k9-design

Just reading my old thread which probably wasn't interesting to anybody but me. Sexy Beast was loyal to me until the end. I got $400 trade in for it last weekend with 297,000+ miles on it. We never did figure out the #2 plug, and the AC started killing the engine at idle and low speeds, which means by May in Florida it's time to look for a new car. Got a 2014 which is a gigantic upgrade. Hard to drive away from the old Transit though. He never did leave me stranded. I'm sure he met his end in a cruncher the next day. $400 was probably too much.

Hi! Well I "retired" my 2010 Transit with 297,000 miles on it and replaced it with 2014 TC. Greatly appreciating the upgrades even though at 5 years old it's a dinosaur! Anyways in trying to swap my Sirius satellite subscription to the 2014, there is an option on the display screen under "Radio" button that says "SIRIUS" with the little dog logo -- but it is "greyed" out and will not allow me to select that as an option. Thus I can't find the station ID # for the car, and Sirius can't seem to find my car via VIN. They are sending me the plug n play unit but it makes no sense that the stock radio is displaying Sirius as an option with no ability to link to it??? Anyone know how to get the radio ID #? Thanks, Anney

Hi! 1 - The Transit is perfect for what I need it for. On a day to day basis I crate three large dogs to and from training. It is perfect for this. On longer trips for business I need it to carry a lot of gear, and it does with aplomb, having never once said "I can fit no more." It is fuel efficient. I don't particularly care about comfy seats, kickin speakers or the ability to win a drag race. If I got a new car tomorrow, I'd get another Transit. For a long time I said, I want a little get-around second car, something cute and little and zoomy that I can enjoy for me. Well, buying a second car for those reasons on a limited budget is ridiculous. So instead I bought the Grom, which perfectly attends to those needs (wants) on a much smaller scale. Do you know how cheap motorcycle parts are? So besides dumping money into fixing things on a high mileage Transit, my vehicular satisfaction rating is sky high. 2 - The body of the car is perfect. It looks new. There are no dents, rust, or structural damage. The interior, despite being coated in dog hair, is totally fine. Besides some squirrely stuff with the locks, everything works fine. Very little wear. 99% of its mileage is in a perfectly straight line on the interstate doing 70 mph. The other 1% is slowly bumping through a field setting up training for my dogs. 3 - Last summer over the course of a few weeks, my car blew up the spark plug (literally broke it) in cylinder 2. Replaced plug and coil. Within a week that new spark plug broke again, this time the little ceramic piece was loose on the plug itself; faulty plug, replaced it. About a week after that it threw a CEL code again, took it back, the Ford dealer informed me that I had low compression on cylinder 2, they didn't know why, and the cure was a new engine, and they found a used one for $3000, can put it in tomorrow -- NO, THAT WILL NOT BE HAPPENING. After much tears I drove the thing to another shop, not a Ford dealer, for a second opinion, they did a compression test and sure enough, low on cylinder 2, but the mechanic was like, big deal, besides throwing codes and idling rough, it's really not hurting anything, and you're crazy to dump too much money into fixing it, drive it like you normally would. The figure of "40%" sticks out at me but I can't remember if the compression of that cylinder was 40% of normal, or if it was 40% less than the others, honestly I don't remember. 4 - I would agree with you, finding a reliable shop is not easy. And wanting to not put out $$$$ to fix problems is what makes it hard. Last week I sucked it up and fixed the tie rods and got new tire, really I just bit the bullet and did it, but unless it's an immediate problem, I'm not going to go out of my way to throw money at it. Unless it's something routine and predictable, any experience with getting your car fixed is an unpleasant one. You don't know what they're talking about, they assume this, and you have to pay a lot of money for it. All you really want is your car to work.

Sure! Few things make me happier than my Grom :) Understood. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. Hmmm....okay so my GROM has a DynoJet Power Commander -- maybe hook it up to the Transit?! KIDDING!!

OMG I feel like I have found my tribe of people. About a month ago my 2010 Transit with 275,000 miles started doing this same VERY LOUD NOISE from the driver's door when the door is unlocked. It had no recent repairs, just happened out of the blue. I refuse to put any money toward fixing it, at this point it is a very annoying conversation piece at gas stations. Forever the car has had a faulty sensor or whatever, it regularly tells me there is a door open when there is not a door open. This deactivates the automatic locking when the car starts to drive. In a similar vein, sometimes when I am trying to lock the vehicle from the outside, it refuses to lock any doors, because it believes there is a door open. This causes me to open and close all the doors trying to find the "guilty party" -- it is usually the passenger door. Amazing the quirks you grow to live with.

My Transit is also my work vehicle (I own my own business) and I have certain requirements I need in that vehicle. The Transit has worked perfectly. Just driving the Transit is already giving up a lot of creature comforts! And guess what, I bought a motorcycle last year. I ride it everywhere instead of the Transit, so long as I don't have to carry anything bigger than what fits in a backpack. Paid cash for that and it gets 100+ miles a gallon :) It fits easily IN the Transit. It's way more fun to talk about than any Ford! BTW I filled up coolant and took a test drive with AC on various levels and it worked perfectly. I still don't know how it got that low with nobody noticing. And I still would love to know if you can increase idling RPMs, like on an old bike you could adjust the choke.

Thanks 50-150 -- you are of course the voice of reason!! Do you know I still have four payments left on this thing. OMGGGGGG I have never been without a car payment IN MY LIFE. I am determined (which can be interpreted as insanity) to drive this car past the point of it being paid for. Of course you are correct, if I took all of the repairs in the past two years and added them up, that's a hefty down payment for a new car. The more I thought about it, the more yesterday's problem simply were low coolant. All the weird stuff it did was in response to that. But why did it go low. How did we all miss that? Wouldn't I have noticed a leak? Maybe it spontaneously leaked out while I was driving yesterday. Whatever. I just bought coolant and filled it up, we'll see what happens. Really, this car has outlived all expectations and has performed admirably. It's just frustrating, but that's life! This year alone I've driven it from Florida to Long Island (February), Florida to Kansas City (April), and Florida to Ontario (June). This is normal for me and knock on wood we've never been stranded on one of our long trips.

Hello forum. New here. NOT new to Transits. I have a 2010 Transit Connect. I bought it used in 2012 with 35K miles on it. Last Friday it rolled over 275,000 miles. As you can see, I drive a lot. Its name is Sexy Beast. He and I have been places. There is nothing in my life I depend on more than my Transit, and nothing causes me more aggravation. It has had lots of work done but maybe no more than is to be expected of a car with high mileage. It lives with three persistent dash indicators : check engine light (see below), the traction control light (never figured out why on that one), and the tire pressure light. Can I tell you my current problems? Any input is appreciated. Sexy Beast got the death sentence last fall. It was throwing codes left and right and kept blowing up the spark plug and coil in cylinder 2. The local Ford dealer finally said, you need a new engine. Low compression on #2 . I said, not happening, have kept driving on it. The marvelous thing about the situation, AT IDLE, cylinder #2 takes a vacation. We have literally pulled the whole plug out while it's idling, and nothing happens. It just idles away merrily. When you add some RPMs #2 wakes up and works totally fine. See, it has taught itself to be MORE EFFICIENT! Genius! I am very familiar with what it feels like to drive a car with an inoperable sparkplug, and it does not do this. The only prevailing problem is it idles too low. RPMs are around 750 at idle, they go up to about 1000 if it's in park or neutral, sometimes it dips below 750 and tries to sputter out. When you put it in drive and take your foot off the brake to switch to accelerator, it really goes low and has even died a few times on me. So question numero uno, is there a way to raise the resting idle RPMs? More immediate problem, mainly why I am here to vent. Last week Transit was in the shop for new inner and outer tie rods on both front wheels ($550). The day after I got four new tires ($390). Drove to my parents' for the weekend. AC had gradually gotten warmer over the past few months, so we bought a charging kit from the auto parts store ($50), after doing that, AC back to nice and cold. Most difficult part was finding the low pressure tube...those sneaky devils at Ford... During the AC venture, my dad got to witness first hand how much oil the car was leaking, which has been going on for months. Ford dealer couldn't pinpoint it last week while it was in the shop, and frankly, I was out of money to throw at it. My dad ended up taking it to a shop on Monday, and they replaced the oil sending unit which 100% fixed the leak, so yay, and kudos to dad, who paid for it ($500). So add that up, $1500+ in work last week. After all that, Sexy drove like a superstar. Until today. Just now I go to run some errands. Warm car up like always, turn AC on medium, take off. I get about 2 miles down the road, realize AC is blowing hot then instantly observe that temp gauge is on HIGH. NO BUENO. I pull over and turn the car off. F me!!!!!!!! After about ten minutes I fire it back up, turn off AC, drive home. I let it idle in the driveway with the AC on low. As I'm standing at the front of the car listening for the AC compressor (shoulda popped the hood but you know, key's in the ignition), the car very peacefully dies. F ME!!!!! Let it sit for about 20 minutes. Take it on another test drive. Drove about 3 miles with AC off. All fine. I drive home with AC on low. Fine. As I pull onto my street, I put the AC on medium. As I pull into my driveway, the car peacefully dies again. No change in temp gauge. At this point I call Dad crying, he has me turn the car on and idle, change from park to neutral to drive, it's actually idling at about 1000 so doing OK, turn AC on and off, nothing changes, it's all OK. It's during this time I realize that the coolant in the white reservoir is really low. Minimum line is halfway up the reservoir, there's only about a quarter inch of coolant at the bottom. How did I not notice this before. Dad says let the car cool down completely, like tomorrow morning, add water. So are today's weird problems because I was low on coolant and it was freaking out (and how did myself, my dad, and three different car shops all miss that in the past week), or is my AC all screwed up now after being charged and that is causing the problem? Why does this stuff happen all at once? Why can't I find a big pile of money and just go buy a new car?????? Thanks for listening. And hopefully sympathizing. And hopefully empathizing, so you can give me advice. --Anney in Florida