1985 Ford Tempo L from North America - Comments

Not much just a broken alternator bracket, struts, one CV-joint.

Leaky head gasket(never fixed).

Really this car sucked. But it was the best car I ever had. It would not DIE!!

I think I am the only Tempo owner in this world to have one go over 250,000 miles with the original motor and transmission.

It handled like a water bed. Leaked coolant like a busted one, but never died.

Till someone ran over it with an F-150.

My 1985 Tempo has original motor and everything and it still runs. It has a lot of miles like if you are counting the last digit it has gone 765,432 miles. Now to the person that says her car has gone more than 200,000 miles, I think I beat you by 500,000.

Steven Conner scmerchandise@aol.com

Ya, our 1985 Tempo GL (with the sports package) is still going strong, and it's made it up to about 380 000 Km so far, 16 years later. There's nothing TEMP about this year of Tempo.

There is a TEMP to the 86 Ford Tempo. Temporarily working that is. I hate my life because every morning when I go to school, I pray I make it, that way I can park 3 blocks from the school. That way I don't get made fun of by not only peers; rather, teachers and administrators. Once again, I hate Henry Ford for ever being born.

Pimp out a tempo? Are you on crack. A guy at my school pimped out a tempo, He calls it his TempShow. He gets laughed at more now. Tempos are on of the worst cars cars ever built. The motors may last, but the rest of the cars is ugly and cheaply constructed. A Crown Vic and a tempo are quite different. Give your head a shake buddy.

I wanted you to know that I know exactly what you mean about "Will this car ever die?". My Tempo was an '85, was bought for about $1000 in '92. I think it had about 270,000 miles on it. Believe me I was rough on it. It was like a dream car for 2 years, I never had to fix a thing. By the time things started going wrong, it had two cracks in the head, a blown head gasket, the water pump was shot and naturally it would overheat within half a block. I decided to have the motor overhauled, however, it wasn't because it wasn't running! In fact, the night before I drove it into the garage to be overhauled, I went shopping in a town about thirty miles from where I live! Now that's performance if you ask me!

The only thing I didn't like about that year model was the two door layout. The doors were too heavy, therefore causing them to 'catch' after so long. Eventually that was the reason I sold the car.

The mistake I made was getting rid of that to buy a '92 Taurus!

The only reason why the engines in the 1985 Ford Tempo had minimal problems was because they were built by Mazda. That was the smartest move Ford ever made. I have a 1989 Ford Tempo with 49,570 miles on it and the engine on that is terrible. Why you may ask? Because Ford built the engine. Ford should have continued to let Mazda build the engines for the Tempo. This is why the Ford Tempo from 1986-1994 was so problematic. Ford can't build a good engine to save their life, no offense to the Ford Corporation. I think Ford realized their huge mistake and this is why they let Kia manufacture the engines for the Ford Festiva. I am a big fan of the Ford Tempo line, but facts are facts.