1998 Ford Escort Wagon SE 2.0 liters, gasoline.

Summary:

Very good wagon. Reliable car with good space and trouble free transportation

Faults:

Nothing. There was a recall for a fuel line or something of the sort, I don't remember exactly. They sent us a letter home to let us know. The piece in our car wasn't damaged, but they changed it nevertheless. We used very much this car, we did many kilometers in an small amount of time, and the car always gave us great service, we could always depend upon it. We were sorry to sell it, but we bought a very nice Mercedes, and as it was expensive, we had to let this one go.

At the very end, the ventilation system expelled something like a fume, but we never knew what was it, as we sold it just about on those days.

This car had very good assembly and materials quality.

General Comments:

The car had good acceleration, the automatic transmission was extremely nice and smooth. It worked very well with the engine requirements.

The charge space was very good and you could fold both back seats.

The dashboard had a design very new for those days with a black oval zone where ventilation, air conditioning, and radio-cassette controls were all located in a friendly way.

Suspension was very good, handling was fine and performance was also quite well.

This car had quality and lots of qualities.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 10th June, 2007

1995 Ford Escort LX 1.9 liters, gasoline

Summary:

A reliable and durable car with very bad handling and performance

Faults:

One engine mount broke and did a "clunk" when accelerating, but it was fixed.

This was the fully equipped model in hatchback type.

I had an accident with this car, the tail was quite light and in a rainy day, not going too fast it just over-steered -loosed control- and it ended in an strong crash. The car had frontal damage, not too strong for that accident -I went against the road wall and bumped three lanes from the high speed one to the lowest one. The carter broke and many things had to be changed, but the engine and general structure of the car weren't really hurt. It was perfectly fixed by the dealer, and I still had it for some time more. It worked so well that someone from my family bought it from me -knowing about the accident.

General Comments:

The performance was absolutely dull. The engine was quite noisy and if you wanted highway speeds, you needed to rev at more than 4000rpm. The automatic transmission was fine for normal daily use, but too jumpy, it down-shifted very easily in order to give more acceleration, you had to learn how to accelerate to have an smooth linear acceleration without all the down-shifting. Handling wasn't good -as I mentioned before- as weight distribution was badly designed in this car, the front was too heavy and the back too light, so grip from back was insecure. If you drive extremely carefully, very slowly, and you don't give a damn for performance, this is a reliable, and durable car, quite comfy for its size.

For that engine displacement, the amount of horsepowers could have been many more. If I remember well, it had 98hp, too few for almost 2.0 liters, even at the time.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 10th June, 2007

28th Jun 2007, 01:35

I am the reviewer again:

I am sorry, I later on find that the engine had 88hp, not 98hp. Extremely low amount of horsepower for an 1.9 liter engine, and with MPFI.

Also, I forgot to mention in the review that the turn signal switch didn't return to its neutral position, it got stuck in the left side turn position and the cost to repair that was something like $450.00usd, some 8 years ago. Way too expensive for an economy car.