1997 Mercury Mystique LS V-6 Automatic review from North America

A few minor repairs that were covered under either the factory warranty or the Quality Care extended warranty offered by Ford Canada.

No major repair costs - yet.

There have been 4 factory recalls on the model since I have owned this car.

I really love the look of my 1998 Mystique which is black in colour with a grey interior. The car also has the sport package (I am not sure if this was available in the United States or not) which included alloy wheels, fog lights, special floor mats and a rear spoiler.

Since these cars were not that popular (however, they sold much better up here in Canada than in the United States due to the fact we Canadians like smaller cars) and Fords depreciate very fast, I got this car at a great price. In addition, because this car was a Quality Certified used vehicle, I got an extra year of factory warranty direct from Ford.

I do like driving this car a lot, however I do find it rather sluggish with the auto tranny at stop light starts. This is a sweet engine, but is more at home on the highway where the rpm's are higher (at least with the auto-box).

However, what I was not expecting was to be conned by the dealership. When I first saw this car (at night), it was very dirty. I called the dealership to say I was I coming in to look at it again, where I later discovered (after I bougght the car) the dealership not only cleaned the car, but also put some type of protective wax on the roof to cover up the dried up bird doo-doo that had melted through the clearcoat paint. When I washed the car (a few weeks after I had bought the car), that protective wax finish came off where I discovered this giantic problem. After verbally fighting the owner non-stop over the course of a week and a half, the owner finally agreed to repaint the roof. When I went to pick the car up, someone had damaged the passenger door in the dealership's parking lot. I refused delivery until the passenger door was fixed. Any time I took the car to Ford, it came back dirtier (both inside and out) than when I dropped it off.

During the warranty period, a rattle in the passenger door began to occur when the window was down at any level other than right up in the window sealent. The Ford dealer actually told me they could try to fix it, but it wouldn't be worth it because they may end up making the rattle worse.

I have since found a Ford dealership that actually tries to satify me. But I feel the damage has been done at this point.