1988 Mercury Topaz review from North America

The clutch needed to be replaced. It had lasted about fifteen years (to my knowledge) so I must say it had lived out a long life. I had it replaced for $200, but the mechanic used a "re-manufactured" clutch for nintey dollars. Six months later, I had to buy yet another one. I bought a brand new clutch myself for a hundred dollars, and it's still working fine without a problem.

The speedometer doesn't work, and so the odometer had stopped at over 185,000 miles since before the previous owner had bought it. I'd had it for two years, driving it often close to a hundred miles a day for the past two years. Did I mention that I'd only paid three-hundred dollars for it?

Back to the speedometer... the speedometer gets its reading from a plastic gear inside the transmission. This essential gear only costs a few dollars, but because it is plastic, it has seemingly melted and glued itself into the transmission housing. A mechanic struggling with a pair of vise-grips couldn't get it out, so I'm forced to choose between speeding tickets and roughly a half-thousand dollars to take out my transmission, take it apart, and dislodge the remnants of the old speed driven gear.

The front right tie-rod broke. I didn't see that one coming. It didn't cost much to fix (under $200) but it's not the type of problem you can try to make it home with. The two front wheels were facing different directions.

I had to buy a new alternator. After the core rebate it was only about seventy dollars, and it doesn't take long at all to put in; it's very easily accessible.

Last summer it had been overheating. after about ten minutes, a local mechanic had it figured out (one of the heater hoses leading into the firewall). For thirty dollars and five minutes of his time, he had it fixed.

Valve cover gasket leaked. Not just a little; I was putting in a quart of oil per week. A few words of advice, make sure they give you the right gasket when you go buy it. Even then, it was leaking after another few months. I had to go to a junkyard to get a new valve cover, because the one I had wasn't flat anymore. The surfaces weren't mating up properly, and hence the leaks. I cleaned the engine, and hadn't noticed any oil smears since.

I, too had been bothered by the schizophrenic behavior of the automatic shoulder belt. Looking back on it, thinking of the potential repair costs, I regret it, but I had ended the problem forever. Come to find out, electric seatbelts and brake parts cleaner don't make good friends. I took the giant Torx bolt out of that arm that rides forward and backward on the tracks. Now that slow-responsive electronic whirr is nowhere to be heard, and the belt doesn't try to move when I go to open my door for a second, and now I get hassled about seatbelts on a regular basis.

I've seen better dashboards in a junkyard. (really) Something about cheap vinyl and parking outside in the summer in the Southeast that seems to create cracks and fading.

The car cut off on interstate off-ramps. It got to the point where I'd made it a habit to revv the engine a little every time I pushed down on the clutch. I kept the throttle position sensor plugged into the throttle body while I did this, but here's the trick. Detach the throttle body from everything else. See that black grime? Now, with a lot of rags, patience and love and solvent (throttle body cleaner, engine degreaser, or even oven cleaner if it suits you) clean the inside of the throttle body out so that those holes on the butterfly valve (and anything else you can reach) are nice and clean. (For less than a hundred dollars, a three inch cold air intake and a K&N air filter work out very nicely sitting on that front left engine mount; and my car has not even thought about idling funny or dying out ever since =)

One night the car wouldn't start. Jump-start, push-start, new battery, new starter. Still nothing. I tried pulling out the air filter (the old square Fram inside the air cleaner housing) and pouring a moderate amount of gasoline on it. (don't try this at home) But you can imagine, the car fired right up, and even ran for a half of a minute!! Ford had paid someone to think up a great idea. And this someone was obviously being paid a lot of money, because it seems like a lot of people liked the idea. There's a fuel cut-off switch in the trunk. If the car gets jarred funny, or a squirrel sneezes, apparantly the fuel line is shut off. So the car will not get a drop of gasoline, and will not run until you find this switch in the left side of the trunk and reset it.

Rubber belts: The people at a local auto parts dealership told me to buy a certain type of v belt for my alternator. (either cogged, or not cogged, I don't remember; it's been so long since I bought one) This information is fine when you replace the belt. But a few days later, the whole car loses power because there's no belt there anymore. You might be stranded unless you think ahead an rig a belt from nylon pantyhose (or carry a spare belt if you think ahead). In any case, you need a jump-start, and a new belt. And you might take a few weeks of this before you get fed up and find the right kind of belt and buy it (and another one to throw in the trunk for that rainy day) Lesson learned: even people who read numbers of off computer screens can be misinformed from time to time.

Overall, I bought the car for $300 dollars, have made numerous repairs. (Battery, starter, 2 clutches, about a dozen tires, one alternator, a few feul filters because they're SO easy to change) But the car has lasted. I estimate the engine to be over 300,000 miles old, and it starts the first time, doesn't misfire, doesn't blow smoke out of the tailpipe, and it still darts its way through afternoon traffic, and it still earns over ten traffic tickets in two months.

It's ugly, it sits in the yard because it helped me lose my driver's license; but I love that nasty machine.