Faults:

Problems:

1. Headlamp covers deteriorating cause dim headlamp brilliance.

2. Plastic bumper is cracking with age and something will have to be done.

3. There is no serious protection such as a steel inner bumper within the plastic bumper. It is just for show.

4. The heater/AC/Vent blower motor has failed. It began it's difficulty by venting to another location while accelerating and returning to normal operation while decelerating. It died last night while on a long trip leaving me hot and using the windows for ventilation.

5. The service departments at various Ford Dealerships cannot find any information about the blower motor, how it works, and how to remove, replace and repair it, within their computer manuals or parts manuals.

6. The turn signal light covers fall off with age.

7. The rubber body trim decays and falls off with age.

8. The struts fail quite quickly.

9. The starter motor fails within 50,000 miles on the two Tempos I have owned. Starter motors should be rebuilt by a reputable electric motor specialist and not bought at a parts store or from the Ford Parts counter. The starter motors will last much longer if a specialist rebuilds it as compared to the original unit's construction and/or after-market products or after-market rebuilt products.

10. The automatic seat-belts break easily. Mine ran into the visor that had been left covering the driver window and that was the end of it working. The Ford mechanics scratched their heads when I asked them to repair it.

11. It has no place to put drinks in the interior.

12. Motor mounts and transmission mounts need replaced about every 2 years or 35,000 miles. This is one reason why some of these other people's comments say they have a lot of vibration.

13. As with most vehicles since the 1970's, there are not enough grease points on the suspension and drive train. This causes many movable parts to wear out before their time. It may possibly be a Ford engineering method of making you buy a new car or replace parts more often. Maybe not.

General Comments:

The good stuff about the car:

1. If you keep the spark plug wires changed every 40,000 miles, you will get good gas mileage. I get almost 30 mph highway.

2. It is easy to drive as long as you keep good struts and perform regular suspension maintenance.

3. It has no bad blind spots like most other little cars I have had experience with.

4. It is easy to work on the major components of the vehicle (As long as you do it yourself.) but many of the electronic parts are quick failing and difficult to trace, diagnose and repair. Many Ford dealerships have to put in and charge for extra time for trying to learn how to work on these problems. They also appear to have poor schematics and diagrams available or have difficulties translating them into actual practice to save money for you on repairs. (Unfortunately another problem not yet solved.)

5. The seats are comfortable enough, but the headrest is in the wrong position to be an effective "headrest". It will possibly save your neck in an accident, but will not make the seat comfortable while driving. Ford still seems to have not solved this problem on any vehicles.

Faults:

First off this car is salvage from wreckage.

Front end was affected, but only problems with the front end I had was the alignment and steering knuckles.

Water Pump 130,000 miles.

Catalytic Converter 125,000 miles (just removed).

Oil leak throughout, better in winter. Tried to replace the valve cover gasket since that is where the leak was, didn't work, one of the previous owners attempted to use silcone around the screws.

Starter 3 times about every 7,000 miles, most likely due to oil leaking down into the starter.

Distributor Cap and points 125,000.

Spark Plugs every 7,000 miles, they can be cleaned a couple times before replacing they foul fairly quickly.

Rear driver side window motor went out 121,000.

Starter Solenoid at 130,000 miles.

Entire exhaust system from the hook up to the Catalytic Converter back.

Automatic seat belts never worked.

Water pump at 134,000 miles.

General Comments:

Been a great car overall. Multiple repairs, but overall the cost of parts has only been about $1,500 US dollars. For 3 years of running that is pretty cheap.

Got the car for $400 dollars from an individual.

Be sure to get a starter with a lifetime warranty. It is the part I have had the most problems with.

Good acceleration,great mileage, still getting about 35 miles per gallon highway and about 29 in town.

Comfortable car, doesn't feel like you are boxed in.