I made a similar thread over 5 years ago. Am I the last one left? I just had major brake work done including brake line replacement, calipers, pads, etc. Still debating on painting the car professionally, but need to check the engine when I get time to see if it's worth it. Anyways, just cleaned it today. Approaching 200,000 miles! I have other vehicles so my pace to 200K has slowed down a lot. I think I average about 2000-4000 miles a year now on this car.


Original 2005 Scion tC with No Exterior Mods in June 2022!

 

Cleaned engine bay today and waiting on new radiator mounts, new titanium bolting hardware, etc. Replaced battery tie downs. New air filter. Going to try to get the engine bay looking really good.


7-10-2022

 

Hey Necromancer. Nope you're not the only one left. My 2005 baby is still rolling. I have over 300,000 on mine. The only somewhat major repairs I've done are starter, alternator and fuel injectors which are normal because of wear and tear. She does burn oil but it's not bad and expected at this high mileage. I guess the one major repair that I'll be doing is the sunroof. The track broke on the assembly so it doesn't open. The track assembly is about $200 used. And there are videos on youtube showing how to replace it. I miss my sunroof so I'll probably be fixing it in about a month. So if you guys still have working sunroofs I'd suggest to check the rails when the sunroof is open at the top. Clean them and regrease them so the sunroof has a smooth rail to slide in and not encounter any unneeded friction when opening/closing. And if you want to go further, drop down the headliner to get access to the track assembly to lubricate it as well to hopefully extend the life of the sunroof. Man I need to fix mine. lol Our pananromic sunroofs are special and look and function badass when open.

 

Your power steering fluid reservoir looks nice and clean. Do you change power steering fluid and if so, what intervals? I started using synthetic ATF because it doesn't burn as bad as dino.


EDIT: I noticed the blue cleaner in your windshield washer bottle. Looks like the stuff that damaged my clear coat. Scotty on youtube says that RainX brand is less prone to damage paint.

 

Nice. We are the last of the greatest Scion generation LOL. I should hit 200,000 by next year. I just don't drive it enough as I have other vehicles and COVID didn't help with pushing the miles out. No oil burning for me. I have noticed the sunroof sometimes gets stuck open when I use it. I don't use it much overall as I end up with a burned forehead LOL. I do keep everything clean and make sure that rail is always clean. I didn't know about greasing the rails though. I will be doing slow upgrades to engine bay later this year to make it look nicer and removing rust as I can. Then this fall, I plan to get entire car painted again black.

 

My right side off the hood has paint damage because the first few months I owned the car in 2005, I was at undergrad in a townhouse and some girl backed into my car while it was parallel parked. I ended up having that side and panel fixed and the reservoir replaced. Made me mad at the time. I don't think I've changed the power steering fluid. I may try to change it within the next year using ChrisFix techniques, but they say if your steering is working, to not mess with it. I don't drive my car rough so I've been lucky to not have engine issues overall.

Edit: to clarify the left side in the pic above (right side if you are in the car driving). The paint job they did to repair the panel looks like amateur hour and has faded a lot faster and the clear coat is gone while the rest of the car still has the clear coat mostly intact. I wanted to make sure the engine components are still good before spending $1000+ on a new paint job for the entire car.

 

I'm surprised your PSF hasn't burned. My reservoir was black within the first 35,000 miles. DEXRON VI is synthetic and so far, has not burned. It's also backward compatible with the original DEXRON III.

I was reading about the sunroof rails. Parafin wax is a good friction reducer. It doesn't attract dirt and is long lasting.

This is for zippers but would also work for your sunroof rails:

 

Thanks! I hope I don't have to do any more major maintenance until I get to 200,000. The next major thing I may do in the fall outside of engine bay component upgrades is get the AC to work better with one of those Recharge systems. I never did one before, but seems pretty straightforward.

 

lol Yes we are. Glad to hear you're not burning oil. And definitely take care of those sunroof rails. Mine would also stay stuck open. I would have to help it close by pulling down the deflector and sometimes pulsing the close button little by little until it got past bringing down the deflector. Then I could just hold down the close button to close fully.

Kind of funny story on the black color. When I bought my baby in 2005 I wanted black as well. The color I got was flint mica which I thought was black. And I asked the dealer to confirm if that was black and he said yes. I was like hmm ok looks kind of grayish charcoal to me. lol. And we left with the car with me thinking that was the black color. Because they didn't have any black in inventory at the time to compare to. It wasn't until a few months later that I finally saw an actual black tC. And I was like hey, that's black! But I had fallen in love with my flint mica and no offense to black. But I think it truly is the best color for the tC. Especially when it's washed and waxed. Oh man that pearl in it glistens and it looks badass and deep.

Keep up the good work in the engine bay. I'll be adding a Megan strut tower brace and some other little items to dress up the engine bay a little too.

 

I was looking for an engine bay brace. They used to be popular or easy to find a few years ago. Where are you getting yours?

I am still waiting on the radiator air cover that I think is being built one at a time. I also noticed my engine runs smoother with synthetic. Using it for the first time in 2022 on this car LOL. But yeah the paint is going. We got tree sap and 100F+ weather and I'm out there getting it off the car as fast as I can.

 

Scion aftermarket parts are not as easy to find from manufacturer's sites since the car brand is gone now. Most will now sell parts through marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon. Megan Racing's site does still show some parts but you have to do a general search and type in Scion. The year, brand, model lookup tool isn't working for Scion tC. The strut tower brace is there but at Msrp price at $109. I found it on ebay which looks to be Megan Racing selling under a different name for the eBay store. It's $80 on eBay. My Megan Racing axle back exhaust I got on eBay and it was shipped direct from Megan's warehouse.

 

It's my birthday and taking my 2005 back in time this coming week. Getting it completely taken apart and repainted from scratch. Also I upgraded engine bay a little with new mounts for radiator and dress up bolts. I'll show the NEW 2005 in a week or so. It's going to be my "Vanilla Sky Mustang" I ride on the streets ahah!

And yes most people say it would be a waste. But it's my first car I ever bought new and lots of memories.

 

Will Scion become a classic car. Yes.....Yes, it will. Every car becomes a classic car if it sticks around long enough. However......

My neighbor has a 1980 Dodge Aspen.....it TOTALLY qualifies as a "classic". Less than 100k miles on the odometer and in MINT condition. Perfect paint. Perfect interior. Drives flawlessly.

Sadly, Scion's tC is the modern-day version of the Dodge "Aspen".

You ever watch those high-dollar car auctions where people are bidding hundreds of thousands (or millions) of dollars on a car?......I've watched those auctions.........and I don't ever remember seeing a single Dodge Aspen sitting atop a stage with people battle to buy the car.........this is Scion.

 

Haha, me keeping the 2005 in mint condition is more to have it become my time machine or my Vanilla Sky Tom Cruise Mustang. I kept getting asked when getting bids for painting about whether I'm going to sell it. I don't think I ever will. The apocalypse can occur and I will be driving the Scion tC through a Mad Max environment LOL.

 

Paint complete. Dents = 0. Added radiator diversion panel too.

 

Looking real nice Necromancer.

 

Umm I would not put our tCs in the same boat as a Dodge Aspen. Maybe if you had said Dodge Neon SRT which I consider a modern classic. Because that little car was an affordable pocket rocket. I don't even remember hearing that Aspen model name nor recall what it looks like. I'll have to google it. lol But the tC was a hugely successful and popular model for Scion. It was the best selling model for Scion. It was considered the new pocket rocket to modify instead of Honda Civics or Subarus. The hot new player in the game of import car to modify. So to me it will become a modern classic. Especially the first gen. I don't need to see a car on a stage with people bidding for it to call it some type of classic. That's for old school classics and rare cars. I call these cars modern classics for people in the import modifying world. And for folks that have the RS versions of the tC I hope they hold on to them. I would have loved to have an RS version but I'm happy keeping my baby alive till the day I die. Never letting go of mine.

 

219k here!

 

Looks so clean for an '05! I graduated from HS that year and when this car dropped I instantly wanted it, bought mine in 2010 after I was out of college. I don't ever plan to sell the car. It is too much fun to drive.

 

Only 83k on our 2005 haha. Still going strong though the AC has trouble cooling on hot days. Never had any major issues knock on wood. Flint Mica.