In Portugal, I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t even know what currency they use. Or teh exchange rate. Or if boneyard engines are available.
In the U.S. in my area a boneyard Festiva engine could probably be found for a cost in the low hundreds, perhaps $350.
That could be…but don’t count on it. And you can meet todays emission standards with a carburator. Just hard to do.
Sea Foam is a great product but it doses little putting it in the oil. I have used many cases of this product in my cars and customers? cars with all positive results. I have the same engine as yours with 180K miles on it. I use Sea Foam every 3000 mile thru the intake. It cleans the carbon off the head, piston and rings. It improves the mileage as much as 20%. It cures excessive oil use, rough idle, stalling, o2 sensor codes and many more common problems. Fords are also known for dust build up on the mass airflow sensor. It will cause much the same drivability problems as the carbon build up and can easily be fixed by removing the sensor and dusting it off with a small clean paint brush.
But before you consider using Sea Foam, you need to find a competent Auto Technician that is an ASE certified Master technician, and one that you can fully understand. Note that even though someone is certified, it dose not mean he or she knows what they are doing, and there are a lot of crooks in the business. Here in Maine, about 90% or more of people that have been doing auto repair all there life with all the credentials still do not have what it takes to even consider being in the business. So be careful of whom you trust.
The first thing that needs to be done is a competent auto technician needs to do a compression test before condemning an engine. It needs to first be done dry and then do it wet (sound erotic). This is the only way to determine an internal mechanical problem. A vacuum gauge can also be used to ad in this determination.
I have not found anything else that comes any where close to what sea foam does. If not available email the company an see if they can ship ya a can should be great PR. It cleans the cobustion system and in oil it cleans an frees rings and valves.
For $7.00 it has sure helped me on several of our cars and vans an trucks
Portugal is not a third world country so I really doubt that your car has a carburetor. Your knowledgeable friend should know the difference. Personally I’d say get new plugs put in and see how it goes. If you have a broken ring, you will burn a quart of oil about every 200 miles or so. Since you bought the car used, it might still have the original plugs in, and if one of them fails, then the fuel in that cylinder won’t ignite and the tip could get black, especially if it went through a period of firing on occasional cycles.
I would not rule out the possibility of it having a carburetor, I’m still seeing late model cars from Canada with carbs. But that is so easy to tell the deff. Replacing the plugs is a good start, after all it is near the 60K service interval that requires the first tune up (if it has platinum plugs, 30K if not) and much more stuff. I would highly recommend if you?re going to replace the spark plugs, you should replace the ignition wires, PCV valve, air filter if needed and fuel filter (replace every 15K). MAKE SURE YOU ONLY USE MOTORCRAFT SPARK PLUGS! I have found that the listings for other brand plugs for that engine have been wrong. Don?t forget to clean the mass air flow meter. I would charge about $200 for this tune up and a compression test in my shop.
This is a very interesting topic to me. I drive a 1990 Ford Festiva with over 200,000 miles on it. This car does happen to burn oil about 1.5 quarts per tank of gas. I dont experinece the reduction in power as the op indicated just the inconvience of carrying cheap oil with me. I did have the compression loss / loss of power last year though. Turns out i had a tune up and the mechanics didnt get the spark plug wires secured under the hood. The ended up sitting on the engine manifold melting the wires causing all sorts of issues. By the way even with the oil consumption my little Festiva still gets about 32 miles to the gallon.
It would be interesting to know how he determined the piston rings are at fault. This would require a compression or leakdown test and numbers obtained should be provided to you.
These tests are the absolute first step and without knowing those numbers I can’t even guess as to whether you have a ring problem or not.
I’m not familiar with the rate of exchange or the Portugese monetary system but here in the U.S. this job could probably not be done for 1500 dollars, especially if the cylinder wall was scored because of an, alleged at this point, broken piston ring. Scored cylinder walls mean a complete removal and disassemly of the engine block before boring for oversize pistons.
In a word, expensive.
It would be very odd for a 50k mile car to suffer a broken ring unless the car was seriously overheating or very low on oil.
You might look at the substance on that fouled spark plug. If it’s oil due to a broken ring it will feel almost like tar and possibly have an slightly oily feel to it. If it feels sooty then that could point to nothing more than a defective spark plug or bad spark plug wire.
I’m not going to second guess the mechanic over there; he has the car and I don’t. Just pointing out some what-ifs here and hope some of it helps.
A compression test is a must. The dry/wet method described by Wha Who? is preferred. When was the last tune-up? A complete tune-up including checking the pcv valve is a must to provide a base line from which to make a proper diagnosis. 50K miles is not much on this engine, so I tend to raise one eyebrow re: broken ring. Tune-up should show up fuel fouled plug which may be caused by sticking float valve in carb or dirty, “slobbering” injector. Fuel system cleaner in gas most likely will help in such a situation. Nonetheless, compression test and tune-up is comparatively inexpensive and will provide enough info to make an informed decision. Good luck.