Faults:

Bought at 60,000mi.

New brakes 2x. once at 75,000, once at 90,000.

Spark Plug Wires corroded, causing misfires. Cheap fix.

Front tie rod ends went at 90,000mi. $250 fix.

Battery cables corroded @ 100,000 miles. $300 fix.

General Comments:

Spunky for a compact 4cly.

Good handling and relatively comfortable.

Very reliable. Only 2 problems in 4 years owning it.

These Escorts just don't die. Engine is as strong as ever and seems like it will take another 50,000mi.

Faults:

As I have not had the car for long it is hard to give a mark for reliability, but nothing was wrong with the car when I got it and nothing has gone wrong so far. touch wood!!!

General Comments:

I absolutely love this car, it has good performance and it handles very well for a small car.

The one down fall would be the ride, it is quite bumpy over pot wholes and bumps etc, but I spouse that is normal for a car of its size.

The interior is really nice however and it has all the mod cons for a 1997. The one fault with extras is the stupid boot release. Ford says it is a safety requirement and this is that you must have the car off before you can pop the boot from inside. This is a pain when your picking somebody up and they need the boot. you have to turn of the engine and then press the boot button and turn the car on again??? How Stupid.

All round I love my car. It is stable and again the handling is superb.

Faults:

Will NOT move in snow or ice. Must be a weight distribution problem, it only spins.

General Comments:

The most dependable, toughest and economical car I have ever owned. I use it on a newspaper route 95 miles per day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for 6 years. Everything (A/C, factory CD changer, cruise) works perfect.

Faults:

I replaced brake pads (regular car service) (200$)

I replaced lamps in rear lamps

I changed a third light

And that's it!

I had one more problem, but that was because of my own fault. I put real bad gas in it once. And the car started loosing its power and demanded an injection cleaning.

General Comments:

I bought this car a year ago with 97000 miles on it. With my excessive driving (I put around 30000 in less than a year) the car handled it very very good. I am extremely satisfied with this cute little car. I was driving to work, school, and giving a ride to my friends, and it all took nothing, but fun, not to mention it is great on gas. I could easily do 450 miles on one tank.

Faults:

Auto Trans x2

Auto Trans Mounts

Ball Joints x2

Front Sway Bar Links x2

Timing Belt & Tensioner

O2 Sensor

Exhaust Flex Pipe

Front Brakes (Rotors/Pads/Hardware)

General Comments:

I bought this car with a bad transmission in early 2004. The transmission was completely locked up and the car would not even roll. I replaced the Auto trans with a used one, and did the install myself.

About 6 months later the trans cracked in 2 pieces due to faulty trans mounts. I replaced both transmission mounts with dealer parts ($150 Total), and installed another used trans. No problem since.

The timing belt jumped time at about 132,000 miles. Luckily I was rolling into my driveway at the time. Tore the timing cover off and found a fairly new belt with a new water pump. The tensioner was faulty causing the belt to jump. The tensioner was only $50 at the dealer along with a $20 belt from the local auto parts store.

Currently the flex pipe has rusted/broken and is leaking. The part alone is $200. I am searching out a cheaper way to fix this problem than shelling out that kind of money for the part.

The Front Brakes on these cars are TERRIBLE. Within the past year I have done 4 front brake jobs on Escorts (including this one). The Caliper pins severly stick and cause the calipers not to slide freely like they should. This causes the inner pad to severely wear, warps the rotors, and gets quite expensive to fix. Calipers, pads, hardware, and rotors are the way to go.

The A/c works very well, and the car drives nice. Parts are reasonable and the car is very easy to work on.