Faults:

Catalytic converter is plugged, I barely had any power going uphills. I cut it off and "straight piped" it. It now has a lovely growl to it now.

There are no other problems.

General Comments:

A muck better built car than my previous car that was a 1988 Mercury Sable LS. All controls are better place, speedometer and tachometer are crisp and clear. Smoother ride, and much safer with dual front airbags, and four wheel anti-lock disc breaks. Styling is sleek and slim, all around a much better car then my old Sable. Well done Mercury, you now you have me hooked.

Faults:

Since I got it from my aunt for free (after it sat for a year), it's just been taking my money. Needed a new transmission, started, it leaks tranmission fluid (which finally caused it to not go over 35mph on the highway for me, which freaked me out and that's why I'm buying a new car)... It's just all engine trouble. I loved to drive the car, but what a terrible engine. It is comfy inside and very spacious, but bad engine. Tho it IS 13 years old.

Faults:

Well in the 10,000 or so miles that I had the car, here are the things that I had to have or did replace myself, in order. But sorry I don't remember the mileage for each one.

1. I was going down a curvy road and the rear stabilizer bar fell apart. So I had to have that replaced.

2. The transmission was shifting hard into 2nd gear and it would jump down a gear when I would be going down the highway. So I took it to a shop and they said some wires on the wiring harness had burnt up, they replaced them and the car started acting normal.

3. The water pump starting leaking really bad and the car was starting to overheat so I put a new thermostat and water pump on it, I also had to put a new tensioner pulley on it, because it was seized up.

4. I came to a stop at a stop sign, was making a right turn and I heard a loud pop from the front of the car and the steering wheel went off center. I thought a tie rod had busted, I took it to a shop because I couldn’t find anything wrong with the suspension. It turns out the motors mounts went out on it. So I had all the motor mounts and tranny mounts replaced.

5. The transmission started slipping and doing other weird stuff again. so I had it taken to a shop and they rebuilt it. After I got it back my interior lights wouldn’t go out, so I had to take out all the interior bulbs so the battery wouldn’t go dead. The car also seemed a lot louder, so I decided to trade it on getting myself a nice used Honda, The night before I went to take it to the car lot where I was getting my Honda, the car wouldn’t start, The battery wasn’t dead, but I think the gear shifter sensor wasn’t making good contact, because I finally got it started after running the shifter through the gears several times.

6. Also I’ll add that it also always had a good oil leak, tranny fluid leak, and coolant leak. And it always had wind noises and sometimes had trouble getting the doors to shut all the way.

General Comments:

The one thing I loved about the car, is it was a good riding car for long trips, its was a very comfy car. It got about 17 mpg in city and 24 on the highway, which I thought wasnt all that great. Also the 3.0 V6 has a big lack of power. The engine itself, though, was about the only good thing on the car, the 3.0's are slow, but I always heard they run for ever.