500k

[Ford Man]

As of this morning my '88 Escort Pony has 500,000 miles and is still running on the original 1.9L engine and 4 speed manual transmission. The amazing thing is that it's never had a rebuild. Since I started my gas log almost 27,000 miles ago it's lifetime average is 43.6 MPG. I've got to do something nice for the car, so today it will get a fresh oil & filter change along with another quart of Slick 50. My goal now is 600,000 miles.

[Nevyn]

Congrats! Those little Pony models will run all day and night at awesome fuel mileage.



Unless they get hit by a truck making an illegal turn, as was the case with my dad's.

[MetroMPG]

500k miles is astounding. Congratulations!

The furthest any of my cars has gone is about 430,000 km (about 267k miles). 1989 Honda Accord, no engine or transmission work. It's still going under a new owner, but I think rust is going to seal that car's fate.

[Frank Lee]

Makes my Tempo with 280,000m a youngster!

It still runs too but the rust monster is taking it's toll.

Still, I do have the impression that Ford was working on quality throughout the '80s and it was a bit better then compared to before or after.

[Christ]

The 1.9's had head gasket problems under jack-rabbit driving conditions, such as long paper-route driving.

I went through at least 5 engines. Normally, they run slightly overcool... then you jack rabbit them, and they heat up nicely... then you chill for a minute, and they cool back down. Toasts the head gaskets quickly.

The engines were only $100, though... so I was still making a butt-load of money.

Great job on maintaining her for half a mil, man!

[Ford Man]

I'm lucky in the rust department. Although the car has some rust, since our winters are really mild hear in the Peidmont of the Carolina's about all I have is some surface rust and a couple small holes where are common rust points on the older Escorts. I used to try to keep them filled with bondo and primed, but then I decided the rust didn't look no worse than the primer spots.

Just think I have another '88 Escort that I bought back in the summer that only has 79,XXX miles on it. If it lasts as many miles as the the Pony has it will probably out last me.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by Ford Man

I'm lucky in the rust department. Although the car has some rust, since our winters are really mild hear in the Peidmont of the Carolina's about all I have is some surface rust and a couple small holes where are common rust points on the older Escorts. I used to try to keep them filled with bondo and primed, but then I decided the rust didn't look no worse than the primer spots.

Just think I have another '88 Escort that I bought back in the summer that only has 79,XXX miles on it. If it lasts as many miles as the the Pony has it will probably out last me.

Northerners, myself included, have lots of problems with the rear strut towers.

[Frank Lee]

First thing to let go on the Tempo was the rear control rod/chassis mount.

Thinking of doing this to fix it...

[bgd73]

Originally Posted by Ford Man

As of this morning my '88 Escort Pony has 500,000 miles and is still running on the original 1.9L engine and 4 speed manual transmission. The amazing thing is that it's never had a rebuild. Since I started my gas log almost 27,000 miles ago it's lifetime average is 43.6 MPG. I've got to do something nice for the car, so today it will get a fresh oil & filter change along with another quart of Slick 50. My goal now is 600,000 miles.

holy cow. Its like a saab in minnesota. or a beetle in so cal...
it is right at home to run that contently. I am always interested in these high miles threads, this is yet another that proves physics of locations annhilate cars, and they succeed elsewhere. The 88 escort was sent to a pile in oh..1989 after rod knocks never ended after the first winter..if they did stay that content, the owner kept 3 cylinder heads as spares. Amazing car you have there. 1988, in the beginning did not have miraculous oils. I am in a similar year, a 1987 subaru, also never rebuilt, with a long trip from alaska to maine..and a key chain from a north carolina muffler shop coincidentally. I would love to know where the shadow under the roof rack came from...(it may have seen arizona). one of those secretive little beater cars ya know?
any abnormalities along the way? The head lasting that long is astounding, I used to be in disbelief of these stories.

[Ford Man]

Originally Posted by bgd73

any abnormalities along the way? The head lasting that long is astounding, I used to be in disbelief of these stories.

No abnormalities along the way except one time several years ago when I changed the spark plugs one of them seize up in the head and stripped out the threads, but I was able to retap the threads back into the head using the old spark plugs that I had just taken out by applying lots of pressure to them with a rachet and socket and removing them every couple of turns and cleaning the threads out and just kept repeating this until I got the threads tapped back into the head. I figured if the old plugs stripped the threads out then they should work for retapping the threads and it worked. Never even had to remove the head, but it did teach me to start using plenty of anti seize!!! Just been a matter of keeping it serviced regularly and replacing normal wear parts. It even still has all the original exhaust system except fot the catalytic converter and the only reason it has been replaced is because Ford had a recall on it when the car had about 200,000 miles. The way I've been able to keep it on the road is by doing about 99% of the work myself and those lifetime parts also help keep the repair costs to a minimum. The parts that I can think of that are lifetime parts are the brake pads, brake shoes, steering rack, right and left tie rod ends, right and left control arms (ball joints), right and left front axles, front and rear struts, ignition module, clutch, pressure plate, throw out bearing, water pump, and fuel pump. There may be others that I just can't think of right now.