I'm afraid this works both ways. As an old fogey obsessed with older cars my appreciation of the development of modern engine systems was very behind the times. Although owning at least one modern car as well as my Classics, apart from occasionally checking the oil level and topping up the screenwash I left servicing and repair to the professionals.
Consequently it wasn't until these cars had gained a few years and I finally took some interest in what was going on under the bonnet that I realised that distributors had practically disappeared along with carburettors, that coils had become coil packs, that something called an ECU was doing all the routine tuning aided by lamda and MAF sensors and that in the event that I had a roadside 'failure to proceed' my current level of expertise meant there was nothing to be gained by raising the bonnet.
I'm acutely aware that I'm still very much in the pre-electronic era and that at my age that's unlikely to change. Still, I take comfort from the fact that I feel adequately competent to tackle most problems on the classics, that if taken to a modern garage would have the mechanic asking "
where's the OBD port?"
