WillMartin

I have had mine for about three months and three tanks of fuel. The best calculated mileage was almost 25. The worst calculated mileage was just under 21. It's a 2010, so it has no displays about anything.

Not long. A few months. Granted, it's a few Seattle months, which means lots of use, but they shouldn't be squeaking yet.

I'm officially less thrilled with Bosch Icon blades than I was. They are not holding up well so far.

There's another possibility. That's a leaky gasket in the intake somewhere. That lets coolant into the combustion chamber, where it gets burned off just fine, but causes the coolant levels to drop. It won't show on a pressure check, and my experience with that is usually on Chevy V8s, which are nowhere near Ford I4s, but it's a thought.

I don't believe much of anything, but I don't know how to prove the odometer reading one way or another. Being a bit of a geek, I do the math in my head based upon a reset trip meter after every tank of fuel and whatever the pump tells me I put into the tank. Both are probably a little off, but close enough for jazz. Nowhere close to 28 MPG, but so far, more than 20 mpg. I'm pretty happy after feeding a full size van.

You won't miss the Focus if you have a bike like that KTM. Just saying. If I want to go fast, I ride the Daytona. If I have to haul stuff, I use the TC. Four wheels is for moving cargo from point A to point B. Two wheels is for fun.

My 1970s shade tree dirt ball so-called mechanic wisdom: When I was racing motorcycles, I would change the oil after every weekend. I ran something like 0-30 mostly because it made less drag, which meant more horsepower. Coolant was nothing but distilled water. Mostly because ethylene glycerol is slippery as snot and banned from race bikes. Other than that, filters matter a lot, as everyone here seems to agree. I use distilled water in cooling systems along with whatever the specified coolant is. If you need to top up coolant, you usually have a problem that needs to be addressed. Distilled water is less than a buck most places, so why not use it? As far as flushing, the tap water that blows through the engine block and everywhere else isn't sitting in there very long. Not much of an issue, in my world. It doesn't have time to precipitate anything, have any kind of galvanic reaction to anything, or react to much of anything. Garden hose is fine. Plus, you cooling system will have stronger teeth if the water has fluoride. That's a big deal for those of us who have a certain kind of ancestry and still have all our own teeth. Oil is pretty cheap also, relative. My TC is hardly a racing vehicle of any kind, and I drive gently (sez me). No hard starts, no hard braking if I can help it. I have only spun the wheels a couple of times now in a few months of owning my TC. I count that as pretty gentile. Get it up to temperature and the oil should be hot enough to burn off whatever blow-by contaminants that get into it. With a decent filter, the rest should be a moot point. So, I'm OK with the 5K mile change interval. The viscosity recommendation is pretty much what I care about. You paid a lot for these pixels. You got every penny's worth.

I would like a small Mercedes van, the Metris. I also have no intention of spending twice as much for about 3% more that I might use. I would have expected Los Angeles to be full of commercial TCs and other, similar vans, but that wasn't the case. They still seem to like big vans. Go figure. I sure don't care what the bling types want, since I can't use a non-commercial style mini van for my purposes anyway. Powered mirrors are a new luxury as far as I'm concerned. Electric windows? I feel like the king of all I can see when I have electric windows!

I have found my first gen TC to feel quicker than the Chevy Express it replaced. The Chevy had a pushrod 305 motor that was smooth but completely anemic. The Chevy didn't seem to notice weight. It couldn't get much slower than it already was. The TC feels a whole lot more responsive, and it doesn't feel like it is gasping for air like the Chevy did. That's just how bottled up V8s are in my experience.

There's some missing paint on my 2010. It's on the roof, so I figure some rust conversion primer and rattle can white Krylon will work just fine.

I disagree that there aren't very many TCs with over 150K for sale. I see them regularly out here. They are nearly all gen 1, which isn't too surprising. There are a whole lot of them in Seattle. I was in LA last month visiting my son and only saw one over a weekend. I didn't see more than a couple gen 2s and almost no other small vans. I guess Southern California has other ideas about what's a good idea for getting lots of stuff from one place to another. For what its worth, there's a gen 1 for sale locally that has over 300k miles on it. I personally think buying it is a very bad idea, but there it is.

My wheels are good and rusty. The plastic covers make the van look much better, but all will be replaced with Fusion wheels sooner rather than later.

Congratulations on your "new" van. I bought a 2010 a couple months ago and like it very much so far. It didn't have many miles on it, but it his little things that happen over time that I need to deal with, just like yours.

I drove a Checker cab in the early 1980s in New York. A Transit Connect is a far better vehicle in all ways.

Slow to reply, and I'm not the OP. Motorcycle is a DRZ 400. The Daytona 675 would fit in a Gen 2. The DRZ has bar risers and even with the mirrors off, it won't fit in a Gen 2. The Gen 1 isn't long enough, unless I poke the front wheel between the seats, but that works well as a wheel chock. I do things like take the bike with me when dropping off the van for this or that, and then ride away instead of getting a ride some other way. And, because I'm now an officially lazy old man, I take the bike in for service and drive home in the van instead of walking or doing the wrenching myself. If I was still racing, I would want a bigger van to pull the trailer, but I'm not and the trailer is gone.

Same with a first gen. My 2010 is quiet a 0-2. 3 is loud, but the radio drowns it out fine. 4 is loud to the point that the radio has to be louder than I want to drown it out. I don't use 4 if it can be avoided.

I would probably make a fitted panel out of 1/4" plywood, seal the edges with something like body filler and then attach it with short Tek screws into the flange around the opening. Measure the screws to make sure they are not long enough to poke a hole in the outside panel. If the Tek screws are all too long, then I would drill it and use sheet metal screws. Easy to put in, easy to take out if you want to, and only a few small holes where you can't see them unless you are looking for them with the panels out.

I have had my 2010 for about a month and have put 500 miles on it. That's a lot for me. It's still at less than 24K. The chances are it will be 20 years old before it hits 100K miles.

I recently got about 24 mpg over a tank of fuel in mixed driving. I like this little van a lot.

As long as we are on this - any recommendations for what TPS to use that isn't from the dealer? I'm thinking about putting valve stem mounted units on the aluminum wheels. I don't know what to look for or what questions to ask to make sure they work like they should. I can check pressure easy enough, but I don't want to be looking at a warning light all the time.

I'm a fan of used government vehicles. My 2010 Transit Connect was a county vehicle from California with 23k miles on it when I got it about a month ago. It replaced a full sized Chevy van that was a Washington State vehicle before I got it. You probably don't want the dog catcher's van, though. I'll admit both of my vans needed a good cleaning when I got them. The Ford smelled like dust and the Chevy smelled like cheap cigars and crushed aggregate. Cleaning solved those problems.

A week or so later, I'm getting a rattle at idle. It's a plastic on plastic idle coming from the dash or driver's door.

For what it's worth, my 2010 will spin its front wheels at times. I think the tires may be old and hard, and it generally happens on a wet road. It sometimes happens on a dry road, which makes me wonder if maybe it is relearning. It had a mostly flat battery right before I got it. I don't mind slow, so I hope it's learning to make less power.

I have the owner's manual. I'll take a look.

I'm not at all happy about E10, let alone E15. What it does to the van is bad enough. The motorcycles really don't like that stuff.