1998 Ford Escort ZX2 review from North America

Had to replace CV-Joins, however, it was probably due to my fault. I've hit a huge bump once with both front wheels.

A great car for the money.

A car for a student in high school all the way to the collage level. Probably not very good car as a family vehicle.

A bit slow up the hill in the summer with the A/C on.

Good gas economy.

Recommend to change the spark plugs. Stack ones are not very good. At 50,000 the gap was about 2mm. After I put 4 tip bosh spark plugs it made a world of difference in speed/power/gas economy/and engine vibrations.

At 50,000 replaced the serpentine belt, probably a usual maintenance item.

The road noise did transfer to the cabin.

Tires expensive and difficult to find. However, you can go with different kind then recommended by Ford. I've seen many people do it and the the car drove fine.

With the fold-down rear-seat it's capacity was quite amazing. Enough room for two snowboards and load of stuff. I took this little car up and down the East Cost and it did very well.

Handles great in the traffic.

Probably stick-shift transmission would be best fitted for this car.

However, typical engineering by Ford, many things could be improved with little effort from the company. On the other hand, I got the car on it's first year of production in US, so can't complain too much. ;)