Half million mile milestone.

[12Ounce]

I know there are fewer and fewer of us owners to read or care ... but even with the reduced driving due to the virus .... yesterday i looked down and there was 500009.8 on odometer.
.
.... and it still seems to have life to give. i believe its good for another couple hundreds of K's.

[wiswind]

You have done very well my friend!

[tomj76]

Good deal.

[phil-l]

Congrats! My '00 is still in the driveway, but has done little since covid hit. Still runs well at about 205K-ish miles - but there are some issues (currently needs to deal with wonky shift linkage).

[Ed_Strong]

Im so proud Of your achievement. Very well done.

Our 2000 made it to 179K before it started sending antifreeze to the crankcase. It was still on its original transmission tho

[12Ounce]

Three important facts made it happen;

1. i got loads of maintenance help from this forum ...
2. ... i am a super tightwad! Do not want to spend money on new car!
3. Luck.

[phil-l]

12Ounce:

I have to ask: How much rust is on your Windstar? The sills on my '00 rusted through in front of the rear wheel well. Most of the rest of the body is pretty solid...

[12Ounce]

Norusttospeakof.
Weliveinthesoutheast.
....myspacerkeydoesntwork!!!!

[Ed_Strong]

Originally Posted by 12Ounce

Norusttospeakof.
Weliveinthesoutheast.
....myspacerkeydoesntwork!!!!

LMBO... That's funny right there!
I thought you were speaking code!!!

You could use the period key ( . ) in between words to create a space until you sort out your keyboard issues

exe... No.rust.to.speak.of.
We.live.in.the.southeast.
....my.space.key.doesnt.work!!!

[phil-l]

Well, I'm in the mid-Atlantic and while they don't treat the roads the way they did when I was growing up in Ohio, they still put some salt down - and the Windstar doesn't tolerate salt very well...

[Ed_Strong]

Ours had very minimal surface rust on the sub-frame and rear axle when we replaced it back in Feb of this year. The body had no rust to speak of whatsoever!

[Mustang_Driver]

I have an 2001 sport and there is relatively no rust on it but the paint is flaking off it on the roof rails my van also has really low millage compared to what i have seen out there but it's gotten me through 23" of snow and never once gotten stuck and as much as i say i want to sell it, it's a hard one to get rid of.


i have 169000km or 105000miles on mine but the tranny is starting to feel soft so if it makes it through this winter i'll rebuild the tranny and do the front end work and drive it till it finally gives up

[scubacat]

Originally Posted by 12Ounce

I know there are fewer and fewer of us owners to read or care ... but even with the reduced driving due to the virus .... yesterday i looked down and there was 500009.8 on odometer.
.
.... and it still seems to have life to give. i believe its good for another couple hundreds of K's.

Awesome, congrats! I just sold our 2002 last month. I'm out of town (well not so much now but you get the point) and wanted something a little newer and more reliable for the wife, so we have a new-to-us 2014 Sienna now. I actually bought it in 2017 but she wanted to keep the Windstar at the time and now doesn't.

I'll keep this forum bookmarked and pop in every so often to see how everyone's doing. I might still have a tip or two to share, too, you never know! My 02 camry is still running great; swapped out the steering rack in June. (Wasn't leaking but bushings and inners were shot, so seemed smarter than replacing all that stuff separately only for it to leak eventually anyway.
It is 18 years old, after all....)

I will miss the windstar, though. I knew it pretty much in-and-out and it was a very reliable van. It even got a free new rear axle from the latest TSB (~2015 I think) and had a remote-start to help survive these northern winters. The guy who bought it was thrilled to have it, too.

[12Ounce]

Originally Posted by Ed_Strong

Our 2000 made it to 179K before it started sending antifreeze to the crankcase. It was still on its original transmission tho

.
You remind me that we also had coolant reaching the crankcase. Had a difficult time resealing the front engine cover and lower intake manifold. The 3.8 is a leaky engine. Ford did a better job on its later V engines. At least some of the newer designs include coolant pumps that are "hosed around" the front cover, and not "through it" ... much easier to seal up. Shudda been done decades ago!
.
Oh, got a new Dell "all in one". No sticky keys!

[Ed_Strong]

Originally Posted by 12Ounce

.
You remind me that we also had coolant reaching the crankcase. Had a difficult time resealing the front engine cover and lower intake manifold. The 3.8 is a leaky engine. Ford did a better job on its later V engines. At least some of the newer designs include coolant pumps that are "hosed around" the front cover, and not "through it" ... much easier to seal up. Shudda been done decades ago!
.
Oh, got a new Dell "all in one". No sticky keys!

I'm so glad for you not having sticky keys.
In my case... ours was supposed to have the orange coolant from the factory. So whenever I checked the coolant level, it was always fine and at the mark.
Well, little that I knew was that the orange color was from the rusting by-pass metal lines. and the de-gass bottle had the full mark burned in from the rust even tho it had been empty for who knows how long. Since the van never ran hot once, even down here in the south Florida heat I never put a thought into it!

The way I found out was while doing an oil change and saw water (about a cup) come before the oil poured out! So, at this point I didn't want to invest on doing the lower intake and/or front cover gaskets (plus all by-pass lines, water pump, heater lines etc.) to then find out that the engine had internally been compromised!
Then started thinking... what if I go thru all this expenses and the tranny decides to go soon after being that it was still on it's original... so, you get the idea!
Plus the local Ford dealer refused to honor the axle bean recall fix on our van and I didn't feel safe having my wife and kids driving it. so it became my to work and back transportation mode untill it started gushing water out the weep hole on the water pump.