Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General I give up

That's it. I officially hate my car. I bought my '95 Duratec in May for $1600. To date,I have almost $9000 in repairs and mods (mostly repairs) into it. The starter is getting replaced next week. $255 + labour. That's gonna hurt. Alternator will ne the next big thing to go,as it's like the last thing left to replace before I've literally replaced every part on the car.

Why? I bought the car with every intention of doing a complete strip down and rebuild. Well,with everything that went wrong with it,I found out what a [censored] the Duratec is to work on. I can't stand working on it. There's no room. Nothing is easy. Every job I've had to do I've run into big problems that have had the car off the road for days at a time. I'm sick of it. I'm literally throwing money into the wind with this car. If I turn around to sell it I'll see what,maybe a thousand bucks for it. MAYBE. 293 000km,crappy paint,mismatched trunk,no fuel door. The car looks like ass. I decided not to build this car because of how expensive things have been and how hard it is to work on,so I bought the Zetec.

The Zetec is a helluva lot better to work on,but it's pricey too. I've priced out a motor build,with a supercharger,suspension,rims,paint,brakes,interior work,paintwork and bodywork and I'm totalling over $24 000 to make the car the way I want it. NOT WORTH IT. For that kind of money,I can go out right now and finance a brand new Chevy Colorado 4x4. I don't have room for two vehicles,I don't have time or money for two vehicles,and I'm turning 20 in a matter of weeks,and I'm already on my 8th car and the amount of money I've spent on cars in the last 4 cars could have just finished paying off a brand new car by next year. How sad is that? I think it's pitiful.

I'm fed up with buying shitbox cars,throwing money at them and turning around to sell the cars for nothing,or scrapping them. I think it's time I get myself a vehicle less than 5 years old,something new,reliable,practical and most imporantly,with a warranty. I would rather be making payments of $300/mo for a vehicle,rather than have paid $1800 for a car and spend $300 in repairs each month. All the repairs come suddenly and unexpected,that's what kills me,and I never have the money on hand.

With a new car,I know how much I have to pay a month,and I can budget for that,unlike unexpected repairs that seem to pop up with my car every other day.

Don't get me wrong,I love Contours still.....but mine is a piece of crap. I'm on my 3rd Contique right now. I own two of them right now,my Zetec is now for sale,and the Duratec I'm hoping will die very,very soon and give me good reason to buy a new vehicle sooner. I miss my '98 Mystique,but Zetec + ATX just don't mix.

Anyways,I'm done rambling,I'm just annoyed. I think it's the cold weather and the snow making me pissy. Or it could be the fact I went out for lunch at work yesterday,locked my keys in the car at the restaurant and had to walk back to work in the freezing cold,call CAA after work,wait for a tow truck,have the guy break into my car,and then this morning,go out at 5am to leave for work to find my locks frozen and I couldn't get into my car.

I just love Canadian winters.

HOLY [censored]!!! Sorry to hear your misfortune. Dang that is a lot of money to put into a car

Good luck with the zetec. I would of scrapped the v6 a long long time ago.

Yeah,I just bought the Zetec like 3-4 weeks ago. It's in storage because I was gonna start the build in the spring,but I may as well sell it and take the money and put it towards a down payment for a truck. For the time being,due to financial,parking,housing & time restrictions,I don't have the time for a 'fun' car to build. I work 6 days a week,48+ hours a week,live at home,have no garage,have to park on my neighbour's property because we have no room on ours for my car, and at the moment I make $10.50/hr reg. time and $15.75 for overtime. With the way things are right now,I can actually afford payments on a newish vehicle,but I'm hopefully getting hired on full time where I work within a couple months,and then my pay raises to $16.40/hr reg. time to start. Then I'll have some money to play with.

What else do you expect with a car that has almost 300,000km on it?

Our Mystique has 312,000 km on it at the moment, but we've been babied it ever since we got it, and the condiditon it was in when we got it showed that the previous owner did too.

We bought our 'stique with 212,000 km on it and considering its mileage the car has been amazing. In the last 100,000km the only major thing's that needed replace have been the alternator and the waterpump, and the a/c compressor doesn't work anymore. It could up and throw a rod tommorow and I wouldn't be mad at it, it's served us well considering it's mileage.

If your going to buy high mileage cars, you have to be sure it was well taken care of, and be prepared to put money into it.

Hope your job works out, drive gently in the Duratec . Those are usually nice cars, but the doors do like to freeze up Silicone on the gaskets helps, and in the lock too. Or wd40.

geez, so how much of that $9000 was labor costs?

My 95' 95,000 (miles) zetec was on the way to the junker and with a little time and about $1000 it runs flipping sweet...

I'm 16, So I'v hit curbs, spun out, taken out poles (no worry I got the "tripple wax"), mashed the pedal many times, still runs great....

Rear brakes + solinod things
new tires all around
timing belt
radiator flush
plugs + wires
new battery
sanded out all the rust and repainted
painted the inside of the trunk black (something died in there and I could no get the smell out)
oil change every 3,000 (that damn sluge pluged the filters)
now I'm running synthetic
wet sanded the headlights
Replace burnt out lights, and fuses
Installed tachometer
cleaned the MAF
armor-all the whole shot
put in a new dome light (now I get to have a 2 map lights)
lubed up the sticky gas door
new driver side mirror....mine was ripped off (lady in SUV)

and there's more to do

need to put black tape over the CEL
new serp. belt
fuel filter
trans flush
...then maaay be fix the CEL

I had several 'large' problems with my Contour as well ... and much incurred in the way of labor charges too. My biggest issue was the fact that the car would be down for weeks at a time while problems got diagnosed and fixed .. I couldn't deal with that kind of inconsistency. Much as I hated to get rid of what was essentially my first car and certainly the longest driven (from junior year of high school through half my senior year of college) -- as well as it being in relatively good condition when I got rid of it -- I wanted something I could count on and not worry about.