1997 Mercury Tracer LS 2.0 from North America

Summary:

Without doubt, the best car I have ever owned or known about... bar none! Please make more like it??

Faults:

Electric windows got quirky, but cured themselves?

Replaced clothes hangers (plastic) once.

Engine light came on, with no problems.

General Comments:

Are you kidding??? 229,000 miles!!! I'd buy another in a heartbeat!

30 mpg up until the engine blew with no warning.

Four kids and "stuff" in the back-great!

NEVER a problem... a few sets of tires.

Replaced timing belt at 50K as per manufacturing recommendation. That's it!

Paint, trim-plastic and otherwise held up fantastically!

Cloth uplholstery always looked good.

Driving vision incredibly good. All around.

No electrical problems-and it's all electric!

Great radio/cassette-wanted CD, but never put one in.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 8th March, 2005

4th May 2005, 16:43

I have a 1999 Mercury Tracer LS. I bought the car in 2002 when it had 42,000 miles on it. It now has 94,000 miles on it, and I can say, 3 years and 52,000 miles later, that it has been the BEST car I have ever owned. The car has given me absolutely no mechanical problems whatsoever. The only thing that has gone wrong with it is that the tape deck quit working about 6 months ago. Other than that, the car has held up wonderfully. If you're looking for a dependable used car that won't break you, a '97 and up Tracer or Escort is the way to go.

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1997 Mercury Tracer LS 2.0 EFI from North America

Summary:

I was extremely happy with it and would recommend this car.

Faults:

The horn malfunctioned and started going off on its own at around 80,000 miles.

The car was taking on water in wet weather from somewhere; it had wet carpet mostly on the front passenger floor.

At about 120,000? miles, the trunk began to need extra effort to make sure it was closed. You'd think it had closed and it would come up again, so you had to put it down harder.

At 175,000 miles, the engine died, long overdue, and all I remember is it was not running on all cylinders and seemed choppy and underpowered. We sold it then to a wrecker and got a newer car. But we were extremely happy with the Tracer and still look back on it fondly.

Once at 110,000 miles or so, the shifter wiring malfunctioned and it was impossible to get it out of Park. This was fixed easily like most problems with this car.

General Comments:

This was an extremely dependable car, and never left us really stranded. It always tried to die at home within easy reach of repair & parts. (How does a car know that?) It was cute, it never leaked oil, the A/C was great, and it had a great turn radius. (I wish I had that turn radius now.)

That car went a long time without its scheduled maintenance; we were not in the financial situation to afford it for a seriously long time. It always seemed to "know" we would do it when we could, and it went a long time without. We drove this car a lot of hard miles, and it came through every time. We were still thankful for this even when we were stuck home and getting rides to auto dealers to try to replace it.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 13th February, 2005

26th Jun 2008, 01:02

Great to hear you loved your Tracer and had excellent service from it. I've had my '97 wagon now for only about 6 months and have put 14k miles on it, currently at 48k miles. It's been a excellent little commuter car for this working college student and I am not embarrassed to tell people I really like it. It's nothing flashy, but I care more about cost of ownership and reliability. My last car was much fancier, but less efficient and very unreliable, so the Tracer has been pleasantly refreshing with very minimal problems, mostly age related. Wish it weren't such an old lady color combo (burgundy with grey), but it's a great car nonetheless and I LOVE the fact that it's the wagon body style. Has come in handy many times already, plus you don't see as many wagons around as the sedans. I hope mine lasts as long as other people's seem to. If it lasts 200k miles without major engine or tranny troubles, I'll be thrilled.

11th Aug 2008, 21:16

I have had my 97 Tracer for afew months. It is a nice car but lately everything small is going wrong... Air bag light blinks ramdonly, horn stopped working, tail lights stay on, A/C doesn't work, e-brake doesn't work. These are all fixable small things other than that it is great it just had a new engine put in purrs like a kitten!

19th Sep 2008, 15:59

My 98 Escort did the horn thing... at 2:15 in the morning. I was quite popular waking up the whole neighborhood. I just pulled the fuse and now only put the fuse back when driving it. These cars last FOREVER!!!