[sokoloff]

I suspect a lot of people find themself in a situation where driving a car with a mechanical problem is a sensible local optimum for some period of time.

The statute of limitations has passed on all of my “she’ll be a’ight” endeavors, but they included having to manually apply throttle to keep the engine lit, driving on partial service brakes, driving without a working charging system, having to push start the car, reckoning speed by gear and RPM, and fueling based on ded reckoning with an INOP fuel gauge and odometer.

[dotancohen]

I notice that a lot of people who have never driven 1980's era and earlier cars have no idea that cars were _always_ broken in some form or another. Every single car had developed some problem or another every year, one simply got used to this car having a bad window motor, that car having a bad started solenoid, this one torque steering to the left, that one thumping on brakes, this other one running rough when driving to the east, that one leaks transmission fluid, that other one won't restart after five minutes but will restart after half an hour, this one has no A/C, this one has terrible wind noise, this one blinks left when the radio is on FM, this one drips radiator fluid into the cabin when the heat is on, that one will spontaneously activate ABS in the last second before coming to a complete stop 50% of the time, this one squirts washer fluid onto the roof of the car to your right, this one dims the dash lights when the radio DJ talks instead of playing music, that one overheats, etc etc.

[throwaway0a5e]

The partial brakes is the only thing on that list I'd consider to be more than just an inconvenience.

Obviously if you want to drive like a jerk you need the car to be in tip top shape so that you have the most freedom to make control inputs but if you just want to putt along and drive in a mild mannered way having a bunch of mechanical oddities that constrain what you can do isn't a big deal.