Hey Fabs...

Jabba · #1 07-19-2005, 02:54 PM

I originally did this as a reply to the oil thread but didn;t want to hijack it.

Hey Fabs... there ARE other car companies out there BESIDES Ford.

Man I always considered the blue oval on the grill a factory defect.

And I have owned a few too so I am not just spouting either...

1980 Merc Capri
1978 LTD
1976 LTD
1977 Pinto
1973 Maverick
1976 F-250 Highboy
1983 F-150
1988 Sable

That is my Ford history off the top of me head. The Maverick and the Highboy were the only two decent ones in the pile.

Jabba

fabsroman · #2 07-20-2005, 10:56 AM

I agree with you Jabba, there is also Lincoln and Mercury. LOL

Personally, I am a brand loyal kind of person until the product and the manufacturer let me down. Ford has done right by me for over 18 years now and I have no complaints.

As I stated in wrenchman's post about him hating cars and not liking Fords, he was driving a lot of older Fords and used ones at that.

If you buy a used car, there is no guarantee that it has been taken care of, if not abused.

How many of the Fords on your list were used?

Also, most of the Fords on your list are pre 1980 and I will readily agree that Ford had a quality issue back then, but so did every other American auto maker back then.

You do not have a single Ford in the list that was built within the last 17 years. Don't you think a company's product could change over 17 years?

I just wish Ford would start making some more hybrids. I have even been thinking about buying its Flex Fuel Taurus, but luckily I don't need a new car right now.

Jabba · #3 07-20-2005, 11:07 AM

The age of those cars sort of dates me huh? I started driving in 1985 so yeah... they were ALL used and most used HARD.

I have only EVER bought one NEW car in my life. It was a 92 S-10 4x4.

I know Ford is a good as anyone. Personally I have been a Chevy Truck man. It seems like they just FEEL better to me. You know... the intangible seat of the pants feeling.

Both of my brothers are Ford guys and have trucks. One a F-150 std, the other a F-250 ext with the 7.3 Powerstroke. The deisel has not been a great vehicle for him. He did buy it new in 95. It's cost him a lot of maintenance IMO. It does run great though, and gets 20 MPG, and will pull a building down the street.

I have a Jeep now. And a Honda Valkyrie. The wife drives a Suburban. All used.

You know what really got me mad at Ford? I rebuilt the 390 in the highboy... and the valve covers on that thing mate to both the intake manifold and the head. ANd that make a joint where the 3 join that ALWAYS leaks oil. That and the push rods on that engine run thru the intake manifold, and that just seems crazy stoopid to me. Ever since then I have not trusted Ford engineers. I am sure there are examples of things like that with every car maker, but I am FAMILIAR with that one.

Jabba

fabsroman · #4 07-20-2005, 03:02 PM

Jabba,

You aren't that much older than me. I started driving in 1987 when I turned 16. Here are my list of cars.

1. Used 1980 Cougar previously owned by an old lady with almost 15,000 miles on it. It ran great for the 2 years I drove it, but I gave it to my brother when I bought a 1989 Mustang GT. I didn't have to do anything to the Cougar other than changing the tires and shocks.

2. New 1989 Mustang GT. I drove this car for a year and I still love it. However, after getting a couple door dings at college, I decided to garage it. It currently has 33,000 miles on it and the only problem has been the thermostat. I then started driving my dad's 1980 Ford Fairmont.

3. Used Ford Fairmont with 100,000 hard miles on it. When I got the car from my dad, I gave it a tune up and broke three socket wrenches and one extender bar trying to remove the spark plugs. I also used a couple of cans of Liquid Wrench to remove the spark plugs. Thankfully, the tools were Craftsmen and were replaced without any questions. This was before I owned a compressor and pneumatic tools. Remember, I was just in college at this point. The Fairmont lasted me 8 years and 135,000 miles. It was 18 years old and had 235,000 miles on it before it blew a ring the week I graduated from law school. It saw me through college and law school and the two years of work between the two. At this point, it was a POS, but I still wanted to pull the straight six out of it and put a 5.0 in it to use it as a beater car, but I just never got around to it. Didn't have time to do the work because it was exam week and the bar exam came up a couple of months later. Now, even though the car lasted quite a while, I did have to do a ton of repairs on it. I changed the alternator and starter so many times, I could do it in my sleep, but this is probably because the replacement parts were crap. The rear end blew up on me and I picked one up at a junk yard for cheap. Did the same thing with the gas tank when it rusted out. Changed the fuel pump and shocks too and put new springs on it. With that said, 250,000 miles out of my cars and trucks is my goal.

4. New 1998 Taurus because I didn't have the time to fix the Fairmont. As I said above, this car has been good to me, but I have also been very good to it. I rarely ever take it above 2,500 RPM and I always follow maintenance to a T. I use Mobil 1 in it along with the $10 Mobil 1 filter and it is doing pretty good on oil consumption with 132,000 miles on it. If I get another 7 years and 120,000 miles out of it, I will be happy as can be.

5. New 2003 Ford F-350 with the 6.0 liter diesel. Can't really say much about this truck because it only has 3,800 miles on it and most of them have been easy. However, I love the truck like I love the Stang. Just don't have a garage to put it in.

At the end of the day, I completely agree with my dad about buying somebody else's headache's when you buy a used car. Not everybody agrees with me, and my brother thinks I could save a lot of money if I buy used cars since I know how to fix them, but I just do not want the headache.

So, that is my experience with Fords and a Mercury.

By the way, my brother and dad are really hard on cars. My brother killed that Cougar in a little over a year. The fact that I got an additional 135,000 miles out of that Fairmont is amazing and the fact that my brother's F-150 is 10 years old with 90,000 miles on it is utterly amazing. Of course, it doesn't run great and it looks like crap, but it does still run. Then again, I have done some work on that truck too (e.g., replaced the rear end, the oil pump and oil pickup, and the H pipe).

I also agree with you about the 390. It seems utterly crazy to have the intake run through the valve covers and it makes no sense to have the pushrods come through the intake. I am having a hard time seeing how that could possibly work.

Jabba · #5 07-20-2005, 03:16 PM

The push rods go through the intake manifold. The valve cover seals to both the intake manifold and the head. The intake does NOT run thru the valve cover.

Your F-350. That new deisel is getting good reviews from my buddies that work at Ford.

Jabba

fabsroman · #6 07-20-2005, 04:12 PM

Okay, that makes a little more sense, but like you, I have no idea why the valve cover would seal to the intake manifold.

Glad to hear that the guys at Ford really like the 6.0 liter diesel. I know I do right now, but only time will tell how good it really is.

LoneWolf · #7 07-20-2005, 07:25 PM

Everybody has their horror stories. As most of you know, I'm a Service Manager at a GM Dealer. We have built our POS's over the years too.

The problem with every POS, is that everyone hears about it. You have a bad experience, you pee and moan to everybody you know about it. Most people don't tell about their great stuff, just keep on driving it. My brother-in-law is a GM tech at another garage. He'll sit and tell you about what junk this and that GM car is, how all he does is work on them all day long. what he fails to realize is...
1. He works on, say 5 same models, in a couple of months and sees some problems.
2. He starts talking about what junk they are.
3. He saw maybe, maybe, 5% of that model that his dealership sold.

My point is, it is all in your perspective, and how you want percieve it. Or the stories you hear

BTW, I thought everyone knew Chevy's made their name in the tow truck industry. Ya know, pullin those Ford and Dodge's around

gumpokc · #8 07-20-2005, 08:43 PM

chuckle, yeah this thread brings back memories, and you all are roughly my age as well, since i graduated in 1983.

#1 first car (that i bought) 72 chevy vega. it had 80k on it, and one tiny little rust spot dead square in the middle of the hatchback. It was a great car, had it from fall '82-summer 88.
I put a littel over 100k on it, and of course it was a "first car" so it had it's up and down but was very good overall, when you consider what i put it through.

Believe it or not, this was the only vega on the planet that didn't burn oil, no smog cloud at all. It _did_ leak it, but that was a user induced malfunction. I had a choie one night of cow or ditch, so i took the ditch and cracked the oilpan. didnt have the tools to fix it, so i just cleane dit up, and used RTV on the hairline crack, and reapplied whenever it came off :P

It finally died after i sold it to a army dormmate in 88, he pulled out in front of a big buick and totalled it, which taught me a lesson later, when you sign over a title, get a noterized copy, it will save your ass as it did mine, and i only did it on a lark.

#2 1987 ford ranger bought new, 147k miles (current).
oil pressure sendign unit went out at just under 2k miles, paint job was crappy, had it repainted 5 times, ford paid for all but the last, and it was prorated cause it had reached end of warrenty.
(i know the problem was a bad primer job, i proved it many time,s but they would never do more than sand and reshoot paint. it always started peeling again in the exact same spots, every time.
about 2 years ago, it started having a weird problem, elec in nature, but i dont have time to muck with it, so it's sitting till i either have time or moola.
overall not a bad vehicle.

#3 88 chevy cavalier, 285k miles current, i've put about 20k on it in last two years since the ranger died. It's a beater for work and home. needs more work than it is worth but if it lasts 2 more years i can either fix it up or put it out of it's misery.

back to that lesson about getting a noterised copy of transfer of title. I sold the vega ot a guy in the barracks. Our 1st sgt, mentioend getting everything noterised, didnt sound liek a bad idea, and i did so. When we switche dit over i had a noterised bill of sale, and a noterised copy of the title being transferred made since we were at the NP anyway.

It saved my butt.

We went to Ft. Erwin ( lovely place in summer:P) and the guy i sold it too stayed back causehe was going to ETS while we were gone. We were gone 45 days. About 40 days into the field problem, i get a snailmail from an insurance company, but no specifics.

turned out the guy i sold it too had pulled out in front of someone, and the accident was his fault, but he never switched the tags, even though he had the car for like 3 months.
so they were coming after me, for damages and medical.
The only things that saved my butt was the noterised copies of bill of sale and transfer of title.

fabsroman · #9 07-21-2005, 12:41 AM

Like my guns, I have never sold a car. The Cougar and Fairmont went to the junkyard and the rest of the cars I still own.

It is a good idea to get a notarized bill of sale to cover yourself, but in Maryland you would not have been personally liable for the accident. The other driver's insurance company was coming after your insurance company because most policies cover drivers that borrow the vehicle. If you still owned the car and didn't have insurance on it, they wouldn't be able to get a judgment against you, just against your friend.

My junior English teacher in college said it best. A person that has a good experience with something will tell one, maybe two people. However, a person that has a bad experience with something will tell a minimum of 10 people. While I say good things about Ford whenever I can, I also say plenty bad about Browning, just don't get me started on them.

gumpokc · #10 07-21-2005, 12:54 AM

Fabs i appreciate the explaination, all i know is what they tried to do then.

they even asked me if i had insurance on the car, after i had already proven it was sold. i'm like "why the hell would i insure a car i didnt own, even if it was possible, which i don't think it is".

I've not sold anythign else liek that yet, but you can bet when i do, i'll have my noterised copies in the safe deposit box.

Jabba · #11 07-21-2005, 08:27 AM

My brother had a Vega Wagon that was indestructable! It ran forever, and never let him down. We even towed my POS Capri home with it once! Ended up with 350,000 miles on it and he still sold it then and lost track. I told him to sell it back to GM so they could figure out what they did WRONG with that one! LOL

Jabba

buckhunter · #12 07-22-2005, 12:45 PM

One of my cousins owns a fairly larger garage. He loves Fords. In the morning if there are 15 cars in his bays, 10 of them are Fords. He hopes they never change.

Valigator · #13 07-28-2005, 07:21 PM

JABBA, you had a pinto man?.......

fabsroman · #14 07-28-2005, 10:34 PM

I was trying to leave that one alone because it was one of Ford's black eyes, along with that Mustang II piece of crapola that reminded me of a Pinto. A next door neighbor of ours had a Mustang II with air shocks on it and I can remember her doing a burnout in it to this day. That was way before I was able to drive.

TreeDoc · #15 07-29-2005, 12:33 AM

You guys are actually admitting to the Fairmont and Pinto?

My Dad bought my 2 brothers one of the very first Pintos off the assembly line in 1969. We were at the dealer every day waiting for the truck to arrive with the first load of Pintos. It was a big deal back then. It was black and they put chrome "reverse" wheels on the back end and left the stock hubcaps on the front....how 60's! They had to share the car so that in and of itself was quite entertaining on or around a Friday or Saturday night....the fights were as gnarlyas today's Ultimate Fighting Challenge!

I spent the better part of my high school years toodlin' around in my buddy's '72 Pinto that was orange in color. We called it the "Pintera deTomato" not to be confused with Ford's Pantera deTomasa which was an awesome ride!

Wow....memories!

Now....who had a Gremlin?

Just what I figured....no one would admit to that!