Faults:

Master Cylinder needed to be replaced at 190,000.

Engine was replaced around 100,000.

Rack and Pinion replaced at 220,000.

General Comments:

It's hard for me to believe that I actually loved this car at one time. It belonged to my best friend in college - back in the 80's when it was still new. I even got my first driver's license in it. My friend finally gave it to me three years ago.

Now we have a love-hate kind of thing going. I hate how much noise it makes, and it always feels like something is about to go horribly wrong with this car. The reality, though, is that I've only spent $1,000 in repairs in three years and 45,000 miles. Except for a occasional problems with the battery, this car has started up for me every day for over three years. Not bad for a car that has well over 200,000 miles on it and is about to celebrate it's 20th birthday. My friend replaced the engine about 10 years ago, but I think it was his own crappy maintenance that led to this.

One pain about this car is that the battery dies very quickly if I leave the lights on. Once I left them on for ten minutes and I needed a jump. Even just leaving on the dome lights for an hour will kill it. Then I have to drive the car around for a good 30-45 minutes or else it won't start the next time I drive it. It's a new battery, not-too-old alternator, everything has been inspected and no one can identify the problem. And in fact, the car had this same problem back in 1987.

I like the way it has the feeling of a compact car, but you can still fit tons of crap in it. It's actually a pretty comfortable car, even after all this time.

Faults:

Both half-shafts have had to be replaced, as boots tore on both.

Timing belt or one of the pulleys has failed, have not yet taken apart the engine to see which. When the engine went so severely out of time, it pumped all the engine oil out through the air cleaner and down on to the car frame. I talked to a neighbor who previously owned one of these, she advises that she had the same thing happen because they use a plastic drive sprocket for the timing belt.

General Comments:

I will repair this car and continue to use it. I was generally happy with the car until the engine went bad. I am a Rural Mail Carrier, my fuel and repair costs are much higher on my Ford Aerostar van.