesn’t matter what kind of sport.

I explained.

“Tough little cars”, Wazza opined.

“Do you know what police races are?”, I asked Wazza.

“Police races?”

“Police races”, I confirmed.

“Never heard of them. PO-lease races?”

“Mmm.”

“What are police races?”, Wazza asked me.

Later in the day, the mechanic rang. “Mate”, he started off ominously, “thought it might be just a matter of adjusting the cables but unfortunately, it’s the gears themselves. Can’t do anything with them, mate. New gearbox, mate. Only solution.”

Well, that’ll be seventy-five bucks adjusted for inflation, I thought. “How much is that going to set me back?”, I asked.

“Mate, I’ll have to source a gear box for you. Not simple.” He followed this up with a technical explanation in which the term “slave cylinder” figured a lot. It sounded like a BDSM term, but it’s nothing to do with BDSM. The slave cylinder complicated things. I made a mental note to ask Wazza if he knew what a slave cylinder was.

All in all, it turned out, it would cost $4,300 to replace a stuffed gearbox with a previously stuffed (i.e. used, reconditioned) gearbox.

“They’re tough little cars, mate”, he concluded.

The car, when I had bought it just under four years before, had cost $6,000.

For those readers interested in gearboxes and slave cylinders, the YouTube video at the top of this post may shed some light. It’s very Swedish Chef and could probably double as a short play by Eugene Ionesco, so even if slave cylinders leave you ice cold, I still recommend watching at least part of it.