Thanks for the input everyone.
Should I get it checked out by a dealer before I buy, in addition to having it certified? (Although after having been a member of this board for a while I don't know if I'd trust the dealer's diagnosis for much anyways.)
Originally posted by lauraq:
The pictures look bad but it doesnt look like it is bent they are righting it off? When Alex wrote his off you could definately see the twist in the frame.
Here's another pic. The rocker panel and centre post was bent. I thought that meant the frame was bent but the collision guy said that that was actually fixable; they'd just cut that section out of another contour and weld it into place. He said the real problem was the bumpers; Ford wanted $1700 for the rear and $1000 for the front.
Originally posted by mbb41:
However make sure it is a Sticky or broken IMRC vs failing precats or Main cat.
How could I do that? Is there some way other than ripping them open to check? If it was failing precats or main cat, shouldn't I still feel a change when the secondaries open? I guess the REAL worst-case scenario would be that the butterfly ports for the secondaries AND the pre-cats are going...
I guess I'd just like to apologize to all SVT owners (and regular Contour owners) who may find their insurance going up because the stats on the Contour just got worse... 
