I've had a '98 Mystique 4 cyl automatic for almost 7 months now. I have been quite surprised by the car,and quite like it,but there are of course some problems that go along with it...
First of all,I guess they have a small gas tank. Must be about 45-50 litres. I'm lucky if I can ever see 400km to a tank of gas. I generally fill up at 1/4 tank as I don't like to run it below that due to the known fuel pump problem they have,but I regularly see myself filling up after driving 280-300km. This is with a 1 year old engine in the car too,with not even 105 000km on it.
The lack of power the 4 cylinder has. You have to thrash it just to keep up with traffic,and you can't even chirp the tires off the line. It's sluggish going up hills,and the automatic tranny just sucks. This is the first automatic I've ever owned,as I've owned a '79 Austin Mini,two '87 Celica GTS's and an '87 RX7 Turbo and an '88 non turbo RX7,all with sticks. It doesn't shift when you want it to,and I find myself always wanting to select the right gear as it never seems to be in the right gear. Dodge Caravans blow me away at stop lights and the only vehicles I've ever beaten from a light were a rusty old diesel VW Golf and a late '80's Cavalier sedan that was all beat up.
Rear seat room is tight,and I find after swapping my manual cloth seats for a power leather seats,the front seats do not slide back as far as the manual seats did.
It does not like to start if it is colder than -20c. It needs to be boosted.
Those are about the only problems I've had with the car. Otherwise I like it for it's comfortable ride,especially since I put leather seats in it. It drives really well,has very good handling for a car of it's size,and is a very nice looking car too. I actually prefer the style of the Mystique over the Contour,except the SVT. I guess I can't really complain about the car anyways since I only paid $1000 for it and it's the second nicest car I've ever owned.
