How much abuse can economy cars take?

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Ford Focus engine and transmission are pretty tough and the Escorts they replaced are still seen on the road. Most of the failure are surely due to neglect and lost of faith of such wonderful machine.
 
In NY state where my car is registered it's a fail, too.

You'd be surprised at how many [censored]-running, great-looking cars are around me. And a few cars with well-maintained engines in banged-up bodies. The tires can be an indication of how well a car is maintained. A lot of [censored]-running cars have no-name tires worn out in the front, while the well-cared-for cars have name-brand tires worn fairly evenly.
 
Originally Posted By: addyguy
Originally Posted By: smokey1
I believe the cast iron motors of yesterday were the better generation .


Baloney. Modern, light aluminum 4-cylinders like the ones in the Civic's and Corolla's are more reliable, and will rev harder, therefore take more 'abuse' than the old cast-iron engines.


I'll take a well made aluminium engine over a well made cast iron engine any day of the week. I would prefer they are made out of stainless steel though.
 
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My first car (not first vehicle that was a truck) was a 96 Ford Contour with a 4 banger (Zetec DOHC 2.0L) and a 5 speed (MTX-75) transmission. I wailed on that thing every day for nearly ten years. Drag launches from stop lights were the order of the day. Down shifting from 5th to 3rd at 50mph to pass was very common also. It went through 80K miles of that [censored] before it needed a new clutch. A performance clutch and lightweight flywheel went on and then I started autocrossing and open tracking the car just for fun.

I drove the car almost 400 miles to the buyer when I sold it and wouldn't have hesitated to drive it across the country at the drop of a hat. That car was SOLID.
 
The MTX-75 trans found in the Contour and the Focus is very overbuilt for the engines it's attached too. If I remember correctly, the design spec on the trans is 450ftlbs of torque!!

This doesn't include the clutch or the diff...just the trans itself.

The Zetec engine was rather solid as well, though I prefer the new duratec for how well it responds to simple performance mods. On the Focus at least, the drivetrain was the least of your worries....it was all the other [censored] that broke, at least on the early models (2001-2002.5).
 
The non-Kaiser affiliated labs here use the Corolla, Focus, Matrix or the Prius here. Heck, the gas, electric and water company use the Prius or the Civic Hybrid. My town dumped their Crown Vics for hybrids.

The county runs a very diverse fleet: CNG Camry, and Accord, Vulcan-powered Tauri, Stratus, Cavalier, Focus, Escape Hybrid, Prius, Civic Hybrid and CNG, all the way up to P71 Crown Vics and F550 diesels.
 
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I still have my purchased new 1996 Contour Zetec 5 speed manual with the factory wide aluminum wheels. I've maintained it well. It has been a great fun car and remains so. It still looks and runs great. As I've said before, it's my poor man's BMW
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. I don't beat it but I drive "sporty"
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. In May we went on a vacation from NJ to Asheville, NC via the inland mountainous route. The car was loaded and had no trouble maintaining 75++ mph and still returned 36 mpg on the mileage eating ethanol spiked gasoline.

It's not driven in winter once the snow starts and the salt goes on the road it goes into the garage. I want this car to last a lonnnnng time.

Whimsey
 
I drove a 1998? Dodge Neon at work for a while, and that car took one heck of a beating. Had horrible maintenance, been in 2 accidents, frequent WOTs, manually shifting an auto trans, lots of stop and go and starting and stopping the engine. It has over 140k and is still going. They're very nimble little cars, I bet they'd be fun with a manual.
 
Any clutch can last 200K miles if you drive the car correctly.

For the money a 5 speed Civic or Corolla is tought to beat (no pun intended).
 
Originally Posted By: exranger06
I drove a 1998? Dodge Neon at work for a while, and that car took one heck of a beating. Had horrible maintenance, been in 2 accidents, frequent WOTs, manually shifting an auto trans, lots of stop and go and starting and stopping the engine. It has over 140k and is still going. They're very nimble little cars, I bet they'd be fun with a manual.

There does seem to be a disproportionate number of 1st gen Neons in my area still trucking to work. Mine has needed the typical headgasket replacement but the 3spd auto is bombproof and my engine seems to be pulling like new even with 110,000 miles and being 15 years old... Little stuff has gone on it but its the engine and tranny that keeps a car on the road.
It did double duty at the last autocross with my sister in law and I both driving.
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That seems like pretty good evidence of the durability of those neons! With a 3 spd auto on a small engine, I'm curious -- what's the gearing like?
 
Originally Posted By: rationull
That seems like pretty good evidence of the durability of those neons! With a 3 spd auto on a small engine, I'm curious -- what's the gearing like?

The gearing is sort of a compromise of course, the SOHC Neons have good torque at 3k rpm so even though 1st is good till 52mph it stays ahead of traffic easily, 2nd tops out around 80mph so passing is good and 3rd gives a 60mph cruise of 2600 rpm, and doing most 55-70 passes I don't even bother to kick it out of the converter lock up. It's not a great 75-80 mph interstate car with this gearing but I've done bit of that with decent mileage.
They aren't a dog like the import econo boxes with a 1.5 or 1.6L with not enough torque to pull the wide spaced 3spd gears.

Mine is also a 95 which had a fairly aggressive cam stock(it actually has a bit of a lope at idle) but in D at idle it vibrates the car too much for the average buyer, so they put a more timid cam into the later ones.
They are a pretty good performance deal for an economy car, and in autocross they are in G-stock which puts them in with cars like the Acura RSX type S, Focus SVT. To equal those cars you really need the DOHC performance versions of the Neon but it can be done.
 
Every Nissan Sentra built before 1995 was a tough, long lasting car. However, 1995 and later Sentras have been some of the most troublesome small cars ever built.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
^ You don't want it looking like this:
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Maine, road salt, 7 month winters, I'm surprised it looks as good as it does for a 1995 car
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. My guess is that the body of that car was not maintained the best shall we say, letting small chips evolve into major rust areas. Mine has the luxury of sitting out the less severe NJ, but still very salty winter, in a heated garage on a battery tender. Plus I tend to potential rust problems a head of time. My 2002 4WD F-150 suffers the rust causing NJ winters. But I try to maintain it to minimize long term major rust problems.

Whimsey
 
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