1993 Ford Festiva LE review from North America

My camshaft froze to the journals in the head at aprox. 25 degrees below zero one night shearing off the guide pin holding the timing gear to the camshaft itself, leaving me to replace the entire engine for less than half the cost of the new head. Other than that, absolutely nothing has been replaced since with the exception of tires, brakes and an alternator (after 200K miles. The seats are cracked, but no more than expected due to the extreme cold weather during the winters here.

This car has been across the country on more that a few occasions, through deep mud and snow on ten percent grade mountain passes on a daily basis and never let me down! As of now, it's sitting in my garage after getting rear-ended a couple of winters ago, waiting for a new R/R fender and hatchback. It's still running stronger than ever. Based on what I read previously in this thread, broken bolts, etc. are "pilot error", and obviously the person who worked on their car didn't know what they were doing. I have serviced mine myself, but I also work on aircraft for a living, so I know what I'm doing in the shop, although it doesn't take a rocket scientist to take care of your equipment. It was clearly designed as a "disposable vehicle" due to the simplicity of it's design, but mine continues to get an average of 35-40mpg back and forth to work, and no loss of power on a daily commute over a ten percent grade pass for over 8 years! I would attribute this to the lack of weight of the vehicle itself, meaning, it takes less power to pull a light weight car, thus less wear on the engine.