Mangold Ford Mercury in Eureka, Illinois (20 miles east of Peoria) still has the SVT I traded
in last September. The first 5 or so months it sat outside with mud and bird s**t on it (not
the way I treated it, of course!). Now they cleaned it up and stuck it on the showroom floor.
I went in there last night and saw it. Couple sales persons came up to me and told me that
I should consider buying this "hot car." I told them I'm the one who traded it in last year
because I threatened Ford with suit over the build quality of this specialty vehicle. So they
asked me what was wrong with it....told them about the new clutch, flywheel, power antenna,
and the two transmissions (and how the second one needs to be replaced). One of the guys
remarked that he drove it recently and could tell there were problems with the tranny.
I said that anybody with brains will know that the tranny is going again. And I pointed out to
them how the dash was curling up and that there was a recall on it. I asked them why they
would put a car on the showroom floor with a curling dash? They were going to do an OASIS
on it today and get it repaired. Dealers don't always put their best foot forwards.
I talked to the dealer about 6 weeks ago about rebuying the SVT from them. At that point they
wanted me to trade in my 01 Sable and I should pay them $1500 additional to get the old
SVT back. Boy are they nuts. So that car has been sitting 6 months and I know it is costing
them money every month. They have probably lost another 1500 to 2K while it was sitting there.
And they are still asking 17000 for it. Nuts!
This SVT is red/tan, all options except spoiler, and 19,000 miles, in case anybody is interested.
