Faults:

The second day I owned this car the water pump blew (plastic impeller broke, common problem with Contours) and in turn the thermostat, head gasket, and head all blew, leaving me with a smoking, steaming mess of a car. Under the Virginia 'Lemon Law' I was able to get all the repairs done for free, only to have the new water pump break within 200 miles. Then the air conditioner died, then the new thermostat blew, once again leaving me with a steaming, overheated mess. This being my second SVT contour, I then gave up and traded it in for a Chevy.

General Comments:

SVT contours in general (I had a red one and a black one, both 1998) are one of the most fun cars to drive ever. They handle incredibly (on par with BMW 3 series), are very comfortable with leather bucket seats, and they are pretty fast (but can easily be made faster.)

Unfortunately, they have that good old Ford reliability, and cannot be trusted past about 40 thousand miles.

Faults:

ABS and brake light stuck on. and had to replace wire that goes to alternator and the alternator and brakes all around at 82,000.

General Comments:

The car runs very good and has the power and great on gas.

Faults:

I now know that there have been many recalls on this car, but I have never received any letters from the dealership. I have the same address now as I did when I bought it. The dealership ignores me and doesn't volunteer any information. My brother got the recall info off the Internet.

He is a master mechanic at his Chevrolet dealership and this is what he did.

Heater fan didn't work- replaced the resistor and the plug.

Coolant level sensor- the dash light was on and off all the time.

He replaced front pads, rotors, tie rod ends, 4 new tires and gave it a 4 wheel alignment.

He fixed me up pretty good, it took over 3 hours, but at home I ran into some problems.

The car pulls to the right. I watched the dials he had on the alignment computer and told him when they were "perfectly at zero." I thought he did good because the needles all went into the green part.

One time, I tried to start it and it made a horrible grinding. He said it might be the "flex plate." It hasn't done it since. I wonder if it will do it again?

A new battery and alternator went in it, which he said, "figures" and the check engine light goes on and off all the time. He says wait till it does go out and he'll see what it is then.

I'm nervous about the car now. He is doing stuff that maybe Ford should have done a while ago.

General Comments:

It bothers me that I don't have the recall letters from Ford. It is hard to keep up on this car all by myself.

Please comment on my potential flexplate problem and I'm concerned about all this transmission failure and timing belt talk.

Three family members drive camrys and they never do anything to them and my brother drives a Toyota truck (he gets picked on at the Chev dealership for that, but he never has to work on it).