1993 Ford Telstar Reviews

CV joints at 80000.

Dashboard storage compartment's closer springs are broken.

Excellent low maintenance luxury car with good performance and excellent road holding. Less fuel efficient, but still compares good with other similar cars.

Very reliable. Owned it for 17 years, and still in excellent condition and going strong. Done 163000 km.

I bought this car second hand with a fairly high mileage, so of course it is going to have problems.

Car vibrated/shook at idle - replaced 3 of the engine suspension supports reduced the problem significantly approx. $300 (AUD) each, this is just for parts.

Boot hydraulics would not hold up the hatch tailgate; needed to re-gas, approx. $60 (AUD) each, just parts.

Water pump broke, $1000 (AUD) to replace, including labour.

Radiator started leaking, cost $600 (AUD) for a non-genuine one, again just the part.

Needed to replace parking light (my fault) $320 (AUD)

The interesting thing is that Mazda 626 parts (same car) are cheaper than Ford parts; it's as if Ford buys from Mazda and then resells to the consumer.

Overall, a comfortable car, good for city driving. It is not a fast car by any standards, but will suffice in day to day driving.

Fuel wise, I got 10.5-11L/100km in the city and about 8L/100km on the freeway.

The car is fairly roomy for a medium sized car of that generation, and is very well equipped.

Parts however are extremely expensive, and that's the main problem with this car.

Ignition fault at 164,000. Had to replace the distributor, a new one cost me $1,157.00, for a couple of bucks worth of cast alloy, some pressed sheet metal parts, a coil and some bits of plastic!

Drive train noise undiagnosed as yet.

For all of its good looks, handling and comfort, the Telstar is seriously let down by the price of parts.

The rear hatch tail light facia panel for instance, which is just just a piece plastic with the reverse lights and number plate lights in it, believe it or not it costs $1,200.00 to replace!

If you were to build a car from parts it would work to be worth over $100,000.00. How do you justify the cost of the parts?

The drivers door was damaged after another car rode into it which resulted in neither the drivers nor right passenger door being able to open.

The central locking/alarm/immobiliser stopped working after about 7 months.

The gearbox needed replacing 2 months after we got the car. About a month ago the replacement (new not reconditioned) gearbox also packed up and now the car is just standing idle.

Fuel consumption is very high.

The electric window mechanism on the two back door stopped working. On the back driver's side it doesn't work at all while on the back passenger side it can go down, but not up. All of the windows can however be operated from the driver's door.

Other than the above mentioned faults, this car is still very good and handles well.

I don't have any complaints about the interior and I find it very comfortable.