Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 Today was the first time in a while that I spent most of the day playing with my cars.

My new Dream Team?

I took the '06  Mustang out of the garage and used the waterless car wash to clean it up. It's running great and I plan on putting some miles on it. I put over twenty miles on it running a couple of errands. 

The damaged area is not readily apparent.

I want to drive my Navigator as much as I can this week and see if any problems develop, or are hinted at. Cosmetically it's good, except for a small failed area of clear coat on the front bumper, which also has some rock chips. I plan on having the bumper repainted in a few months but I plan to touch up the other chips around the vehicle myself.

Kind of a twenty footer on this.

Just some chips on this side.

I might try to blend the repaired area in with the original paint. The hazard with these type of repairs is that they sometimes make the area look worse than before! 

The black plastic step plate on the rear bumper was discolored and whitish looking. I spent some time with a few different products and made quite an improvement. I tried the water less wash first, as they claim that it can refresh plastics. I didn't make much of a difference. Then I tried a spray that claims to renew black plastic as well as other surfaces. It smelled like a volatile solvent, similar to brake or electronic contact cleaner, and after a couple of applications, it started to clean the surface pretty well. Then I used 303 protectant, which brought even more of the original semi gloss color back. This refresh made quite an improvement to the tail gate and bumper area. 

Dual exhaust pipes are the 
Hot Rodder's staple.

I also got under the rear of the car to try to polish the dual tail pipes. First I washed them down with Castrol Super Cleaner. They were covered with a thick stubborn coat of dirt and surface rust. It was apparent that they hadn't been cleaned in years. After I removed all that I could, I switched to  Simichrome polish and steel wool. They will never look like new again, but the shiny pipes are now more noticeable. I love dual exhaust, either the traditional tailpipe on each side, or a dual outlet single muffler. These are a legit performance system that eliminates the second muffler or resonator and splits into two pipes. I didn't notice these pipes on my first inspection, but I'm happy that they're there. A system like that costs over 500.00 and it gives the rear of the Navigator a muscle truck vibe. 

I always add door edge guards to protect them if the edge hits a pole or wall. I bought a 15 ft. coil of chrome edging from O'Reilly's. This is a better solution than the individual trim pieces that I've usually bought. I'm not going to line every opening with the stuff, but I know that some guys like to do that. 

There are quite a few chips in the front bumper and left side door cladding. I'm going to order a small bottle of touch up paint and a spray can of clear from Automotive Touch Up Paint I'll touch up the chips and see if I can improve the look of the front bumper. 

There is a set of tan colored, heavy plastic Goodyear floor mats in the car. They were pretty dirty and nasty. They look like a low buck WeatherTech copy. I pulled them out and found the original carpet mats underneath in good clean condition. I hit the plastic mats with more Super Cleaner and a scrub brush. They came out looking like new. The interior of the car looked pretty good already, but this just adds to the total impression. 

I had gone down to AAA earlier to transfer the Nav into my name, and to pay the use tax. Which is just another name for sale tax. Of course the original buyer paid the sales tax on the first transaction, but the State always wants it's pound of flesh. 507.00 for transfer and tax. It wasn't a surprise, it works out to about 10% of the price.  Luckily the registration is good until June next year, that saved me a few bucks. At least for now.

So I'll be doing some low buck cleaning and freshening up, until I save up some more dough.

Unfortunately the car was missing the owner's and warranty manuals. It's not easy to figure out how everything works on complicated cars. With my Flex, I just looked in the manual when I couldn't figure out on my own how something worked. The Nav 's manual is over 500 pages, almost half of that deals with the complicated entertainment and information systems. Luckily, I could get a PDF copy for free. I'll get an original manual from EBay later. The first electronic assist that I disabled was the easy driver exit mode, where the seat slides back every time you open the door. I would disable the power running board deployment, except that my Wife loves that feature. She is vertically challenged and has enough trouble climbing into my F150. The Nav also has adjustable control pedals, with two person memory. These are features that make any vehicle more comfortable for shorter people. This is also in my Flex. Ford had made these features available in a wide range of models.

Top of the line models like the Navigator came with many features that will later spread down through the line. Sometimes these features are outmoded by the time you buy the car, such as a disc based navigation system or a high zoot stereo system that is based upon a cassette player. My Navigator has had the original stereo head unit replaced with a Pioneer touch screen unit. The original system was also touch screen based, but maybe it failed at some time. The stereo was set up to display info in Spanish, the seller said that he didn't know how to change that, but he had figured out the functions that he needed. I went online and found a video that explained how to switch the language display on this unit, and it only took seconds to restore the system. Like the dual pipes, I hadn't noticed the single CD slot on the stereo, I thought the unit didn't have a CD player. While looking online, I saw that several of these lower priced units didn't incorporate a CD player, as most people now stream music through their phones. Being the old skool kind of guy that I am, I was very happy! I actually prefer the simpler open slot player to the tilt screen access type, simpler is better, with less that can go wrong. The system sounds okay to me, I'm not an audiophile, I grew up listening to a single speaker AM radio in the dash of my Dad's station wagon. 

These two make a nice pair of vehicles with differing functions.

If the notion of having two Mustang convertibles seems kind of redundant, then the idea of having two large SUV/CUV vehicles would seem even worse. The two vehicles are seperated by twelve years, the Navigator is a body on frame truck platform, while the Flex is a unit construction FWD platform. They drive differently, and the configuration, layout, and interior space is different. 

I bought my Navigator as a hobby car, I could have bought a '50's or 60's vintage car instead.  If the Nav turns out to be good enough to serve as a reliable transportation car, that's just a bonus. It still gets better mileage than any old car alternative.

Considering that I've also have a '07 long bed F150, and have had two Mopar minivans, as well as a V8 Explorer, I will offer my observations of these different vehicles. The market has moved away from truck based SUVs in favor of unit construction platforms, at least in the smaller models. The Escalade and Navigator remain on the heavy duty platform while the other smaller, Cadillac and Lincoln models are now CUVs.  

Ford has chosen to follow a turbo charged future. Most of their models are available with a turbocharged four, six, even a V8. Since they only provide extra power when they are spooled up, they can provide better economy when not under load. Since they are small displacement engines, all of this power carries little penalty, quite different from the old days. Back then, the big block V8 just added weight and pumping losses when it wasn't under throttle. Then it sucked down the gas through it's carb's four venturis.

My Flex was available with a turbo V6 that produced almost 400 hp. Impressive but unnecessary. The N/A 3.7 V6 produces 285 hp. which I have found to be more than adequate. The new Navigator comes with a dual turbo V6 that produces over 400 hp. This is basically the same engine that's in the Raptor. Previous Navigators have always been at a bit of a disadvantage compared to the Escalade, which has a 6.0 liter V8. The Navs have gotten a bit better gas mileage, so it's always a trade off. 

What matters to me is good acceleration and effortless cruising speeds. I'm happy to trade off some maximum performance for better mileage. I've never drag raced anyone from a stop light, and don't anticipate that happening in the future. 

We have experienced a period of extremely high gas prices here in California. Local prices were well over 6.29 a gallon. I kept looking for the cheap stations that held their prices to 6.00 or less. Prices are lower now, I found many around 4.29 a gallon. There are even a few in the high 3.00 range. 

Gas is still expensive, and most people run up high weekly mileages commuting. Lucky for me, I'm retired and most of the places I routinely go to are relatively close. I try to combine errands into one trip when possible. We do rack up the miles on our weekend road trips. 

Of course as I always say, all fuel consumption is relative. When I need to carry big/long stuff I drive my truck. But then there is only space for one passenger. The Flex and the Navigator can carry things up to 6 1/2 ft. long in the back and it's possible to fold part of the sets down to preserve some passenger space at the same time. The Navigator runs behind these other two vehicles in fuel economy: Flex, F 150, Navigator. But the difference between best to worst, is only around 4-5 mpg. It's not like I have a 35 mpg. vehicle in the fleet as an alternative. Well, I do have those two Mustangs.

My Wife is okay with the Navigator,  I think that she actually likes it. She told me that if we want to take it somewhere, we'll just fill it up and drive it, no need to agonize or apologize for the fuel mileage numbers.