Hot Rodders Are Green!

They are. And not just after a heavy night on the Poteen... What we're doing is recycling of the first order. Warning: a rant may follow

I've just spent a night of serious rock'n'roll hedonism dicking about with the tumble dryer. For a few weeks now it's been making a noise that would suggest that we were attempting to tumble dry a load of big end caps and wellington boots, so I thought I'd best have a look.

First step was to check the drum for big end caps and wellies. Nope, untoward nothing in there, and it's still making the noise. Open a beer, then drag the dryer out, unplug it and take the top off. Vacuum out 10 years of assorted fluff, unidentified minging bits and rodent skeletons, then you figure out that to get to the important bits you have to take the back off. Make a quick wiring diagram and off comes the back. The entirety of the drum is supported on a bearing about the size of a 50p piece (but round, obviously - heptagonal bearings have never really caught on). There is a stub axle pressed into the bearing that bolts to the back panel of the dryer, while the outer race of the bearing sits in a triangular aluminium hub that's riveted to the back of the drum. Riveted. The bearing has worn, so the rivets have begun chewing into the aluminium, and the hub is now slack on the drum.

There's a company I've used before - www.espares.co.uk - who sell spares for washers, driers and so on. I can get a new bearing and stub axle kit for less than £8. Terrific. I can't get a new aluminium hub, though, except as part of a new drum, which is £85. So £93 plus postage. Or a brand-new dryer of the exact same make and model with a warranty for £129. No contest, but another load of waste.

It's the same with modern cars. Yes, they're more reliable and oh-so-bloody green, but how long into its life is it likely to be before the cost of a fairly standard repair exceeds the value of the car? Back in the day, pretty much any garage could do the job, or you could do it yourself. Ask anyone in the trade about the increasing number of simple servicing jobs that either require the car to go back to the dealership, or require your local garage to pay a wad to licence some excruciatingly expensive computer software.

It wasn't so long ago that the main factor in determining a car's second-hand value was how rusty it was. After 10 years, a MkIV Cortina was probably already on its third set of sills, and most Minis would have been mostly made out of roasting tins, baked bean cans, and seventeen miles of MIG wire. Or the sides of knackered tumble driers... But the point was, if you wanted a cheap car, you bought a 10 or 15 year old car and welded it, fixed it, "did it up". Now, a 10 or 15 year old car with near-immaculate bodywork but the ABS light on is pretty much a lost cause.

A car, over its life, uses a shedload of energy. The greater proportion of that energy is used before its first owner has even bought it - manufacture, delivery etc. A car that has lasted 20 or more years has already amortised its energy usage.

So which is greener? A brand-new plastic marvel with every gadget under the sun, or a Triumph Herald with a Ford Zetec engine? It's the Herald. The Herald that you've welded new floors in, rebuilt a differential, replaced the taper bearings in the hubs... Because you haven't scrapped the Herald, sent it to be crushed and fragged, put it on a boat to Poland where the steel is smelted down into new sheet, where it's put on another boat to a Chinese plant where it's stamped into new panels and put on another boat to Korea where it's built up into a brand-new Hyundai, which is then put on another boat, shipped to the UK and sold as an ecologically-friendly small car! Strictly speaking, it's done that many miles already it's due its third service.

If anyone gets in your face about how your "polluting old car" is killing the planet, please feel free to use the above argument in return, preferably while pinning them down and beating them across the earhole with a spade or shovel. If they tell you that their Prius is the answer to an environmentalist's prayers, tell them to come back in 10 or 15 years and confirm that this was actually the case. Scrappage scheme? Don't even get me started on that - I can't believe an entire nation bought that barrowload of bullshit and swallowed it without even asking for a glass of water. The Americans bought it too, and everyone turned out to be the poorer for it, including the environment.

I've done enough ranting on, now, so I think I'll just sit here with my beer and consider that, while I'm sitting here listening to World War Three coming from my tumble drier, I'm actually saving the planet by driving a Ford Mustang...

Eugene