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SUVs Ford Freestyle Ford Freestyle Care and Maintenance
227 messages, Last post on Aug 19, 2009 at 7:52 AM
You are in the Ford Freestyle Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & tidester
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In most cases, using a higher octane gasoline than your owner’s manual recommends offers absolutely no benefit. It won’t make your car perform better, go faster, get better mileage or run cleaner. Your best bet: listen to your owner’s manual. The only time you might need to switch to a higher octane level is if your car engine knocks when you use the recommended fuel. This happens to a small percentage of cars. Unless your engine is knocking, buying higher octane gasoline is a waste of money. Using synthetic oil is personal preference. If you are going to keep you car for many years generally synthetic oil will help an engine last longer. Also the oil tends to start lubricating faster on startup, especially in cold weather. Plus synthetic oil will also increase your fuel mileage a little. I have used Mobil 1 for many years and am a true believer. They even have an extended mileage version up to 15000 miles, but not in 5W20 yet.
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We plan on getting an extended warranty in the near future, dealer wouldn't match the online price so we didn't fold it in with the purchase. Came across one tidbit which seemed unusual to me, thought I would pass it along. The extended warranties cover rental cars when you are in for warranty work. The basic/included warranty does not. That struck me as strange, as I think of extended as just prolonging the time, not adding extra stuff. Service guy confirmed this and said that the rental would be active during the regular warranty period as well. Since my commute makes either the closest dealer to home or the closest dealer to work not the most convenient for service, and the fact that there are no service loaners, we'll get the ext warranty in the near future. Only one defect noticed when we picked up the car, which they didn't have time to fix then, which led me down this investigation. One of the 2nd row seats is in a locked state and doesn't move forward and back on its track. Service guy did take a look and confirmed problem. We're going to look for other defects before appt on Monday, if this is the only problem I'll be happy.  Jackie
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Replying to: jackief (Aug 04, 2005 5:31 am) I had an extended warranty on my 97 Exploder which included a loaner or rental car whenever it was in for service. When the engine exploded, they gave me an "allowance" of $30 per day for a rental car. That got me into a Chevy Calalier for 32 days while the engine was being ordered and replaced. Gee, what happened to the "comparable vehicle"?....a compact? gee thanks Ford Come to find out that the rental, even though it was under $30 per day ($29 I believe), also had daily taxes and other fees that put it up over $30 per day. At the end of the rental term I ended up paying close to $200 in fees for my "free rental" GRRRRRR  I guess I could have rented a SUB-compact for $19.99 per day....hind sight is always 20/20. So you might want to verify how much allowance is available for a rental car. Funny, when I drop my RSX off for service and I can't hang around and wait, they give me a loaner TL to drive until my lowly RSX is ready. (What's wrong with this picture?) |
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we're not expecting the same level of pampering from ford as we got from acura or volvo. I had been getting free loaners for any service (sched maint, etc) for anything longer than the 3500mi services. I think this was something they gave to people who bought at that dealer which we had done. In fact, our wagon had been a service loaner which they sold at 8000 miles. Same for our Acura, free loaners. So we did factor this in. We are taking a step down from the luxury brands, but hope in the end we spend less overall and still get a decent driving experience and few troubles. The extended warranty covers $28/day rental. Our schedules are such that we can work around the lack of a rental, its good to have the option. If we had to have it, we'd add it to our insurance coverage. I think the insurance (Allstate) reimbursement amount is in the same range. We're planning on getting an ext warranty anyway, so this is something we'll have available if we need it before the reg warranty expires. the whole warranty booklet is online here which makes it handy for searches.
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Replying to: jackief (Aug 04, 2005 6:32 am) As long as you know up front what the rental fee covers. I'm going to be doing the same thing with my Freestyle that you are at some point also. |
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Replying to: bigskyguy1 (Aug 01, 2005 3:08 pm)
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Replying to: barnstormer64 (Jul 27, 2005 5:56 am) barnstormer64: Too bad we can't get the U.S. product above which is made by Conoco Philips.Does yours show it meets Ford spec WSS-M2C930-A rated API SM with the ILSAC GF-4 designation? Our Motorcraft 5W-20 sold at Ford dealers still show the API SL rating to meet Ford spec M2C153H for 2001 model year 2001 and newer Ford vehicles. Ford specification requires better test limits than what ILSAC allows for in their published standards. I've also learned that the GF-4 standard replaced the Sequence IIIF test with the Sequence IIIG test, and the IIIG test has even better viscosity thresholds than Ford originally allowed for in the 153-H spec. As I understand it, GF-4 was intended to improve emmisions by reducing the amount of the zinc additive in oils, among other things. So it looks to me like Ford simply updated their 930A spec for 5W20 oil to reflect the revised, and tougher, tests in the new GF-4 standard, which net, probably results in a better quality oil for us consumers. The strange part of this to me is that our Motorcraft oils are made by Imperial Oil of Canada (not stated as a semi synthetic) and their own Esso Extra 5W-20 already shows a API SM rating and GL-4 on their website but not sold in WalMart or our Canadian Tire stores.I believe they're available in Esso's bulk oil facitities.Not sure whether Esso formulates this differently. Another thing that hit me was I took our Freestyle to the dealer for an oil/filter change as it just went over the 1st 1000 mile mark. The dealer adamantly refused to do this as they claimed it was too wasteful and best to follow Ford's schedule at 3000 miles.Did not make a big issue of that since it was going to be a complimentary oil change and they said to bring it back at 3000 to get the free service. That's ok with me as it gives us some extra time to find out anything else that needs fixing . As it turned out I changed the oil anyway when I got home with the Motorcraft 5W-20 I bought from the parts dept and while doing that I noticed some slight oil seepage from the edge of the CVT oil pan. Numerous 8mm bolts to check and a few were tightened a wee bit. No further leakage and that's the only "defect" I found so far. Love the Freestyle. |
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Replying to: bruneau1 (Aug 05, 2005 10:50 am) I often wonder if this TOP TIER qualification is not some kind of advertising gimmick and that these members have to pay some form of royalties to use the name.I also read somewhere that Mobil and many other big names are NOT on the list. Most gasoline suppliers sold here appear to get their gas from a common source and that each supplier blends in their own additives. I buy my gas wherever I can get it cheaper as prices of late can fluctuate by up to 20 cents/litre and this happens almost every other day. Mostly I get mine from the independents eg Costco, supermarkets,etc, but my criteria is that they have to be clean looking and well maintained. Never had any bad gas problems. The only time I had bad gas was in a top name station in California (run by some unsavory looking characters) which was undercutting everyone else and not very well maintained. Took a chance and should have known better.
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Replying to: willie19 (Aug 05, 2005 2:35 pm) |
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Replying to: bruneau1 (Aug 07, 2005 8:15 am) I'm sorry for sounding biased but I believe generally speaking our Canadian gas is better quality than U.S. gas. That's just my experience and some like Arco's which is oxygenated , may burn cleaner, but it sure produces lousy mpg.I think folks here are more cost sensitive over gas prices and if a certain station sells bad gas they're toast as far as getting any further business. BTW what kind of mpg are you getting now with the Limited FWD which as you know was what we wanted in the first place.The wife's Ltd AWD just went past the 1000 mile mark and the computer records about 19 mpg U.S. gal overall.I try to use different excuses to add some extra miles for the mpg's to improve but this will take some time.She won't trade with me for my 2001 Explorer Sport Trac. 
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