you may wash off your engine with a hosiery . You ’ve got ta blow the carbon paper out of your car ’s engine by driving fast and hot and near the redline . These piddling pearls of wisdom partake by uncles and grandpas from sea to shining sea are n’t exactly myths . They may not be great ideas , but there ’s also a kernel of accuracy to them — if you learned to drive in , say , 1968 . But not everything you know about how railroad car work , especially about how onetime car work , is even near true . Many of the thing we know about old cars are about as mythic as the Cyclops and the unicorn . Let ’s collide with - out a few of the more perniciousmythsbefore they diffuse any further .
5: The Ford Model T Came in Black Only
You could have any color Model T you like , as long as it was black . At least , that ’s how the myth goes . The Ford Motor Company factory actually volunteer several colors of varnish with capricious names like Channel Green and Winsor Maroon . The problem was that these varnishes were so glowering , especially blues and greens , that they looked blackened anyway . And 12 million out of 15 million Model Ts were indeed plain honest-to-god Negro . So , black was n’t the only color ! It just seemed that way .
4: The 3,000-mile Oil Change
Let ’s call this one sort of true - ish . It has a touch of truthiness to it , if you will . Any mileage marking for an petroleum change is basically a suggestion to:1.Cover the manufacturing business , um , warrantee , and2.to keep you from being so otiose about engine maintenance that you tend your car into the priming . For decades,3,000 miles(4,828 kilometers ) ( or three calendar month , whichever amount first ) was a safe number . Change the oil that often , and all the crud the oil picks up will be go along with the old oil and filter . But modernistic engine are made of metal with near witching properties and they run much sporting , so your oil is n’t quite as nasty , quite as tight . Most manufacturer recommend oil change at 5,000 miles ( 8,047 kilometre ) , 7,000 miles ( 11,265 klick ) or even 10,000 miles ( 16,093 kilometer ) Lucky , lazy you !
3: Red Cars Are Cop Magnets
It only stands to reason that a gaudy ruby car is going to catch the eye of a police force officer who trains herradar gunon its bumper and pull it over . Silver , ashen , black , and blue elevator car get a proportional pass , thanks to those showboating red race car , right ? Nope . Total myth . It turns out that mostpolicesimply face for auto that are going too tight , and then deplume those car over , regardless of colour . In a study done by aSt . Petersburg Timesreporter in 1990 , it was actually grey-haired motorcar that got cited for speeding more often than statistics say they should [ source : Mikkelson ] . You ’d think gray elevator car would fly under the microwave radar , correct ? Hello ? Is this affair on ?
2: Classic Cars Are 25 Years Old
You ’ll often see elevator car - for - cut-rate sale ads order that you should buy some old hunk of junk " ripe NOW " because next year , " THIS BABY’LL BE A CLASSIC ! " ( These ads have it away shouting via the caps lock key , by the way . ) These sellers seem to conceive that a human race in a suit and a derby lid will come at the garage and bestow classical power and a higher economic value upon a fomite . meritless to say , the collectible fairy does n’t exist . Some younger motorcar are already worthful classics , like the 2006 Ford GT . And some 25 - year - one-time cars are terrible pieces of junk , like theCadillac Cimarron .
1: Synthetic Oil Causes Leaks
The idea thatsynthetic oilwill cause leaks in your engine is all fictive , but it ’s apprehensible why people think it ’s on-key . If you put man-made fossil oil in an old car with a filthy locomotive , it will seem like oil is leaking everywhere . In fact , the problem is that the filth was pretty much the only affair that was holding the engine together . The accrual of mote , along with the unorthodox molecular structure of regular - old motor oil , keeps the seals and such gummed - up just enough . The flowing molecular structure ofsynthetic motor oildoes too good a job strip out the bad stuff , which is the very stuff keep the leak from springing . If you ’ve got a newer car or an older engine with full sealskin and unconstipated maintenance , synthetic oil can actually help extend your engine ’s seniority .
Lots More Information
I used to forge at a magazine that narrow in writing about collectable cars — old cars , expensive elevator car , European cars , muscle cars — all of them . And every reader I met , or who drop a line in with a letter , had a unlike mythology . A ethnical anthropologist would have a field 24-hour interval cataloging the belief Set of honest-to-goodness car guys . There is no elevator car part , from leather seats to synthetic rubber gaskets , that does not have a set of conflicting news report surrounding it . The one thing that holds rightful for every old car guy , however , is his sheer faith in his own band of myths .
