1999 Mercury Cougar review from North America

When I first got the car, I brought it into my mechanic for an oil change, and he looked at it and told me that I needed to replace my belt tensioner ($130).

When I bought the car, I knew I was going to have to put new tires on, but had no idea they would be as expensive as they were. For a fairly low end set of tires, I paid $270 for only 2 front tires, I'm dreading the next 2 come winter.

I've noticed that when I accelerate hard to pass someone, my battery light turns on and I'm a little concerned about that, but right now I have other issues.

At 100950 my transmission went. I soon found out from about three different transmission shops that the transmissions on Cougars were just bad and they see tons of them each year. Couldn't afford to put a new one in, so I had to get mine rebuilt. $2,030.00 later I've got a car that runs, but is bound to have more problems.

The handling on this car is AMAZING for lack of a better word. I live in a back-road windy area and have yet to find a car that can beat me through a fairly bendy 5 mile stretch of road, and I mean I've raced some fast cars (1999 Ford Mustang, 2000 Monte Carlo, and the one I'm most impressed about was a 2003 Monte Carlo SS). None of those are slow cars, and I had them all by hundreds of feet. There just isn't a car out there that the average person can afford, that can handle half as well as the Cougar. Cudos to Mercury for that one.

After reading all these reviews, I wish I would have seen them sooner before I bought my car, but what can I do, I can't afford to buy a new car, so I'm stuck praying my Cougar is the strongest in the pack.