do any of you own or have you owned a ford festiva??

Question

i currently own a 89 ford festiva lx. i reluctanly bought it 4 years ago(BEFORE GAS HIT THE ROOF) for 700 bucks and it had 182k on it! i figured to get 10 maybe 20 k out of it and junk it!! well now my little car had other plans. i drive it daily and it still get s 35mpg and now has 260k on it and doesnt use a drop of oil!! i do maintain my vehicles very meticuously , but this little car has far surpassed my expectations. i plan to drive her 300k. my toyota camry that i recently sold with 160k was developing more problems than my little energizer bunny car!! laugh if you will 40k suv owners? all of the money i am saving is being doubled in the stock market in gas futures!! whos laughing now????????????????????????

Answer 1

I never owned one, but worked at a Ford dealership when they were sold. Here is the odd thing I noticed about Ford Festivas. EVERY one that came in for a major unscheduled repair, or mechanical defect was the same odd shade of green blue. ONLY the green-blue ones came in for work, and boy did they come in. I worked there for two years and only ever saw a green-blue one for work. Other colors came in rarely, for routine maintenance, but this odd green-blue was always in and it was not the same car. There were at least 8 different ones, more likely 20! ALL OF THEM were the same color!

That said, what color is yours?

Answer 2

I have owned four Ford Festivas---they were good little cars but I would never drive or even ride in one again--I had a scary experience the last time I drove one--at 160k miles or so the spindles in the front axel broke while I was making a left hand turn--this was a nerve racking experience---the mechanic and tow truck driver told me I was lucky to live and this is a common thing to happen on older cheap cars like the Festiva. The mechanic who inspected the car said the back spindles were ready to brake also. Other than that experience---and that was a bad one--they were great little cars that I drove for 10 plus years. Oh by the way, change the timing belt on them every 60k miles or else---I didn't know this on my first Festiva and it destroyed the engine-have your spindles in your axel checked by a mechanic too-it could save your life.

Answer 3

Ford started putting out high mile motors in the mid 90's. I myself own a F150 that I bought in 2000. I keep up with the maintenance as well as you. Right now it has almost 300K on the original motor. It has paid for itself two times over and has as much HP as the day I bought it. The MPG still kinda sucks though. No where near what you get.

Answer 4

you made a good choice keeping that car i have seen them go to 500000 miles the only thing i can say bad about them is some start leaking oil so watch for that but if you keep it serviced it will last forever

Answer 5

The last Ford that I will ever own was one of those little beep-beeps that "Aspire" to become real cars. It got hit by too many bigger vehicles who claimed they couldn't see it, and it only started "most of the time."