Your first Festiva.

[fastivaca]

I've often been asked why a Festiva? That's easy to answer now after having one or more Festivas in the past ten years or so but got me to thinking of another question... why did I buy my first Festiva?

After more than twenty years with one company that provided a company vehicle I started a new job that had a 50km/30 mile round trip commute so we decided to pick up second vehicle for me to drive. The main criteria for the purchase where fairly basic: great gas mileage, fun to drive, easy to work on. The first car we picked up was a 2nd generation VW Jetta Carat that had been properly lowered. It turned out that this met the first two criteria but not the third. When we decided to sell that and find something else I remember reading an ariticle in the August 1988 edition of Motor Trend featuring an 88 Festiva that they tweaked just a little. I remember thinking, based on that article, that the Festiva would be a fun car to have so I started looking in earnest for one. Looked at a couple of them and in early 2001 I purchased a white 92 GL Sport for about $1200. The car met all the criteria and I was hooked. I found the Yahoo group and later this forum and the rest is history.

Here's what my first car looked like about a year after I got it, the back end was equally "modified"...



After that happened I picked up my current car. Here's a couple of shots of the red one shortly after I bought it. I'd already replaced the exhaust and added the "swoopie" power mirrors.





A more recent shot...



All that being said it begs the question... why did you buy your first Festiva?

[MiltonHavoc]

I was renting cars every weekend for two years. My Honda put a rod through the block while coming home one night, and my z was in the garage so no repairing it at home. And I still had a car that was out in cali being built by what I thought was a friend. I got tired of spending my whole paycheck on renting a car AND gas.
I looked at various cars (which I do regularly anyways) At first I wanted a CRX, then a Mini came into my view, Toyota MR-s was on the list as well. But then I started looking at gas miesters and I started looking at this board. I was far from sold as I am a rwd guy. I searched hi and lo for a festiva but they are quite elusive out here. I finally purchased Pepper a few months ago and now she gets more attention from me than my Z....

[lessersivad]

I was talking to a friend of mine one day and he had purchased a Festiva a few months previously. He was talking about what kind of fuel mileage he was getting, etc. and I checked his out.

I found it to be a rather interesting little car so the search was on.

I found my 1st one on ebay with a "buy it now" price so I contacted the seller and eventually made the purchase.

The darn thing about me buying a Festiva is it goes against 3 things I said I wouldn't own.

1. Front wheel drive
2. Fuel injected
3. Foreign made

Glad I'm not a stubborn now as I was when I was younger....LOL.

[KingFish]

03-24-08_1907.jpg

My first was a 88L Got it in the mid of the night for 300 bux.

[jake88maro]

hahahha that was my whole deal too wen i was younger stubborn as a nail no foreign at all!!!^

we aquired our first festy after we were just getting terrible mileage in a jeep grand cherokee that we had, so we sold it and were looking around for something better on gas.
-svt contour was on the list as well as a ford focus, but i insisted to my brother he wouldnt be happy with eithers gas mileage! so we looked into hondas ect and there just wasnt one for a reasonable price, then came the geo metro lol but i know its a sin to even bring up around here lol.

i just couldnt even remember what the name of this car was but i knew they exsisted and just had to get good gas because of there size!!! upon google searching for an hour or so i finally found the car i new we were going to own. so a few hours on craigslist later i found my first festiva!

[TheresGabe]

My uncle had owned 3-4 before I got mine. Including an 88 LX that he bought new, and put 199,000 miles on it, before it got totaled in only 4 years.

I had just met my then girlfriend (Now wife). I was driving a GMC 2500 Vandura panel van with a 350 in it. She lived exactly 41 miles away from me, and I was making $7/hour. Well those numbers didn't add up. I sold the van for $700, and had my brother come pick me up to go to a little dealer in Orem UT. We got there, and they had a Silver Festiva, and a Yellow Justy. The justy had less miles, and was "guaranteed" The Festiva was OK, had more miles, and was sold "as is". I took the Festiva for $700.
I had to put another $200 into it, to get it to pass safety/emissions. In the following 6 months, I put 36,000 MILES on it. Do the math. 36,000 miles at 60mph = 25 - 24 hour days. I literally AT LEAST spent 1/6 of my entire life in that car for those 6 months. (most likely much more, as I dont think I average 60 all the time). The car did it's job and got me married to my wife. It took us to Vegas on our honeymoon and everything.

Soon after the honeymoon, I was driving down the freeway, and I saw an office on the side of the road waving his arms. I looked over at him, and looked back to the road just in time to see the stump of wood go under my car. It broke 2 motor mounts, and tore the oil pan wide open.

I loved that little car. And now 4 more festivas and 10 years later, I don't know how I ever go without having one.

[Aaronbrook37]

I registered on the board in 2007, right after graduating from High School. I come from a Mitsubishi import background (CSM/DSM) and was looking for something different. I needed a small vehicle that would be just as much to play with as the original plans I had for my Colt. Thus I started my research on small hatchbacks that weren't necessary "hot" by definition, but had the potential of becoming hot hatchbacks. Like many of you, I spent a long time looking for my car after abandoning my searches for Suzuki Swift Turbos, Justys, Micras, Golfs, and other small hot hatches from 1985-1995.

In December of 2009, I came across what I thought would be the perfect car. An original owner from 1990, this guy had racked up 499,500KM onto his Festiva by commuting around BC 5 times a week round-trip. The car appeared to be in good shape, but I wasn't exactly sure what had been done to it. The wheels looked large, and the suspension unusually high. The owner disappeared until late April, when I was returning from University in Ontario.

I then sent in the venerable veteran Sasquatch to investigate, and the findings were many. We were both a little worried about the high mileage on the car, and there were another few little issues here and there that caught our attention. Despite it's flaws, I had waited far too long to acquire myself a hot hatch in progress. I drove over to Abbotsford (via ferry and highways) to pick up the car.

Having sat for the better part of 7 months as a result of him buying a fancy Mazdaspeed Protege to replace it, it wasn't the greatest off the bat. The car's exhaust was noisy, the interior was a little dirty, the engine bay was filthy, and the overall feel of the car was "cobwebbed."

It made it back alive and well to Victoria, and I was very pleased with my purchase. The owner had told me at the time of purchase that the car was indeed Aspire-swapped, and that the reason it sat so high was because of the KYB's with stock Aspire springs, all of which had been professionally installed by a mechanic who was a relative.

So I got to work on her. It had come with: KYBs + Aspire Springs, Aspire Swap, 14" Steelies, 185/60-14 Tires, Custom Cargo Shelf, 6 Speaker Audio with JVC Deck, Auto Console. I met up with Pacific-Northwest legend Ken (hotroddin4me) whose collection of parts and cars was nothing short of fantastic. I acquired a replacement headlight to attempt to fix my woes with mossy rust.

From page one of my build thread.

[88FestivaLX]

Mine basically fell in my lap. I had just graduated from college and started my "career". My drive from home to work and back was about 130 miles Monday-Friday. I only had one car, which is my 88 Mustang GT that wasn't stock anymore and I was getting around 15 MPG on a good day on premium gas. I was part of a car club where I was at school. We even had a forum for it. One day a guy put an 88 Festiva LX up for sale. He said it was in great shape, got 40 MPG, 5 Speed, 136,000 miles on it for $500. This was March 2007. I contacted him and said I wanted it. He said 2 other guys on the forum contacted him and wanted to buy it to go jump stuff and basically destroy it. I told him that I needed it to commute or I was going to have to sell my Mustang. He really liked my car and wanted me to keep it, so he sold it to me. I've driven the Festiva pretty much everyday since then It just hit 193,000 miles. Definitely the best investment I've ever made!

[Spike]

I used to love reading books.. it was about the only thing I did. Well, I always walked the back-alleys in our 1500 person town to the library. For like 6 years straight, I passed this turquoise little brick. I never really payed it any mind (it was a 91-93GL, I now know), and it slowly got more and more buried in weeds and dirt. Then one day, it wasn't there anymore. I was probably 14 or so at that time, and finally searched what it was. A Ford Festiva.

Fast-forward a few years and me learning to drive in a too-touchy car with power steering. I'd barely move the wheel and about careen over the side. Learning to drive in that piece of junk (1990 Nissan Maxima automatic lol), I literally waited an extra year to get my license until I found a car that suited my tastes.

Reasons for Festiva:

Sexy. Manual steering. Front wheel drive. MPGz. No safety (actual reason).

I assumed if I had to WORK to drive, I'd get better at it. If I had to worry about, "If I crash this, I'm dead.", I'd be more careful. Personally, I think it worked.. except for the careful part.

Then finally one came up close, an auto for $700. It had dents, rust, no suspension, and bald tires. I agreed to buy it for $700, too... but ended up getting it for $250 including a new battery.

It still does its job, though everytime I fix something, something else literally snaps. I'm learning what people use zip ties and duct tape for. Yet I love it! I'm addicted.

~Joe

[Twistiva]

Newly married, in school full time, working part time, living in a basement apartment and broke. My wife had a Dodge Omni (friggin' thing drove like a Cadillac....I have NEVER had another car that drove so smooth!) but I fried the engine getting to a mandatory, 'don't even think of missing it' Air Force ROTC meeting at the ROTC detachment 40 miles away (the oil light came on on the drive there, pulled over and checked the oil level, which registered full, so me and my ROTC buddies pressed on.....turned out the oil pump had failed and I overheated the engine.....this happened AFTER it overheated on me once before/had chronic radiator/overheating issues but we were able to re-mill the heads.....so, anyway, I fried the engine for good with the bad oil pump. Wife wasn't too happy with that). So we went from the smooth riding, semi-reliable Dodge Omni to an old late-70s 'boat car' (can't remember what kind) my older brother gave me that my wife literally had to wire a wood block to the brake pedal to be able to reach it (she's 'vertically challenged'). Not good because she had a part-time job where she needed to visit customer's in their store/in person and could hardly see over the hood. So, we needed a car. Bad. It had to be reliable and it had to be cheap.

Enter, my mom.

She told me about a guy in her local church who sold used cars. Visited his little dealership on 5th South in Bountiful, Utah and first sat in the Festiva I still own. That was February 1989. I still remember my first 2 impressions: 1 - It was like sitting in a fishbowl....windows everywhere. 2 - After driving my parent's Toyota Corona sometimes as a teenager, the Festiva steering wheel felt incredibly thick in my hands. It was an 88L, had ~29,500 miles on it and cost us $4,100. I had to beg my dad to loan me the $1000 down-payment with a promise that I'd have him paid off with left over Pell grant money from me and my wife when the next quarter's Pell grant money came through in a week, which we did. Payments were a whopping $90.44 a month. That amount seems comical now.

I signed the papers on Valentine's Day 1989. On the way home I stopped at a flower shop and bought a huge length of pink ribbon and parked in the alley by our apartment and literally wrapped the Festiva in the ribbon complete with a bow and then got my wife to see what was in the alley.

I've owned it for almost 24 years, and, since my wife now almost refuses to drive it (she got the 'nice' cars as we made more money over the years and I kept the Festiva as the 'go to work' car) I now have just over 184,000 miles on it. My kids love it; they say it has character and one even says it "smells nice". Truth be told, it has been so incredibly dependable I've often neglected it other than add gas, change the oil, new tires and the occasional tune-up and a new clutch (about 15 years ago)....there's a ton of minor things that need to be fixed but the engine just keeps chugging along (intermittant/short duration power loss problem dogged me tonight for the first time in 2 years).

Anyway....I'm never going to sell it, even though it would be much cheaper to buy another car but I'm in the process of fixing it up.

And that's my story. All hail the Festiva! :salute:

[Twistiva]

[QUOTE=MiltonHavoc;563865].....And I still had a car that was out in cali being built by what I thought was a friend. QUOTE]

That's got "bad" written all over it....

[Team Lightning]

Double post somehow. Happy New Year

[Team Lightning]

Back in May 1990 I stopped at the local Ford dealer looking for a pickup. Well, everythiing they had was out of my budget range. I inquired about the little silver car, (which turns out was a Festiva). a couple of hours, $6600.00 contract and $156.00 per month later, I drove out in the only new car I've ever owned.
It currently has 319000+ miles on it. Averages about 38-40 mpg the way I drive it. Best deal I've ever gotten. (next best is my 98 Dakota Ive owned for 12 yrs.)
It's the only one I had driven until a couple of yrs ago. Now I have 3 Festivas. The 90L, a 93L and an 89 that may become another project car when Blue Lightning is finished.

[TorqueEffect]

My first Festiva is actually my first car, and is my only car.

I worked my biggest security job of the year back in July, a full 7-day week at the county fair 8-10 hours a day.
I already had $200 stashed away, and after my paycheck for that week arrived, I did some car searching on craigslist.

I grew up in a family that only owned Fords, I grew up in my folk's 86' Ford Tempo 2door which had a 2.3l engine with the Manual 5speed. After that they leased a 97' Windstar, after that lease ran up they leased a 01' Windstar. Tired of leasing, and Minivans, my folks in 06' took out a loan for a 06' Ford Fusion with a 5-speed manual, and a few month back they finally paid it off.
I learned to drive in that Fusion, I am glad I learned in a manual, because that alone I believe has made me an significantly better driver than most people out there that have only driven an automatic. (I still firmly believe automatics should only be driven by the disabled and elderly.)

But anyway, I was scouring craigslist for cheap Fords, and numerous times considering a GMs and Hondas because most Fords were out of my price range.

Until I found a little white Ford ecobox out in Greenville, Ohio (about an hour or so drive). The thing that had me the most excited was that is was a 5speed manual and that it got 40MPG. The guy wanted $500 for it, it was rusty, banged up, had it's fair share of issues (it had 300k miles and survived 21 Ohio salt soaked winters), but the biggest problem was the bad passenger rear spindle and bearings.

He did mention that the engine had been replaced with one that had 125k out of an 89', I don't know if he was telling the truth or not. (I wish I knew how to read the engine number so I could know for sure) But if he was telling the truth, they used the parts off the original engine to convert the 89' motor to EFI.

I never bartered with anyone before, I was prepared to give the guy $500 for it because I was letting the excitement of getting my first car get the better of me, but the friend I had brought with me asked what was lowest he was willing to take for it, and the seller said $400. So that is what I got it for. Still think I paid too much, but then again it is neigh impossible to find a car for $400 that runs.

While sitting there bsing with him and my friend, he did mention that there is a community of people who modify these little Festivas, which leads me to believe he must have been on this forum before. I already knew about the community because before going out to see the car, the night before I signed up on these forums to see what's what with these Festivas.

I didn't know the bearing and spindle issue was that bad, so I didn't bring a trailer because I thought it was still drivable. So I had to have my uncle come out with his Ranger and the U-haul I had reserved.

Been slowly but surely improving it since I got it back in August, I have added and fixed ALLOT of things on the car since. (I'd say at least $400-$500) Still doing so, and I plan on next spring removing allot of rust, and filling in the dings. Then when it comes time to get tires, upgrade to 13inch wheels.

I can safely say I have learned a great deal about working on cars just from owning this Festiva, even if it turns out to be a big money pit, the learning experience more than makes up for it.

[ericsmith32]

My first car unfortunately lasted less than a year. Hit black ice 6 months and rolled it. Patched it up just for a dodge pickup to back out in front of me with no lights on and totalled it completely 4 months later. I believe it lived on for at least another year seen it rolling down the highway one day. Dang fine car.. my friends always choose me as the driver since it was cheaper to drive it around versus their v8 gas guzzlers. If I would of had my head straight I could of drove that for alot of years!