Non-Mechanic Doing "The Right Stuff." NEED 400k!

[JamesSnow1]

Need Advice from Savvy People here.

2005 Scion Xa Manual transmission. I bought at 159k Miles. Never an Engine Light to Today's Date.
Replaced Clean Oil with Mobil 1 Syn Extended and Matching Filter. Replace Spark Plugs with Iridium. Replaced Drive Belt...
... Aligned, Balanced, Rotated... on New Tiger Paws. I exchanged Gear Oil.

I use best Syns and Air Filters (change to soon probably - but that stuff is cheap). I keep tire Pressure tight every two weeks.
Did the Full Breaks (4) 2 weeks ago.

To Date at 197,000 miles... the 2005 Scion Xa BURNS NO OIL at 6-8k Oil Changes. I had the Coolant
"exchanged" when I bought, also. The Scion uses almost no Coolant (evap, I figure)... a cup of 50/50 every 3 months
to top reservoir. Scion was born and made in Japan.

Its homes are NC and SC (little concern for underbody rust). I'm the 3rd owner.


The Question is:

What you look into doing for this little Baby as a Savvy Mechanic to preserve a well-made
Toyota for... ANOTHER 200K!

(Poster is NOT, by any means, a Mechanic.)

ALL RESPONSES have my FULL ATTENTION!

Curious,
Jimbo

 

[Ausfahrt]

.

 

[macarose]

Honestly, the first thing I would do is edit my post and remove all the CAPS LOCK because it's considered rude and the equivalent of shouting.

From there I would look at exterior and interior care. If you still want to keep it 50,000 miles from now you may want to look at sourcing some hard to find parts. Whatever they may be at that time.

Remember to drain and fill the manual transmission fluid, learn how to do light shifts to minimize synchro wear, and don't be obnoxious to the people who work on your cars.

Good luck.

 

[supton]

Drive it. Do service when needed., but skip premium fluids, it won’t benefit. Drive easy, coast when it won’t annoy people behind you. Avoid driving in weather and rush hour, avoiding nighttime is good too.

Put aside a jar to toss money into. When a ridiculous repair comes along, hopefully you can afford to either repair or move on. Until then, just make it a habit to save up, as everything wears out- and unfortunately sometimes get wrecked out.

 

[Rand]

you dont list a location.. Some advice would vary based on that.

 

[bullwinkle]

Definitely possible… I would use 5W30 Full Synthetic oil at 5000 (7500 max) miles, with a quality filter (Full Synthetic media filter could probably do 2 OCIs), keep a good air filter on it, & you already live in a basically rust-free area. As an original owner of a 1.5 1NZFE Scion 1.5, with 123K & over 18 1/2 years old, it could be done-mine burns ZERO OIL & loses NO coolant between OCIs. A timing chain job will be required to make 400K, IMO. Not sure what gear oil you used, but mine does best on Red Line MT-90 75W90 GL-4, the LiquiMoly GL-4 75W90 isn’t doing as well in my Corolla, it will eventually get the RL MT-90 too. Watch your halfshafts & transaxle side seals…

 

[bullwinkle]

you dont list a location.. Some advice would vary based on that.

He did say NC & SC. Outside of the mountains & seashore, he should be OK.

 

[bbhero]

Need Advice from Savvy People here.

2005 Scion Xa Manual transmission. I bought at 159k Miles. Never an Engine Light to Today's Date.
Replaced Clean Oil with Mobil 1 Syn Extended and Matching Filter. Replace Spark Plugs with Iridium. Replaced Drive Belt...
... Aligned, Balanced, Rotated... on New Tiger Paws. I exchanged Gear Oil.

I use best Syns and Air Filters (change to soon probably - but that stuff is cheap). I keep tire Pressure tight every two weeks.
Did the Full Breaks (4) 2 weeks ago.

To Date at 197,000 miles... the 2005 Scion Xa BURNS NO OIL at 6-8k Oil Changes. I had the Coolant
"exchanged" when I bought, also. The Scion uses almost no Coolant (evap, I figure)... a cup of 50/50 every 3 months
to top reservoir. Scion was born and made in Japan.

Its homes are NC and SC (little concern for underbody rust). I'm the 3rd owner.


The Question is:

What you look into doing for this little Baby as a Savvy Mechanic to preserve a well-made
Toyota for... ANOTHER 200K!

(Poster is NOT, by any means, a Mechanic.)

ALL RESPONSES have my FULL ATTENTION!

Curious,
Jimbo

Well… Keep doing what you have been doing

And does this year model Toyota have a timing belt that has to be changed?

If not… Rejoice… That’s a bit of work there.

And that also coincides with a possible water pump has well if I’m not mistaken.

Serpentine belt… Maybe look in to changing that if it has it been done in a long while.

Battery… How old is that ?

My opinion only but if it’s 3 or maybe 4 years old. … Maybe a decent idea to replace it with a new East penn battery.

 

[Rand]

He did say NC & SC. Outside of the mountains & seashore, he should be OK.

Ok so no road salt. definitely improves chance of long life.

 

[maineiac]

I'd drain and replace the brake fluid and probably change coolant and thermostat.

 

[simple_gifts]

Solid engine; i've owned two, both with MT.

 

[bullwinkle]

Well… Keep doing what you have been doing

And does this year model Toyota have a timing belt that has to be changed?

If not… Rejoice… That’s a bit of work there.

And that also coincides with a possible water pump has well if I’m not mistaken.

Serpentine belt… Maybe look in to changing that if it has it been done in a long while.

Battery… How old is that ?

My opinion only but if it’s 3 or maybe 4 years old. … Maybe a decent idea to replace it with a new East penn battery.

No belt-has a fairly long timing chain, with VVT-I-both of which like CLEAN oil, 5W30 (NOT 0W30, 5W20, nor 0W20), preferably full synthetic (whatever is on sale is good, I run Mobil 1 Extended Performance /AP BC I got it cheap). VERY easy on batteries-the original Panasonic lasted over 10 years until it tested sub-300 CCA. The factory pink Toyota SLLC coolant will basically last about forever, although an occasional radiator drain & fill is a good idea. Never seen a water pump fail yet on several company xAs nor my xB-they don’t leak like the 1.8 (Corolla/Matrix/Vibe/xD) ones can. I have an EP NAPA Proformer battery-I learned my lesson after a very expensive AAP Gold crapped the bed & leaked acid all over everything on that corner of the car…

 

[bullwinkle]

Ok so no road salt. definitely improves chance of long life.

Surprisingly they’re pretty rust resistant for a Toyota product-the body on mine still has no rust despite being outside in Cincinnati its whole 18 1/2 year life. Unfortunately the city pollution has taken a toll on my paint-it’s shot…

 

[bullwinkle]

Solid engine; i've owned two, both with MT.

Change MTF every 30-35K, that’s when mine started having shift degradation. As above, Red Line MT-90 75W90 has shown the best results for me. I used to run Pennzoil Synchromesh, but it was too thin & my halfshaft seals both failed within a week of each other-fortunately no transaxle damage. The transaxle only holds ~1 quart or so-it’s worth springing for the good stuff!

 

[VTECOverRated]

I have yet to change my coolant on my camry after (looks at odo) some 270k miles.
Brake pads when needed, rotors only when needed, oil and filter every 5k, don't drive like an idiot and it will be fine.
Be gentle on the transmission (since your's is a stick).

 

[mic2377]

The big questions for you is when was the clutch changed? My brother and I had a mid 90's camry (5S-FE engine I think?) that we managed to get around 200k out of the original clutch, but that was with easy use and primarily highway driving. It was just about down to the rivets when it was replaced - was starting to have some weird chatter when starting from a stop.

In my experience, what kills very high-mileage cars is random mechanical events, and big ticket repair items. A prime example of this is a clutch replacement. It isn't that expensive for parts but the labor is $$$$.

In the case of our Camry, it almost had a life-ending event at 260k when it blew a major oil seal and puked a bunch of oil. Fortunately my brother is extremely astute, and after smelling oil coasted to the side of the road and shut it down before it even flashed an oil pressure light. After replacement of the oil seal and adding more oil it was immediately back in action. Similarly, another 30k later it had an AC clutch failure, which can shreds your belt then VOILA instant overheat. This was again detected early and fixed with no issues.

I think given your "non-mechanic" status that perhaps 300k is doable, but 400k is going to be a stretch. We have gotten multiple vehicles to the 320-330k mark but even with both of us being savvy at repairs, we decided it just wasn't worth it to keep going at that point since we didn't want to drive them literally to failure and be stranded.

 

[willbur]

Need Advice from Savvy People here.

2005 Scion Xa Manual transmission. I bought at 159k Miles. Never an Engine Light to Today's Date.
Replaced Clean Oil with Mobil 1 Syn Extended and Matching Filter. Replace Spark Plugs with Iridium. Replaced Drive Belt...
... Aligned, Balanced, Rotated... on New Tiger Paws. I exchanged Gear Oil.

I use best Syns and Air Filters (change to soon probably - but that stuff is cheap). I keep tire Pressure tight every two weeks.
Did the Full Breaks (4) 2 weeks ago.

To Date at 197,000 miles... the 2005 Scion Xa BURNS NO OIL at 6-8k Oil Changes. I had the Coolant
"exchanged" when I bought, also. The Scion uses almost no Coolant (evap, I figure)... a cup of 50/50 every 3 months
to top reservoir. Scion was born and made in Japan.

Its homes are NC and SC (little concern for underbody rust). I'm the 3rd owner.


The Question is:

What you look into doing for this little Baby as a Savvy Mechanic to preserve a well-made
Toyota for... ANOTHER 200K!

(Poster is NOT, by any means, a Mechanic.)

ALL RESPONSES have my FULL ATTENTION!

Could make it but get tired of it first.

 

[simple_gifts]

Change MTF every 30-35K, that’s when mine started having shift degradation. As above, Red Line MT-90 75W90 has shown the best results for me. I used to run Pennzoil Synchromesh, but it was too thin & my halfshaft seals both failed within a week of each other-fortunately no transaxle damage. The transaxle only holds ~1 quart or so-it’s worth springing for the good stuff!

My !echo! took 2 qts. Maybe the 1qt was insufficient for your xB