Well I received this car some time in September from a abut who was going to junk it. I looked it over gave it a test run and thought this little 95 2.0L (90,000 miles) would be a great little economy carâ?¦
I did noticed a few big thingsâ?¦It looked as if no one had maintained it, the coolant was brown, the air filter was dirty, had and still has original plugs and wires, the cabin filter was a mold colony, heater fan didnâ??t work, leaking some break fluid in the back, bald tires in front, the inside was a dumping ground, but the car was free, and overall the things were minorâ?¦and I am 16 so I do have a bit of spare timeâ?¦hehe
I decided to do the major things firstâ?¦Since I was about 2 hours from home I opted to break down and go to those â??10 minâ? oil change placesâ?¦they wanted $40 for a synthetic oil change, what a rip offâ?¦so I opted for the $20 mineral one
As I was driving home, I noticed the temp gauge was ~3/4 the way up, â?¦nothing too hot, but still fairly alarmingâ?¦.Also, the performance was a bit undesirable. But hey itâ??s a four banger
So I swung by the auto parts store and picked up some antifreeze, air filterâ?¦then upon arriving home I quad flushed the radiatorâ?¦but the damned temp. still was up thereâ?¦
Then while doing a search for problems I noticed the timing belt was banging around a bitâ?¦but I had other things to doâ?¦such asâ?¦
the rear breaks, they had to be done a few weeks after, pa chipped in for some decent treads, she was running really tiny tires in the front, the rims werenâ??t small just the tires looked like something off our tractorâ?¦
Finally around October I bring it in to a shop, I have done timing belts before but, this one looked like a [censored] to get too, so once again good old popâ??s picked up the $500 tabâ?¦what a great guy
I just got it back and my godâ?¦the thing runs great, it turns over a sec. or to faster, runs cooler, and performance is just wowâ?¦Anyway, I still canâ??t believe I missed all the tell tale signs of retarded timingâ?¦I had the mechanic save the belt, amazing that thing didnâ??t snap on the way thereâ?¦I also got the cam seal done, idler pulleys, tensioner pulleyâ?¦good stuff
. I spent like $50 on those wires and it was a major let-down for them to suck that much. I usually go with Purolators' PureOne oil filter, but the Motorcraft one is almost identical to it iirc. I usually go with Purolator for all my filtration needs, but if I can't find what I need in Purolator, I'll go to Motorcraft then STP. I run Mobil 1 5w-30, and it is holding up VERY well. I'm on my second filter change.