Back when I were a lad, well under 40 anyway, I thought nowt of crawling under the car every weekend tinkering with stuff, changing oil, fitting ported heads, cams, suspension and engaging in similar manly activities. Nowadays I hate doing anything other than driving the thing. A leaking tyre is a major catastrophe requiring the digging out of a trolley jack, axle stands and much puffing and wheezing from the lifelong smoker trying to wield them.
The venerable June 2001 2.0 Ford Focus ESP finally got a bit of TLC yesterday but only by virtue of my mate Gary doing it seeing as it's easier to drive the 9 miles to his place and watch him work while I smoke a couple of fags rather than doing anything myself. He gets it back in engine advice for his rally cars and the general pleasure of knowing someone as fantastic as myself so it's a fair trade. Anyway as I keep telling him when I want something done to the car, there's no point in having a dog living close by and barking myself.
The TLC in question consisted of an oil and filter change. A massive inconvenience for myself and a five minute job for him. Last time it was done according to my service logs was just over five years ago in June 2007 and exactly 8000 miles ago, three years of which though were with the car parked up for reasons I won't go into but which probably doesn't excuse me from doing it sooner. Yeah, yeah I know you should do it every year but it's a Zetec and they never break so sod it. It wasn't even that black either but after finding semi-synthetic 5W30 in Tesco for £5 for 4 litres I reluctantly bit the bullet. I even paid for a genuine Ford filter dammit.
Oil consumption was interesting though. The Focus takes 4.25 litres according to the book which we've verified by measurement. The 5 litre can of 5W30 I used back in 2007 had 0.75 litres left in it for topping up and the engine had exactly used all of that that with the dipstick still exactly on the full mark 8000 miles later just before we (he) drained it. That's 1 litre per 10666 miles which seems pretty damn good to me.
I'd been toying with the idea of changing the 11 year old antifreeze too but this apparently requires things to be undone which seems an excessive amount of work so I've never bothered. So we checked it with his hydrometer thingy and bugger me it's still crystal clear, still right at the full mark, not a trace of contaminants, a very attractive shade of light blue and floated the floaty thingy as high as the markings go which means it's still perfect. I'll check it again in another 11 years I think and stop worrying about it.
Cam belts are supposed to go 100,000 miles or 10 years and my car has only done 53,000 so that clearly doesn't need touching and I'm having no truck with the 10 year bit either despite my car being 11 years old. I've got underwear older than that so a decent bit of rubber ought to last longer.
If it used any brake fluid I'd change it, well maybe I'd top it up, but it never has done so sod that too.
Sadly though the original Firestone Firehawk 700 rear tyres have now been officially deemed f***ed after 52,800 miles. 1.9mm of tread left in the middle and 1.75mm at the sides. That's probably also why I keep losing the back end in the wet when I get spirited and having to exert myself by letting the ESP system sort things out. I could apply opposite lock in extremis I suppose but that also seems like too much hard work for a heavy smoker. Dogs and barking yourself again. The fronts have been changed twice in the same period so I suppose I can't grumble about 25k mile tyre life at the front and twice that at the rear. Luckily a nearly new set of Michelin snow tyres has just found their way to me free of charge courtesy of a mate of Gary's who was selling his car that had them fitted so we'll pop those on when the weather gets bad.
The battery, as per my various previous threads, continues to annoy me. After 11 and a half years and being sat flat as a pancake doing nowt for three of those it should be dead as a dead thing but it stubbornly refuses to die or even misbehave. I think it's become a battle of wills. I actually want it to die so A) I can finally say how long they last and B) Gary has a shed full of suitable free replacements anyway from the multiple s/h cars he constantly t*ts around with to maintain his rally fleet. It would give him something to do. I could phone up one day and say the car won't start and he could nip round with a new battery, fit it for me and feel useful and white knight like but it seems destined not to be. Maybe the coming cold weather will kill it? Maybe if I pry the tamper proof top off and pour something nasty in the cells it might help?
So basically it rarely needs oil, never needs coolant, doesn't use brake fluid and you can't top up the battery anyway. I once, briefly, had a girlfriend who was similarly resistant to having any fluids inserted and needless to say that didn't last long. I definitely prefer the Focus.