1997 Ford Escort review from North America

Nothing went particularly wrong with this car, aside from necessary maintenance issues, until it died. Suspension is cheap on this model. Had to replace ball joints, and all the struts were almost useless when the car died. I had to replace an oxygen sensor 5000 miles after I bought it, and the previous owner had replaced it 20000 before I got it, so it seemed to burn through these. Ran fantastic until it started misfiring. Changed the spark plugs, and it seemed to run fine, but started misfiring again and blew the engine apart, stranding me in the middle of nowhere. This all happened in a 1 week span.

Started ridiculously well, even when it was -10F and the battery was half dead. Pretty cheap to run. Not a huge amount of power, but that was great for me because I just wanted a cheap ride. Worked well on the freeway at 80-85 mph. I wasn't a big fan of the cloth seats; they were a little cheap. Overall I was very pleased, but a complete and sudden engine failure at 140000 miles seems a little premature. I'm not buying another escort unless it's a dirt cheap beater.