Hi everybody. My name is Laura and I'm a Southern CA native, high desert to be specific. I bought my first Festiva new, in '89. It was a red 5spd LX. Loved it, but parted with it in 93. Our family was growing and needed a larger car.
Fast forward a few years, one kid on his way to college, one out on his own, and gas at unimaginable prices, and I was on the festiva hunt! No easy thing here in CA it would turn out. But I eventually succeeded and am now the proud owner of...............lol, a red 5 spd Festiva LX. I have named him Moe. He's a 1990 CA car, with just under 65k miles when I bought him about a month ago. I found him on craigslist in Orange County and drove 4 and a half hours to see him. Took a test drive and bought him on the spot. As we were filling out the bill of sale, a guy pulled up in a yellow festiva and offered us more money than we had just paid (we had paid 1800.00). I felt bad for the guy, but these little cars are tough to find in good shape (as you already know), so we finished up the paperwork, and I drove Moe the 4.5 hours back home. I have been reading the posts here, and learning everything I can since then. There's such a wealth of information here! It's been a great help just being able to do key word searches and find answers to my questions. There are many improvements I would like to make. So far I have painted the steelies gloss black, polished the trim rings and center caps, peeled off the peeling red bumper stripes, slathered the bumpers and trim with back-to-black, ordered and installed a coin/cup holder from Levitan, installed a new stereo in the lower console area, put on a steering wheel cover and bought new floor mats. I gave the interior a thorough cleaning too. It is in great shape, but the car sat for 2 years and was a bit musty smelling. Oh I almost forgot! I have just completed all four brakes too, with new pads and hardware in the fronts, and new drums, shoes and all new bearings in the rear! All with the help of you guys! LOL And I have never worked on a car before! It was fun, though frustrating at times (hold down clips and pins on brake shoes!:violent1
! The stake nuts concern me though and I look forward to changing those out to the cotter pin type if I can find the spindles (not much luck there so far). Anyway, sorry this got so long. I just wanted to finally say hello and thanks to you all. I look forward to reading and posting, and maybe meeting some of you at a festiva get together someday!
Now I'll head over to the gallery and post a couple more pics of the cup holder install.
Here's the car when I bought it.![](http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj314/proudmomof5zs/moe3.jpg)
Here is a shot of him from this morning (the date is wrong on our camera).
Fast forward a few years, one kid on his way to college, one out on his own, and gas at unimaginable prices, and I was on the festiva hunt! No easy thing here in CA it would turn out. But I eventually succeeded and am now the proud owner of...............lol, a red 5 spd Festiva LX. I have named him Moe. He's a 1990 CA car, with just under 65k miles when I bought him about a month ago. I found him on craigslist in Orange County and drove 4 and a half hours to see him. Took a test drive and bought him on the spot. As we were filling out the bill of sale, a guy pulled up in a yellow festiva and offered us more money than we had just paid (we had paid 1800.00). I felt bad for the guy, but these little cars are tough to find in good shape (as you already know), so we finished up the paperwork, and I drove Moe the 4.5 hours back home. I have been reading the posts here, and learning everything I can since then. There's such a wealth of information here! It's been a great help just being able to do key word searches and find answers to my questions. There are many improvements I would like to make. So far I have painted the steelies gloss black, polished the trim rings and center caps, peeled off the peeling red bumper stripes, slathered the bumpers and trim with back-to-black, ordered and installed a coin/cup holder from Levitan, installed a new stereo in the lower console area, put on a steering wheel cover and bought new floor mats. I gave the interior a thorough cleaning too. It is in great shape, but the car sat for 2 years and was a bit musty smelling. Oh I almost forgot! I have just completed all four brakes too, with new pads and hardware in the fronts, and new drums, shoes and all new bearings in the rear! All with the help of you guys! LOL And I have never worked on a car before! It was fun, though frustrating at times (hold down clips and pins on brake shoes!:violent1
![Smile](https://fordfestiva.com/forums/core/images/smilies//smile.gif)
Now I'll head over to the gallery and post a couple more pics of the cup holder install.
Here's the car when I bought it.
![](http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj314/proudmomof5zs/moe3.jpg)
Here is a shot of him from this morning (the date is wrong on our camera).
![](http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj314/proudmomof5zs/100_2595.jpg)
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