Hard-core CEG'er
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 3,264 |
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Hmm. That's the first time I heard about the Contour not being big enough to have good resale value. It's considerably bigger than a Civic or a Corolla, and those cars have good resale value. I don't understand your reasoning here.
Contour is in the mid-size class along with (at the time) the Accord, Stratus, etc... Here's something to consider, the Focus is in the compact class. The Focus has more rear seat room and alot more front seat room. Sit in your Contour, then sit in a Stratus from the same era... hell sit in a Neon from that era, the Contour has a tight interior. People that were shopping for a family car (that is what the Contour is) were skipping the Contour because for the same price as a mildly loaded Contour, you could get a Taurus which had more room. You think someone looking for a family hauler cared about the Contour's awesome handling? NO, they wanted to put baby seats and kids in it.
As for your statement about the Contour recalls affecting its value, I don't agree with your premise at all. Do you really think Contours have a general reputation for being unreliable? If so, you'll have to share with us where you got that information.
Show me a Contour that isn't running a CEL and I'll show you how to hook the battery back up. It had how many recalls in it's model run? Even people that knew nothing about cars heard sbout them. It's not just Contours that have the reputation for being unreliable, it's pretty much all domestic cars. Hell I almost skipped buying my 96 V6 MTX because of the horrible list of problems I found just by opening a couple rags. I ended up with the car because I got it for 1/3 of it's original price after 3 years and it was fun to drive. My Contour was a POS though. The power steering pump went, the transmission had problems, and the secondaries on the duratec never opened consistently. I'm big into car audio, and have to say the way the interior is put together is pretty lame. I could see where all the rattles came from. To keep the Contour profitable, they had to decontent the car.
Now look at the Focus, it had just as many recalls. You're insane if you don't think that had an impact on that car. It hurt Ford big time because the steps needed to correct the problems were not cheap. The Focus sales dropped, and despite being touted as the best car in it's class, and making C/Ds top ten so many times, it still has crappy resale value just like the Contour did.
The resale on domestics is generally as low as it is because "you are buying someone elses problems"
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And anyway, do you really think the buying public would de-value Contours much just because of a few relatively easy fixes, especially ones done for free by a dealer under a recall?
Do you like having to take your car into the dealer? Maybe. Do you think some single mom with 3 kids and a job wants to juggle her schedule to make time to get this "free work" done? How about some guy driving down the highway in the winter and his plastic water pump goes. Whee! Do you like spending as much as a car costs and then have anything go wrong? I sure as hell don't.
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As for your comment about "a few people on an Internet forum", see my preceding post to Antonio.
Look at it this way. How many new users are looking for feedback before buying? Not too many. Most the people here already own Contours and found the site. I owned my 96 for over a year before I found the CEG. I wouldn't have stuck around except that the audio section of this Forum was, at the time, the best one I'd been to. Alot of these new members are trolls, alot are people who own the cars looking for info on how to fix them, etc...
I agree with everything Antonio said. In the grand scheme of things, CEG has no effect on the car's reputation. It's always going to be a Ford, and it's never going to be remembered as anything other than Tempo 2.
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