On Wed, 22 Feb 2017 08:29:44 -0800 (PST), Garrett Fulton
wrote:

On Sunday, February 12, 2017 at 1:43:44 PM UTC-5, Christopher Tidy wrote:
Hi folks,

Quick question. Many cars from the 1980s used to rust badly. Sometime in the 1990s, this changed - and quite suddenly. Does anyone know what specific changes were made to the paint composition and surface treatment? I can only find vague allusions in most articles.

Thanks,

Chris

Here's how cheap Ford is. About 15 yrs. ago I was reading the latest Popular Mechanics auto advice column. A guy wrote in with a concern about his oil pressure reading in his new Ford F-150. He said he had noticed when it was started cold, the oil pressure always came up to the exact same level and never decreased once the engine got warm, as his previous pickup had done. The pressure always remained at the exact same place no matter engine temperature or RPM. The auto advice guy at PM said on his year/model of pickup, Ford had replaced the pressure transmitter with a pressure switch with a fixed resistance. When the switch closed, it would always deflect the oil pressure needle to the same location. In other words, an idiot light. As far as I've seen, no other auto manufacturer ever pulled one like that. Saved them what? $1.50 a truck? So, here you are doing 70 on the interstate all day and one or more cam bearings are starting to go. From personal experience, that's always a
gradual decrease of oil pressure. By the time the oil pressure gauge on your P.O.S. Ford pickup drops to zero and the backup idiot light comes on, the engine has been operating way too long on insufficient oil pressure and is likely already trashed. A guy I worked with had a new Ford pickup. I read him the column and he said,"That's just the way my truck acts!". Now I don't know if they still practice this world class chicken^&*(, but I've had my last Ford.
They have virtually ALL done it on at least one model, and it was not
a cost saving measure, in the main. It was because they had customers
complaininh about high cold oil pressure, or low hot idle oil
pressure, and they were all wasting WAY too much time and effort
trying to explain why it was "normal". To avoid class action lawsuits
for faulty oil pressure they simply made a n "idiot guage". Looks like
"higher content" than an idiot light.