1994 Ford Crown Victoria LX review from North America

Ball joints L & R 2002, L 2004, R 2005. ($150 each)

Brake pads and rotors (front and rear), 2002, 2004, 2006. (pads $30 pair, rotors $85 each, each time)

Brake line 2003 ($1200)

Air conditioner was repaired 4 times by the previous owner, failed again in 2002.

Power window cable failed. The $0.30 part cannot be purchased without the rest of the assembly ($400)

Transmission line wore trough due to design where it rubs against the suspension. ($350)

Intermittent wipers work... intermittently. So does the climate control, signal lights, digital cluster lights and check engine light. Dealer not sure where the problem is, is willing to try to fix it, but cannot say if this is one problem or many, how many hours this will take or the worse case scenario bill for repair. He will gladly attempt the repair and bill me $100 an hour until it's fixed, but cannot promise anything.

Road noise is not an issue as it cannot be heard over the squeaks and rattles of the interior.

Before purchasing the vehicle I did my research on this and other sites and chose a CV over others due to favourable reviews. I guess my mistake was to get a luxury model with air suspension, digital cluster, automatic lights, traction control and "regular" (read sub-par) brakes as opposed to the Police Interceptor model.

The good: you can fit anything in a CV, you can tow anything (including a building) in a CV, you will slow traffic down to a crawl in a CV so it feels like it's the fastest thing on the road. You can stretch out on a back seat, you can fit 6 normal size adults comfortably inside and 30 or so golf bags in the trunk. Excellent on long trips. It will survive a frontal collision with a tank. It will smoke a Honda Civic with a coffee can exhaust while towing a trailer. It has a radio.

The bad: Cannot take corners any faster then 35 km/h when it's dry. Cannot take corners any faster then 25 km/h when it's wet. Cannot take corners any faster then 5 km/h when it's snowing.

It will refuse to drive in the snow. I'm serious... It's equipped with traction control system that cannot be turned off on a 1994 model (this was fixed in later model years), which applies brakes to the rear wheels when wheel spin is detected. This means that the car will not move up the hill in the snow and it will refuse to start moving on a level surface if standing on ice. I had to purchase studded winter tires to use it in the winter (studded tires are illegal where I live)

Cannot brake. The breaking distance of this vehicle is far longer then any other car I know. I can only compare it to a Uhaul moving truck I once driven. On top of that, applying the brakes hard will warp the rotors in less than 10 000 Km. According to Ford, hard breaking should be avoided.

It takes ~80L of gas to fill it up and with careful driving that will last almost 400 km in the city and a whopping 600 highway.

Adding oil requires a funnel, adding transmission fluid requires a double jointed funnel. Changing the spark plugs is next to impossible, removing the oil filter requires turning the wheels to the left to achieve necessary clearance (this wee bit of info is missing from the manual).

My Honda civic is nearing the 300 000km mark it is driven on average 40K Km a year and over the last 4 years it cost $90 to fix. CV is driven 10K Km a year and the maintenance cost over the last 4 was in excess of $2000.

I’ll trade it for a Japanese car with twice the mileage in a heartbeat.