1 million mile Ford Van

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My apologies if this has been talked about here, but I found this article very interesting...

1,000,000 mile Ford Van

This tidbit I found the most intriguing:
Quote:
His maintenance secrets for getting a million miles from his van would make most automotive engineers and mechanics cringe: He changes his oil every 10,000 miles, but one time drove it 55,000 miles before an oil change. He adds a quart of oil with every other fill-up, however.


I would love to see under his valve cover.
grin2.gif


If you can get 1,000,000 miles out of an engine on this regiment, maybe we are all throwing away our money. These are highway miles I'm sure, but still an interesting consideration.
 
There is someone who got their dollars worth ($14k van)!

After getting that type of mileage out of the ORIGINAL engine and transmission, a quart of oil every other tank is NO big deal.

Quote:
maybe we are all throwing away our money.


I've been saying that for YEARS! (as someone who has
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)

Thanks for the link!

Bill
 
I also caught from that article that he changed his serpentine belt the first time at 500,000 miles!
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http://www.millionmilevan.com/

From his website...

Quote:
I’ve used only Valvoline brand of Oil and have used their T-Tech machine for my transmission fluid changes at approx every 50,000 miles. I change my oil approx every 10,000 miles. I have to add a quart of oil every full tank of gas so there is always some new oil in the pan. I just wait for it to go black before changing it. My longest period between oil changes was 55,000 miles a few years back. Is that bad?? I use the regular Oil, no high milage oil.


Currently has 1,080,000 miles
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He has used Valvoline since he bought it. Valvoline sent him a cap.(Wow...lol) I think Ford should give him a new van, and Valvoline should give him lifetime oil changes on his new van. IMO. He needs to also say what oil filters he uses, then the oil filter company could give him lifetime oil filters too. Even air filters, find out what air filter he was using, and that company needs to give him lifetime air filters.

Marketing bonanza....IMO...
 
Originally Posted By: GMFan
I also caught from that article that he changed his serpentine belt the first time at 500,000 miles!
shocked2.gif


http://www.millionmilevan.com/

From his website...

Quote:
I’ve used only Valvoline brand of Oil and have used their T-Tech machine for my transmission fluid changes at approx every 50,000 miles. I change my oil approx every 10,000 miles. I have to add a quart of oil every full tank of gas so there is always some new oil in the pan. I just wait for it to go black before changing it. My longest period between oil changes was 55,000 miles a few years back. Is that bad?? I use the regular Oil, no high milage oil.


So much for synthetic oil??????? I think the ticket is that engine spent a lot of time running, got nice and hot and stayed that way, along with a lot of highway miles. Still VERY impressive!
 
Says he took it to B&R quicklube.

Here is their website: http://www.bandrquicklube.com/

They use Valvoline oil (as mentioned) and Valvoline oil filters.

That would be hilarious if he sold the van to some unsuspecting person with 100k miles on the odometer. Little would the customer know that it rolled over once.
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Prob whatever the IffLube had...

So different oils. When we did our own maintenance on our work trucks and cars, we switched whenever someone came in with a better bid(lower. Remember, state contracts go to the lowest bidder)

Now we go to the Iffylube and get either Pennzoil or QS.

I'd bet that van has seen more 10w30 bulk oil than any other.

The 350k Corollas that this one lab used that is mostly what they saw. Those were hammered but still ran fine. (the rest of the car (esp the seats) were trashed.

I was going to replace my belt @ 125k miles. I guess I'll wait..
 
On a similar subject. There was a man who drove a Volvo for many miles. He was given a new Volvo by Volvo.
I think he was a traveling salesman that puts lots of miles on his car too. Similar miles as the owner of the Ford van.

Another marketing bonanza....
 
Originally Posted By: GMFan
Says he took it to B&R quicklube.

Here is their website: http://www.bandrquicklube.com/

They use Valvoline oil (as mentioned) and AC Delco filters.

That would be hilarious if he sold the van to some unsuspecting person with 100k miles on the odometer. Little would the customer know that it rolled over once.
LOL.gif

That web site has had 271 hits...

Bet it will double by the end of the weekend since you posted the link!
LOL.gif
 
Valvoline probably sent him that crummy hat because they probably don't want the publicity. They don't want word getting out that some guy in Ohio got 1,000,000 miles out of an engine despite not changing the oil every 3,000/3 months but instead every 10,000 miles. That would cut their revenue by more than 33%! They want you to believe your engine instantly seizes at 3,001.
 
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Originally Posted By: GMFan
My apologies if this has been talked about here, but I found this article very interesting...

1,000,000 mile Ford Van

This tidbit I found the most intriguing:
Quote:
His maintenance secrets for getting a million miles from his van would make most automotive engineers and mechanics cringe: He changes his oil every 10,000 miles, but one time drove it 55,000 miles before an oil change. He adds a quart of oil with every other fill-up, however.


I would love to see under his valve cover.
grin2.gif


If you can get 1,000,000 miles out of an engine on this regiment, maybe we are all throwing away our money. These are highway miles I'm sure, but still an interesting consideration.

Consider himself lucky. What year was the van? Lots of highway miles ill bet.
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Built Ford Tough.


Wonder why my 1990 F150 went through 3 transmissions by 150k?

Or my 1999 Ford Taurus went through 2 sets of head gaskets by 108k?

Or my 1994 F150 and 2 power steering pumps by 70k?

Not too Ford "tough" for me.. (ok it was tough to deal with it)
grin2.gif


I think this guy could have done the same with a Dodge van, Chevy or Ford. There are plenty of them out there doing excellent service.

They are not the only MFG to make outfits go that far. There was a guy last year who did 1 mill in his Chevy truck.

Chevy 1milion mile truck

Youtube of Chevy 1 million mile van

There is one Chevy van that ran Amsoil with photos of the teardown (impressive) but it is a link to another dealer. I've sent it to Pabs to see if he can get it shown...

Take care, Bill
 
That's cool. I always used Ford vans at my generator service shop. We had a whole bunch of those older boxy ones with 300 inch inline sixes. One went 350,000 before we had to lift off the head for service. These older ones were carburated and did not have OD. To me, that was impressive also.
Later on, I grabbed a couple of E 250's with EFI inline sixes and C6 transmissions. They were the best ever. I know my brother still has my old 94 in service. It was the first service vehicle I had with air conditioning. That was livin'.
 
Originally Posted By: Pablo
Irv was a school teacher. It was a Volvo P1800. He redid the bottom end a couple times and did a 3k or so OCI.

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/10/26/man-with-2-6-million-mile-volvo-p1800-aims-for-3-million/

Indeed lots of highway miles. We all would say "ewe" if we looked at the non-contact surfaces of the van, but I am impressed and a bit doubtful of the 55K oci one time...he added a quart of oil every gas fill-up.


My friends father has a 1973 P1800.. cool car.
 
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