Evo road trip reliablitiy
 

Hey everyone,

So this up coming weekend I'm driving my Evo almost 700 miles straight.. and I'm a bit nervous. Now to some of y'all, this is nothing as I've seen many of you guys take your Evo on long trips, but this Evo has given me one problem after another. Good thing is that the car just had the head gasket changed, all new timing components and the head rebuilt. But the bad thing is that this car isn't that reliable. Do you guys have any recommendations on getting this thing road trip ready and do y'all think it will make the drive? Thanks!

No one reason why a healthy motor couldn't make the trip. Ensure all fluids are topped off. I would carry oil and coolant with you if your motor consumes oil. Ensure your fans are working and monitor coolant temps. Stay out of boost if you are very concerned.

I've down a four hour round trip straight through before and the car was fine.. but this is another 6 hours and cruising at 70-90mph the whole time.. yeah all fluids we're just changed less than 5k ago and the coolant and oil changed literally 100 miles ago

i drive my evo every year from NYC to NC. i just did this years drive 2 weeks ago totaling in close to 1500 miles. Just check everything like fresh oil change and top off all the other fluids, check tires and suspension components and brakes. I usually take 2 quarts of oil with me, a gallon of antifreeze, flashlight and a socket set with a whole lot of zip ties just in case lol. you should be ok.

My car is super reliable. I last returned from an out of state road trip on the 19th. The bugs are still stuck to the front.

This car road trips a lot and every time before leaving I spend time the previous day going through the car looking for anything that could cause a problem. Any problem found is canceled trip until problem corrected. If I have a worry about some subsystem it gets replaced. For example, instead of waiting for the radiator to spring a leak, at a 100 k I replaced it. So far this fifteen year old vehicle has never left me stranded.

So, is your car reliable? It depends on how it was used and how it is being taken care off. It may be more reliable than mine or maybe not safe to take out of walking distance of your house.

If it's not reliable on normal driving (which it doesn't sound like) then don't take it. Car brand doesn't matter, reliable is reliable.

I never had any issues with my car and wouldn't have hesitated to drive it on any road trip. For comfort though, I hated driving it on freeway trips.

Yea the car did have issues sometimes when driving, but I daily drove it for over a year and it was fine.. but within the past few months, after a blown head gasket and various other things, I spent over 6k fixing everything, so hopefully it should be all gucci to take on this trip

i would say for the most part it is. tall ben from gears and gasoline took his evo 9 mr with 100k+ miles on a trip several thousand miles.

Yea I know, I was talking with him about it and he said he had no issues besides a roasted clutch that was his fault. But his 9 is mostly stock

It's just a car. If it is in as good shape as any other road-worthy car, you will be fine. {thumbup}

I guess it mostly depends on how much it has been modified/maintained. I picked up my car from the dock and after a service drove it 1100 miles in two days (Melbourne to Brisbane). Never missed a beat.

I drive my Evo since 10 years at an average of 15'000 km (8'000 miles) a year, and only experienced 2 minor issues on the road:

1. Electrical Gremlin that short circuited my wipers (this was really annoying since it was raining)
2. Original intake pipe slipped of at the trottle body (just a 5 minute fix at the border of the road)

I regularly service my mild tuned Evo (about 400 hp at the crank, 330 at the wheel) and after about 175'000 km (110'000 miles) it is always fine.

Did 800 miles in one day. Car did fine, no issues.

Its making 424whp. And when i got the car, the previous owner really abused it sadly. However, ive replaced ALL the fluids, new belts, pulleys, head gasket, head rebuilt, and a lot more, so ive tried to make up for the previous owner's abuse

Drove my Evo up and down the East Coast from NY to South-FL. Then back to VA in 2016. No issues. Just make sure maintenance is up to date. I also did a 700 mile drive from VA to the DSM/Evo Shootout in 2017. Did great as well.{thumbup}