I've never been a huge brand loyalist, having owned a Toyota, Pontiac, GMC, VW, Jeep, Honda and two Fords so far, but this definitely caught my attention.
I was in Miami on Monday for a meeting and the taxi driver who drove us back to the airport had a 10 year-old Crown Victoria with 488,000 miles on it. He said that he has to retire it at the end of the year due to Florida law that says cabs can't be over 10 years old (by which time it will be over 500k), but if not for that he would keep driving it indefinitely.
We asked him what he'd done to keep it alive so long, and he said that he changed the oil and filter every 3k and the brake pads every 3 months or so (lots of stop & go in a taxi, obviously) but other than that, nothing special. It had been through two transmissions, but had never needed any other major work.
For the GM haters out there, he also noted that he had a Chevy for 3 years prior to the Ford, and that it spent 2 of those years in the shop. We heard, "Ford is good car. Chevy, it is terrible." in a thick Cuban accent several times on that ride.
I was in Miami on Monday for a meeting and the taxi driver who drove us back to the airport had a 10 year-old Crown Victoria with 488,000 miles on it. He said that he has to retire it at the end of the year due to Florida law that says cabs can't be over 10 years old (by which time it will be over 500k), but if not for that he would keep driving it indefinitely.
We asked him what he'd done to keep it alive so long, and he said that he changed the oil and filter every 3k and the brake pads every 3 months or so (lots of stop & go in a taxi, obviously) but other than that, nothing special. It had been through two transmissions, but had never needed any other major work.
For the GM haters out there, he also noted that he had a Chevy for 3 years prior to the Ford, and that it spent 2 of those years in the shop. We heard, "Ford is good car. Chevy, it is terrible." in a thick Cuban accent several times on that ride.
