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So this is the thread about building my car better for the trip I plan to make in 2017. Here is the link to what I am planning for the trip and the trailer thread, I am starting on the trailer first: http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/sh...d=1#post717250
http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/sh...of-a-Lifetime!
I think I will start with some history about this car, since its the main reason for this trip. I thought about it and i wouldn't want to do this trip in another kind of vehicle, I like festivas a lot as does my wife and we both really like mine in particular. If you just want to read just my plans skip down a ways.
I bought the car May 7, 2007 with 219,340km on it (198,430 miles) from a guy who thought it was ready to die. I owned a 150cc scooter at the time, had driven it all winter in the snow to work, and was looking for a car. I saw a guy pulling out of our church parking lot in a cool looking car one day, so the next sunday I asked him what it was and if he would consider selling it. He said he would think about it. Next sunday he goes ' you were going to buy it right? I went and bought another car so want to come buy it?' I had only seen the back end of it leaving a parking lot so I was a bit worried, but went and looked at it and bought it from him for $700 when I was 16 years old. It was my first car. It had a new exhaust behind the cat and he told me that 3rd gear was its power gear and he liked using that one on the freeway because it went pretty good. I soon put a loud muffler and tachometer on it and realized the guy probably had been redlining it a lot... He told me it didnt burn oil. I changed the oil, replaced both headlights which were burnt out from holes in the headlamp glass, replaced spark plugs, changed coolant, pcv valve and front pads. The longest drive I had ever done was maybe 200km at once before this, Then 2 weeks after I bought it I drove 230km to get new tires, a new record! The day after that I left on a 2200km (1350 mile) solo round trip to visit some old friends where I used to live in central B.C. That was a lot of fun but I ran the engine out of oil going through the rockies. Either it had burned oil before or the powerful fuel cleaner I put in the tank cleaned things out good. Borrowed some 15w40 from a trucker who stopped and it was using a liter every 600km after that. I had a lot of fun with that car that summer, got amazing fuel milage, raced a lot of people, It could go anywhere! Then that fall my employer got me to put 2 huge concrete septic tank extension tubes in the back of it and follow him through what I believe is the biggest city in our province. I had never driven through a big city before, wasnt the greatest driver yet, had no map or clue where I was or was going and he didn't wait up for me at all. After that the engine was going through a litre every 300km, so 2 litres of oil every tank of gas. I wasn't ok with that anymore, It was cool that it would shoot oil 5 feet out the tailpipe in the winter and make a big black line in the snow but that was about it. New oil went completely black less than 60km after an oil change. So over Christmas break off school I bought a used motor for $425 and new clutch and changed the motor and clutch in our barn with the help of my brother and the good old haynes manual. We lifted the motor and transmission out using a fencepost and a chain standing on 5 gallon pails
The new motor was good, oil stayed golden for quite some time. I painted stripes on it and ever since people recognize me as soon as they see the car. Even if they havent seen me in 5 or 6 years, they still know its me and wave. In 2008 I bought a tow hitch for it, in 2009 I installed a bypass oil filter, then had a large set of scaffolding 3 stories tall with the big ladders on it blow over onto my roof. Crushed it pretty good. Paid to have that fixed. Later on I replaced a door and fender that were damaged by vandalism. I did a lot with the car: made a couple long road trips, towed a fair bit, got tire chains and did a lot of off-roading. Its amazing in deep snow. Pulled a lot of people out of the ditch, I got stuck in a lake, had it on 2 wheels twice-not intending to either time by the way. Went to the track for the 1/4 mile a bunch, 'street' raced a bit out in the country, did a lot of drifting in the winter on oil leases and back roads with my brother who had a cavalier at the time. Then It was our honeymoon car when I got married, we did a 2600km road trip in it for our honeymoon, lots of fun. I had bought a house about 8 months before getting married and decided to renovate the whole thing-the festiva being my trusty truck. I pulled a tree out with it... But I decided I needed a 'more reliable' car since I was getting married and all. Festiva had only let me down twice, both times being my fault (broken coolant hose and wire under battery corroded through from battery always boiling over) but i somehow thought I needed a better car. I was working in autobody and had decided to start fixing write-offs, I picked the 2001-2005 honda civic as the vehicles I would fix. Long story short my first 2 cost more to fix than I could sell them for so I started driving one myself. I have now had 4 and they do not even hold a match to the festiva. So many design flaws, stupid things that go wrong all the time, not fun to drive, uncomfortable, tow worse than a festiva, expensive to fix and they have no soul. I started driving them in the winter and the festiva in the summer because i lacked heat in the festiva in the winter. I actually froze my knees one winter- we had a week of below -30c and i had to drive 2 hours a day with no heat... Anyway, I figured I would completely stop maintaining the festiva except for oil changes and tires and wait for it to die, then drive only the civics. Well 3 years later nothing had gone wrong with the festiva and i think I had been through 3 civics by then. I decided to catch up on its maintinance, fix its heat issues and drive it full time in the winter too. That was around June 2014 and I spent a lot of money on maintinance, quite a bit of it being trying to get the heat to work, but I got caught up and drove it in the 2014 and 2015 winter. Some things suffered a lot from lack of maintinance though, I went 130,000km (81k miles) on used copper plugs and the porcelin broke off one and scored up the cylinder. The gaps were all huge, it would start on 2 cylinders, go to 3 and the 4th one with the broken porcelin would take until the engine warmed up and it could detonate on its own basically. I didnt change the coolant for 136,000km (85k miles) and that showed...I had leaking transaxil seals but didnt want to change them. I just added oil once a month. well I forgot one month and ran it right out and seiezed it on the side of the road, it just ground to a halt. Filled it back up with fluid and it just kept going, only lost 5mpg. I have since siezed it twice again by running it out of fluid. I put a lot of kilometers on that car, the first 3 years I had it I did 30,000km/yr (18,600 miles), then the year I met Julie who is now my wife I drove 47,000km (29k miles), then for 3 years I just drove it in the summer because of the civics so that was 10-13,000km/yr (8k miles) but I am back to just over 30k a year again. It has 448,600km (279k miles) right now and should have 480,000km by the time we start the trip and 510,000km (317k miles) when we are done. I have kept every receipt for everything I ever bought for the car, kept careful track of all maintenance, figured out the gas milage for every tank, kept careful track of what I have spent on it. Over its lifetime including buying it, replacing the motor and clutch, a brutal $500 hitch install when I was young and dumb, repairs from the scaffolding and vandalism, parts cars, and every tool I have ever bought for cars-(which is a lot) it has averaged 4.8 cents per kilometer (3.6 cents/km in USD or 5.8 cents per mile in USD) on costs other than gasoline and insurance. Which is super cheap, that was november 2015 and I have hardly spent anything on it since then. A lot of the cost was from 2014 when I did a ton of maintinance, it will be even lower now because I havent done much on it since. Thats $10,415 CAD in 8 1/2years and 216,000km as of last November. As comparison I got my civic quite cheap and 10 years younger and its still 10 cents/km. Anyway, I love the car and wish it could last forever but it is showing its age unfortunately.
http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/sh...of-a-Lifetime!
I think I will start with some history about this car, since its the main reason for this trip. I thought about it and i wouldn't want to do this trip in another kind of vehicle, I like festivas a lot as does my wife and we both really like mine in particular. If you just want to read just my plans skip down a ways.
I bought the car May 7, 2007 with 219,340km on it (198,430 miles) from a guy who thought it was ready to die. I owned a 150cc scooter at the time, had driven it all winter in the snow to work, and was looking for a car. I saw a guy pulling out of our church parking lot in a cool looking car one day, so the next sunday I asked him what it was and if he would consider selling it. He said he would think about it. Next sunday he goes ' you were going to buy it right? I went and bought another car so want to come buy it?' I had only seen the back end of it leaving a parking lot so I was a bit worried, but went and looked at it and bought it from him for $700 when I was 16 years old. It was my first car. It had a new exhaust behind the cat and he told me that 3rd gear was its power gear and he liked using that one on the freeway because it went pretty good. I soon put a loud muffler and tachometer on it and realized the guy probably had been redlining it a lot... He told me it didnt burn oil. I changed the oil, replaced both headlights which were burnt out from holes in the headlamp glass, replaced spark plugs, changed coolant, pcv valve and front pads. The longest drive I had ever done was maybe 200km at once before this, Then 2 weeks after I bought it I drove 230km to get new tires, a new record! The day after that I left on a 2200km (1350 mile) solo round trip to visit some old friends where I used to live in central B.C. That was a lot of fun but I ran the engine out of oil going through the rockies. Either it had burned oil before or the powerful fuel cleaner I put in the tank cleaned things out good. Borrowed some 15w40 from a trucker who stopped and it was using a liter every 600km after that. I had a lot of fun with that car that summer, got amazing fuel milage, raced a lot of people, It could go anywhere! Then that fall my employer got me to put 2 huge concrete septic tank extension tubes in the back of it and follow him through what I believe is the biggest city in our province. I had never driven through a big city before, wasnt the greatest driver yet, had no map or clue where I was or was going and he didn't wait up for me at all. After that the engine was going through a litre every 300km, so 2 litres of oil every tank of gas. I wasn't ok with that anymore, It was cool that it would shoot oil 5 feet out the tailpipe in the winter and make a big black line in the snow but that was about it. New oil went completely black less than 60km after an oil change. So over Christmas break off school I bought a used motor for $425 and new clutch and changed the motor and clutch in our barn with the help of my brother and the good old haynes manual. We lifted the motor and transmission out using a fencepost and a chain standing on 5 gallon pails
The new motor was good, oil stayed golden for quite some time. I painted stripes on it and ever since people recognize me as soon as they see the car. Even if they havent seen me in 5 or 6 years, they still know its me and wave. In 2008 I bought a tow hitch for it, in 2009 I installed a bypass oil filter, then had a large set of scaffolding 3 stories tall with the big ladders on it blow over onto my roof. Crushed it pretty good. Paid to have that fixed. Later on I replaced a door and fender that were damaged by vandalism. I did a lot with the car: made a couple long road trips, towed a fair bit, got tire chains and did a lot of off-roading. Its amazing in deep snow. Pulled a lot of people out of the ditch, I got stuck in a lake, had it on 2 wheels twice-not intending to either time by the way. Went to the track for the 1/4 mile a bunch, 'street' raced a bit out in the country, did a lot of drifting in the winter on oil leases and back roads with my brother who had a cavalier at the time. Then It was our honeymoon car when I got married, we did a 2600km road trip in it for our honeymoon, lots of fun. I had bought a house about 8 months before getting married and decided to renovate the whole thing-the festiva being my trusty truck. I pulled a tree out with it... But I decided I needed a 'more reliable' car since I was getting married and all. Festiva had only let me down twice, both times being my fault (broken coolant hose and wire under battery corroded through from battery always boiling over) but i somehow thought I needed a better car. I was working in autobody and had decided to start fixing write-offs, I picked the 2001-2005 honda civic as the vehicles I would fix. Long story short my first 2 cost more to fix than I could sell them for so I started driving one myself. I have now had 4 and they do not even hold a match to the festiva. So many design flaws, stupid things that go wrong all the time, not fun to drive, uncomfortable, tow worse than a festiva, expensive to fix and they have no soul. I started driving them in the winter and the festiva in the summer because i lacked heat in the festiva in the winter. I actually froze my knees one winter- we had a week of below -30c and i had to drive 2 hours a day with no heat... Anyway, I figured I would completely stop maintaining the festiva except for oil changes and tires and wait for it to die, then drive only the civics. Well 3 years later nothing had gone wrong with the festiva and i think I had been through 3 civics by then. I decided to catch up on its maintinance, fix its heat issues and drive it full time in the winter too. That was around June 2014 and I spent a lot of money on maintinance, quite a bit of it being trying to get the heat to work, but I got caught up and drove it in the 2014 and 2015 winter. Some things suffered a lot from lack of maintinance though, I went 130,000km (81k miles) on used copper plugs and the porcelin broke off one and scored up the cylinder. The gaps were all huge, it would start on 2 cylinders, go to 3 and the 4th one with the broken porcelin would take until the engine warmed up and it could detonate on its own basically. I didnt change the coolant for 136,000km (85k miles) and that showed...I had leaking transaxil seals but didnt want to change them. I just added oil once a month. well I forgot one month and ran it right out and seiezed it on the side of the road, it just ground to a halt. Filled it back up with fluid and it just kept going, only lost 5mpg. I have since siezed it twice again by running it out of fluid. I put a lot of kilometers on that car, the first 3 years I had it I did 30,000km/yr (18,600 miles), then the year I met Julie who is now my wife I drove 47,000km (29k miles), then for 3 years I just drove it in the summer because of the civics so that was 10-13,000km/yr (8k miles) but I am back to just over 30k a year again. It has 448,600km (279k miles) right now and should have 480,000km by the time we start the trip and 510,000km (317k miles) when we are done. I have kept every receipt for everything I ever bought for the car, kept careful track of all maintenance, figured out the gas milage for every tank, kept careful track of what I have spent on it. Over its lifetime including buying it, replacing the motor and clutch, a brutal $500 hitch install when I was young and dumb, repairs from the scaffolding and vandalism, parts cars, and every tool I have ever bought for cars-(which is a lot) it has averaged 4.8 cents per kilometer (3.6 cents/km in USD or 5.8 cents per mile in USD) on costs other than gasoline and insurance. Which is super cheap, that was november 2015 and I have hardly spent anything on it since then. A lot of the cost was from 2014 when I did a ton of maintinance, it will be even lower now because I havent done much on it since. Thats $10,415 CAD in 8 1/2years and 216,000km as of last November. As comparison I got my civic quite cheap and 10 years younger and its still 10 cents/km. Anyway, I love the car and wish it could last forever but it is showing its age unfortunately.
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