1995 Ford Windstar GL review from North America

Within a month of the 30,000 mile warranty expiring, the transmission had to be replaced.

The head gaskets went.

The power windows would randomly stop working for months at a time before working again.

On a cross-country trip between the Midwest and the West Coast, the cruise control stopped working. Then the overdrive light began flashing before randomly and without warning switching gears (i.e. we'd be going 70 on the highway and suddenly find ourselves going 40). A call to our mechanic suggested disconnecting and reconnecting the computer (as this was a computer glitch caused by the higher altitude of the Rockies). We did this all through Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California, averaging 40 mph and stopping every hour to reset the computer (which took ten to fifteen minutes itself). Nevada is pretty in the summer, but for a couple of hours, not for three days each way.

Problem seemed to be fixed, but started happening again recently; transmission is done for for the second time, and we must junk the car because it's not worth it to get it fixed.

Air conditioning stopped working (didn't work well to begin with).

Noisy engine made it hard to communicate between front seats and rear seats (though perhaps parents would find this a plus).

Numerous other little things (stiff steering, strange noises, weird vibrations at stops) have gone wrong and required fixing -- human memory is finite, though, unlike the Windstar's problems.

Ford has been very delinquent in acknowledging and fixing known problems with the car.

When we took the car in to the dealership for head gasket problems at 99,000 miles, they didn't tell us about the recall, and said it was okay. We drove it some more, but the problems didn't improve, so we took it in again. We were now over 100,000 miles, so under the recall we were no longer covered by the warranty. They refused to fix it until we threatened legal action and began looking for a lawyer.

I'm trying to think of something good about the car... the fuel economy was bad, the seats were about average or below for comfort, the back seat had no leg room, the tint on the windows peeled off, the sliding door was extremely hard to get closed... but the color was pretty!