My 88 drifts all over the road at road speeds.

[Tom]

It's not really all over the road but there is a lot of movement and it's worse in the wind and on bad roads.

Normally these little cars go down the road straight as a arrow and handle and control very well.

I'm going to Check the rear wheels and bearings and everything tomorrow. I'll probably jack up the front on each side and see if I can find the problem there too. Those rear shock like posts on the rear I'm thinking might be broke, something is definitely wrong and on winter ice I am not going to be able to drive it this way. I bought it this way about a month ago. This is northern Minnesota and the bad weather is getting here tonight. We have 4 months of snow and ice.

Any thoughts?

[packrat427]

You mean maybe a broken strut shaft ??

See there you jinxed yourself when you said the rear alignment is usually not necessary :lol:

[Tom]

The rear at a glance had what looked like a shock absorber extended but it looked to be one piece and stationary, like some kind of vertical swaybar or something, it looked strange to me, either that or the coil springs that go to them are entirely gone, it seemed unusual to me. I haven't jacked it up yet but thats how it llooked at a quick look when I crawled under the car.

The tires are all wearing even, the whole thing is unusual. I got that big blue notebook cover from Ford with all the folders in it about everything for 88 Festiva, I'll bring it in today and study it some, I thought this shop manual was a real prize until I read here that it is really lacking, it's a large plastic one like the parts stores and shops have and full of folders with about 20 full size pages in each.

I can look up stuff for people if this is a good repair book, I think it's 88 and 89 carb models, the Genuine Ford one.

[freshtiva]

My 92 was real squirrelly before I put a new torsion beam on it. Old one was bent. If was worst on wets roads after hitting a bump. On gravel it felt like the rear end was about to swap lanes. I replaced the struts with the torsion beam and it cured the problem completely. Mine had worn out a rear tire over a 5000 mile period though. I too would have been afraid to drive it as it was in bad weather. Sound very similar.