1989 Mercury Topaz GS from North America - Comments

The blower motor went out.

I replaced the alternator because it was making funny noises.

Speedometer stopped working.

Motor mounts broke from too many neutral drops.

This has been my best running car yet. No major problems have ever occurred. I've done some cosmetic work on it (I.E. painted valve cover, painted distributor cover, painted spark plug wires,) I put a new exhaust on it which consists of a glass-pack muffler and a tip (to get that loud tuner sound.) Car has decent acceleration, and a top speed of about 115mph. There's no shaking during high speed driving. The seats are VERY comfortable, and I receive compliments on them daily.

Fun car???

The Mercury Topaz (and its awful brother, the Ford Tempo) ranks near the bottom of the Automotive world as one of the very worst vehicles ever.

Whatever the category - engine performance, steering, handling, ride comfort, noise, quality - it represents the darkest ages of Ford Motor and the American car industry.

It always reminds me of third world cars in design, execution and function.

It was Ford US early attempt at compact FWD (second after the horrid original Escort), with no experience or engineering knowhow in FWD, a strangled development budget, and lousy build quality.

Low expectations breed low results.

Thank God we're past that chapter.

Fun to Drive???

A Mercury Topaz???

It's the same thing as saying, that the Geo Metro 1.0 3 Cylinder is a "very fast car"...

What the hell is wrong with you two? The Topaz/Tempo are not perfect cars, but they are so cheap to buy. The smart people buy the topaz or Tempo and the not so smart ones buy Honda Civics and other in-ports that cost a lot more and cost more to repair. Bottom line, if you are looking for a cheap car, buy from the big three (minus Chrysler).

Hello everybody!! I just bought a Mercury Topaz GS, and I love it. It's cheap to run, and gets me where I need to go!

I bought this car last weekend, the guy that sold it to me got the car from his aunt, all it needs is a new front right tire, and I'm buying that sometime this week. All in all, for the price I paid, it's a great car. FORGET THOSE COMPLICATED IMPORTS!!! Love my Topaz. :-)

115mph?... I wouldn't want to be even near it.

I got a Topaz for free 6 mo ago, right in the middle of the Canadian winter. It ain't Honda, but it never failed to serve me, even when I had to start it at -40C. It runs smoothly, accelerates nicely, it is stable at over 120kmh. Discontinued? So what? I creep broke my quarter window, I called the dealer to get it replaced: 350$. Gotten smart, went to a local used car yard, got the window for 9$, took 10 min to replace the broken one.

There were millions of Topazes sold in N America, tones of parts all around...

It is a good, cheap car to go around, lots of parts available -well not if you're too fancy to get your hands dirty to save hundreds of $. if you have lots of money, buy a lexus. if not, don't preach from your hondas cause' you're the one paying hundreds each month...

Cool! I have an '84 Topaz, and I was intending on putting a glass-pack muffler on it. The Topazes and Tempos seem to be sleeper cars. Don't usually look too good (I have seen many rusty Tempos, and Topazes). Sounds like yours is well manicured!

I owned a 1989 Mercury Topaz from 1993 to 1999. During that period of time I spent well over $6000 in repairs! Finally, my mechanic refused to perform any further repairs on the vehicle, telling me it's pointless. All the while Ford kept harping in their TV ads "Quality is job one." A person can only be fooled once. Now Ford is fighting for its financial life. It's very difficult to feel sorry for them.

I have had issues with Contours, but the 1989 Topaz L we owned from 1993 to 2004 was an excellent car. We purchased the car in 93 from a Ford dealer for $4000 with 70,000km.

Of course it was not fast, kinda ugly and whatever, but it was ALWAYS reliable. Car was scrapped around 250K because the salt got the best of it (our fault). But in all those years, the only problem we had was a radiator gone bad (was a recall). Other than that, it was very cheap to get parts for, insurance was ridiculously cheap. The 2.3L engine was not bad on gas at all either. We only ever did routine maintenance, nothing out of the ordinary was ever replaced.