1991 Mercury Tracer review from North America

At just over 100,000 kms, the following things went wrong with the car:

Brakes went.

Rust began to eat the sides, underneath, front, and back of the car.

All shocks and struts gave out.

Wheel bearings broke, as well as the springs; my rear wheel was in danger of falling off.

Drivers' side power window made horrible noise when window was rolled up.

The car smelled as though something was burning EVERY time I drove it.

Muffler went; had to replace it.

Every few months, the car itself would sporadically start to chug, as if it was running out of gas, but it wasn't; this would cause the "Check Engine" light to go on and even caused the car to break down a couple of times; brought it in to various mechanics and was told there was "nothing" wrong with it, however when it did this it would either go no faster than 60km/hr while running at a REALLY high RPM, or else it would stop entirely; also made my engine sound incredibly loud and horribly defective.

I bought this car when it had only 94,000kms on it; thought I was getting a great deal at $3500, however all the parts (which were original parts) began to give out on me at about 100,000kms, about a year/year and a half after I owned it.

It was generally okay as a car for small commutes, but not for long bouts of driving.

At first the car had a lot of pep, but once it reached about 110,000kms that died down quite a bit.

I eventually had to sell this car because 2 different mechanics advised me it would cost more $ to fix all that was wrong with it than I had originally PAID for the car.