Airbag lock switch- replaced five times while I had the car.
Replaced brake rotors.
Replaced alternator twice.
Car required new battery every summer.
Replaced front passenger window switch three times.
Replaced original stereo, which died.
Interior began to disintgrate.
Dealership incorrectly attached the steering wheel after a repair visit.
This car is absolute garbage, and the dealerships were a nightmare to deal with.
The most consistent and egregious problem had to deal with the driver's side airbag. The airbag light would flash on the dashboard periodically. Every time I took the car in, it had the same diagnostic error: "airbag lock switch has failed." I got various explanations from the dealership as to what this part was, but every time, the only way to fix it was to replace the entire airbag module. This always bumped just around $850 each time I had it fixed. The fixes never lasted long. One time, I had taken my car in to get the airbag replaced, and two days later when I went to go pick-up my car, the airbag light was still flashing!
The first time the alternator blew on my car, it left me stranded 8 miles away from the closest town in a December rainstorm.
The second time the alternator gave out was in the summer, and the battery vomited its contents all over the engine bay.
The dealerships were always jerks to deal with. They always kept the car a lot longer than they said they would, they never returned phone calls, and they were quick to become argumentative.
Overall, I think that Ford executives have to be pretty cynical to release such an intrinsicly botched car onto the market.
I Believe you either abused or purchased an abused Contour, I have a '95 Contour that I bought in October '03 and haven't had any major problems except for the fact that I should have bought one with a 5-speed (0-60 in 8.1 sec.) I understand how upset you are about all the money you dumped into it, but when it comes to value, it would be hard to find a better car for the money.
I gave the car all of its regularly scheduled maintenance. I tend to put high mileage on my cars, but it is mostly highway mileage. As it is the car had less than 90,000 on the odometer when I traded it in. I drove the car from July of 1997 until October of 2001. Let's see how much praise you heap on the car after four years of ownership.
I made a major mistake of not reading reviews about ford contours before purchasing it. I have a thick file on my ford contour now. I feel sorry for people who have bought this car. Would not recommend this car at all.
Too bad about your experiences with the Contour. I owned one for 6 years and about 145000 miles, with only a fan-belt and front rotors replaced. The engine ran flawlessly the whole time I owned it. The ONLY reason I don't have it anymore is that I totalled it hitting a SUV at about 60mph. Not good on front ends :|
The contour is a piece of crap, I made a mistake in owning one (i nicknamed it the "detour") and thanks to FORD I will never buy American cars again (i have since owned a Camry, BMW 3-series, Scion tC, and now I currently own a black G35 coupe and love it). Those people at Ford are the rudest people I ever dealt with. On a side note, take this car to a transmission shop and you will see how much hate this car and the mercury mystake.
Note: A Comments RSS Feed 
is available. New comments appear in the Members Area before the main site