It's easy to put off PREVENTATIVE maintenance and then worry when something quits.
I'm not picking on you RawBurt, but I'm always amazed at how people can be so amazed that things like suspension and O2's need replacing, especially on older/higher mileage vehicles! A vehicle that sees lots of miles and lots of different seasons is going to wear a bit. All parts will have a 'lifetime' be it age or miles which can be used to guestimate. As a car creeps closer to the 10 year and/or 100k mile mark it's time to get more aggressive with maintenance. Bushings are my favourite place to start, religiously replacing any of them if I get a chance. Also O2's ... if a Duratec has 4 of them ... and one goes, expect the other three to quit sometime soon too. From experience when I had an O2 quit on me, I made sure I had enough cash to replace the rest if I needed to. I'll be buying a couple of control arms soon too ... once the vehicle age hits 8 years we all know that parts can become harder to find, consider that for a limited run vehicle like the Contour.
If it helps ... which it probably doesn't ... I find the 100k mark reflects on the maintenance already done. I'm quite a way of 100k at the moment on this Contour, but I won't be expecting her to fall apart on me.
