95, 3.8 167K miles, Thank You All.

[CoachKarl]

I have returned from a 9,000 mile (US) vacation trip from Savannah GA to St Johns NF, in a 95 Windstar. No problems.

I am grateful to you all for making this possible.

This car has had so much bad press, from the year after it was introduced, but, God damn, check it out! We made it! No problems at all! I'd trust taking this buggy on a trip to the moon!

I owe this forum my greatest thanks.

Karl

[wiswind]

My '96 runs MUCH better over the past year that I have been doing much of the work myself.
Dealerships have highly talented people.....however they are rushed for time......and only have time to address the imediate concern.....while we can take our time and baby our cars.
Main thing to all....is to really stay on top of the preventative maintenance.....and check things over carefully to catch issues when they are small.
If one is not up on checking things over on their own.....taking the car to a reliable dealer for a "safety check" ,now and then, is well worth the money. It seems like a lot of money....but it can save major problems......including sitting along the road.

[12Ounce]

I also owe a debt of thanks to this forum.

And, Coach, I also just returned from a 3 week vacation tour from Atlanta through New England around Lake Ontario and back through Shennandoah Valley. Didn't drive nearly as far as you did. My '99 3.8 now has a total of 170 kmiles ... including the 4700 we put on this trip.

We picked up a couple who flew in from Leipzig to Washington and dropped them off 2 weeks later at Philadelphia. They had a list of all the historical sites they wanted to visit. We covered their list and added a few ... I think we walked a few hundred miles in the process. During the city-to-city driving, the Winnie performed perfectly while the visitors told of problems with (his) new Audi and (her) new Toyoto.

The trip was great. Made extra special by all the acts of kindness and courtesy by passersby in every city or hamlet. We were all very impressed with these acts ... our guests really couldn't believe it.

Before reaching Washington, I bought some fuel containing 10% alcohol (and perhaps some trash) and the in-line fuel filter immediately loaded up and the Winnie was losing power quickly. I sure did hate paying someone else to replace it. The old filter was the original. I will follow up by replacing the pump inlet sock and, again, the in-line filter.