Any car will have things that go wrong with it, it's just a matter of when. To look at the archives and say "These things are terribly unreliable." doesn't make any sense. You are doing a search on a specific topic and you are going to get many responses but to take that one thing and use it for a base of reliablility is just silly. Go to any car forum and you will finds problems with most cars.
I myself own a cougar, and as of now with 80k on it I have had no major problems, I know other owners that have had tons of work done with as little as 45k, and I'm sure there are others still that have had major work done even before that.
I think you just got a really condensed version, go to say a honda or a toyota forum and see what comes up.
Not bashing you just giving my opinion
