Faults:

Brakes seem to need tweaking pretty often

Suspension has made some noise here and there.

General Comments:

I love my car.

I have had to put money into it recently but it is old.

I have driven to Florida from Ohio and back.

I have driven to Montana and back to LA.

I have driven from LA to Ohio.

I have towed it from Ohio to LA.

Tires last forever.

Electrics been great.

Good stereo.

Very comfortable basically, quiet, good car.

Nice engine has a lot of pep.

Faults:

When I first bought it there was quite a bit I had to replace. It was used after all. The first and most major was a heater core ($800). I tested the car in July so, stupid me, I didn't check the heat. I had the water pump and timing belt replaced as well. Some of the more "wear and tear" items included tires, ball joints, brakes, rotors, and tie rods. After that the car was very reliable. It never broke down or left me stranded. I should also note it was a tank in the snow.

General Comments:

I should mention I have the sedan model. Well, this car is just your basic commuter car. It was very bland looking on the outside, although the alloys and spoiler did help.

The interior, while functional, is nothing special but it gets the job done. Performance is almost non-existant since the car had an 88 HP motor hooked to an automatic transmission. It was a step down from my old V6 Cavalier which had plenty of power. The upside to this was it had awsome fuel economy. If I took it easy, I could get close to 40 MPG. Beware on the highways since trucks blow this thing around pretty good.

It came with a very rare factory alarm system. When I say rare, I mean that I personally have not seen another so equipped. It was more annoying than anything else since it only armed the system and didn't actually unlock the doors. Also even if you didn't arm it, you had to push the disarm button to be able to start the car. It had a really nice Pioneer CD player that came with it when I bought it. They didn't bother upgrading the speakers which were all pretty much shot. Since I was a college student at the time, all I could afford was crappy Roadmaster (think Walmart) speakers. Stuff that never worked when I had it was the AC, driver's seatbelt motor and rear defroster. I never understood the allure of using motorized seatbelts.

The only reason I'm not driving this car now is because it was totalled in an accident. I recommend this car for people who want a reliable and economical commuter car. If it's performance you want, look somewhere else. I have never driven a GT or LX-E version, which has a more powerful motor, so I can't comment on them.

Faults:

Well I bought this car because I need a reliable car. I have had 2 other cars in the space of 6 months, and both head gaskets have gone.

The problem I'm having is that it seems to drink petrol. I put about 25/30 pounds in the car and got about 150 miles out of the half a tank of petrol that was in there, which although it's a 1.6 seems a lot. I'm not sure why it would be drinking it so much.

It seems the exhaust manifold is blowing - maybe a reason for the petrol drinking.

I was driving today around town and it seemed to lack power, it was almost like I was doing 30mph and someone was holding the handbrake up LOL. It happened a couple of times, but seemed to be OK afterwards, I hope this isn't another sign of a head gasket.

The temperature gauge doesn't seem to work well since I have had the car; it worked on the day I got it, but hasn't since, but I hear that is a common fault.

Nothing major, but when I first got the car, the orange light used to stay on if a door wasn't shut properly, and the other day it started flickering and now doesn't seem to work - kinda worried that when I wake up tomorrow that something else is going to go wrong LOL.

General Comments:

As for driving the car, I was nervous at first as I have not driven a big car and it was big to me LOL, as I was used to driving 306s and Rover 214s, but I was pleasantly surprised; it was very smooth and spacious, can't fault the inside of the car.

Although LOL my other half pulled this lever while I was driving, and my legs went off the floor and couldn't touch the pedals LOL; I'm not used to Fords, so didn't realize you could do that, but I'm kinda short LOL.