I swear to god this is the last straw
i baught a 95 contour GL which was supposedly babied at 75K miles, by an elderly couple who only traveled to the jersey shore and back on the highway...
ever since i gotten the car i spent a fortune...
1rst week: car shuts down, smoke rising from engine
2ndt week: tires blow
few weeks later: alignment is off
month later: car smells like a stink bomb, idle is too high, and it cant gear properly
total spent so far? 900$ (just repairs)
and i just got it back from the shop...and my gas pedal is sticking...OMFG just 10 minutes ago...
WTF?!!?!?!?! i swear to god im ripping out my hair at this point...all my money is gone...not enuf for gas even....
there there...there there...
lil
{color:"blue"]I feel for you man I feel for you I have been there and done that... Dont really know what to tell you though... I hope things get better for you
Caveat Emptor
Don't lose what you have in it by doing something stupid.
What exactly was the first problem? What burnt up?
What did you pay for it? Is it a Duratec?
the first problem was the water pump, it was broken in half which lead to overheating which lead to major malfunction, and i didnt stop because i was late to an important Magazine Design meeting...
i just highly feel i got cheated out of this... the repair today was for the IAC system... i realized that this had gone fauly because my idle was too high...well SOMEHOW my bill became 320$ for today alone... god knows what he did...i dont see a difference....apparently he did...
only differencei see is, my gas pedal is sticking and it nearly got me in an accident at the crosssection 100ft away from the repair shop and my work place....
**EDIT**
It's an automatic 2.5l Duratech Engine
I have always bought used cars with problems, and fixed them up. Buy you have to know what you are getting into. You also have to learn to do the work. The IAC should not have cost anywhere near that much, and you have to determine if the gas really got stuck, or if it surged, or if it's throttle hang. When you buy a cream-puff and then drive it hard, it will always break something.
You also need to determine how bad you hurt the engine by overheating it. Severe overheating can substantialy shorten the life of the engine. If that is the case, it is not worth it to keep spending money on every problem.
If I have a lemon case, I get annother car to use until I can fix the first. If you continue to drive it with problems it may die totally and then you lose everything you have spent on it.
Many of the problems take more time than money if you work on them yourself. Your decision.
that sux bro, sorry to hear the bad news. hope ya figure out whats wrong w/ it.
Well, i would repair if i could and if i had time...
full time student and full time employee...
i also dont have the luxury of selling and buying rite now...i just moved out, parents moved to Dennmark and.... well yeah...u can prolly see why im stressed at this car....
i baught it because i thought i could avoid this problem for a little bit...
Well, you know what they say: Life's a [censored], and then you die!
Originally posted by Rogerm60:
Well, you know what they say: Life's a [censored], and then you die!
I thought it was Life's a duratech , and then you die 
It is too bad you got stuck with a 2.5 
Trade the car in for a zetec 2.0 contour and all will be fine . 
My zetec has 119,500 miles and is all original .
I guess buying all the mods for my car makes this seem not too bad as i used the cash on aesthetics and not repair...
but im working for just this purpose, to have a decent car (and pay the rent) i REALLY didn't think i would have these many problems so soon....ive seen 95 contours with double the mileage i have...same engine and going strong STOCK...hell i have a new waterpump now, soon to be a new o2 sensor at the other system i cant remember the name...
along with various transmission fixes....
I would call the sellers and talk to them about the problems. If that doesn't help, just keep drinking and everything 'll be all right
i didn't read all of the posts, i will go back and read it later...in the meantime u mentioned sticking throttle...that is prolly because your t/b and cable is prolly dirty and gunked up...i also had a (slightly) sticking throttle...after a long freeway ride when i'd stop on the offramp at the light the throttle would stick a bit before going down enough to move the car
when i cleaned the throttle body and egr ports i also sprayed the intake cleaner (b12chemtool) on the throttle cable and worked it back and forth a few times and on the spring on the t/b...haven't had sticking problems since
yeah but why is this happening AFTER the shop? it was PERFECT b4 it went in....i swear it came out worse than what it went in as
okay now i've read the entire post and my next advice for u is the forget about wasting the money on that bady kit and sell off those wheels...i dont see a reason for hooking up a car u're ready to destroy litterally or figuratively..save yourself that big hunk of change for repairs
get some tools if u dont have them already, im sure your car prolly needs the cleaning i mentioned previously and that'll cost u roughly 20 bucks maybe...a couple of wrenches to fit the bolts on the t/b setup and a screwdriver and a small set of picks that u can get at lowes or walmart that will reach into the egr ports and help remove the carbon build up in there...with the miles u have the duratec gunks up pretty bad, im surprised u dont have a cel if u dont...a small can of the intake cleaner i mentioned about cost me $3-something...that will take care of the sticking throttle as i mentioned before and serve as maintainance for the t/b and egr ports
i dont think the atx suffers the throttle hang problem mentioned by the other poster, its caused by the dirt build up most likely
and as far as the creampuff going down hill post...that is correct also, from my experience...i bought a 91 passat back in 95 that had been driven alot 76K miles, but was driven nicely by original owner...when i bought it it was like new, no squeaks, rattles, etc...a few months of me dogging it and there was all kinds of squeaky noises from underhood and the car went downhill quickly finally dying of broken timing belt causing much damage to the valves to the tune of 2700 dollar quote for repairs...
not sure but maybe they removed the throttle cable to change the iac and didnt get it back on right???
one way or another im gonna make this car WORK...
i cleaned up the gunk and [censored] already, the high RPM's have been fixed, the CAT is ok, the o2 sensor however will prolly need replacing within two thousand miles (my florida trip car trip)
the car is back in the shop (FREE OF CHARGE) to fix the hang up... hopefuly this will be cleared tomorrow...im not as angry as i was earlier...
TOUCHDOWN!!! haha i love that commercial
ehh... I could relate. got my 95 lx tour 2.5 atx for 800 dollars. 90k miles. reason for bein so cheap? body needed fixin (it was hit in the front left fender, and scratches just about everywhere). well turns out there were more reasons the guy wanted to sell. transmission box was cracked and transmission mounts let go as well. cost me 400 dollars to weld and place a new mount. also there was a short circuit under the fuse box where supposedly ford issued that recall. i went in for the recall and im about to take the bill that the electrician gave me a few months ago for 200 bucks to ford and b*tch. the upper control arms bushings are... well, nonexistent. but that is not on my priority list right now. now im saving up to fix the heater :) again.
dont get me wrong - i love the tour. i drove a few other cars and none handles like this one (when i get into my dad's town car i want to vomit). hehe. my next car, hopefully, will be an svt mtx, if i can find one cheap somewhere. id rather buy it slightly damaged and do some work on it. me bein a full time student about to take 20 credits, dont have time to work, im always lookin to save money everywhere. :(
I feel for you man, except my expenses came in this order. Loss of power steering fluid= new rack and pinion= $600, get car back, have had bad rod for a about a year, just waiting for enough money for 3.0. Two days later, the car is knocking like a son of a biatch. Now the car has been in the shop for over a month, and I should be getting it back tomorrow or saturday =$3000+. Don't worry it gets worse before it gets better. The worse thing though is that I'm in high school and I've had to drive the mini van for the past month.
Vans may have been cool in the 70's, but now it's a
. Don't worry dude, the contour is a great car, and everything will work out, now the only thing I can say is to make sure you don't run it too hard and keep plenty of oil in her.
oh f*$k me! i forgot to do that too...oil change
lol....
yea oil changes i keep track of. mine is full of synthetic right now. damn man youre in high school? ure one lucky guy to have a car in high school. for me it was the train the entire 4 years. god i hate the train now.
see what pisses me off is that whenever i save enough money to fix the body (not even gonna dream about performance mods yet), something else comes up. meanwhile im drivin around with dents and scratches everywhere. on the bright side, noone wants to steal the tour, and thats important around where i park
oh yea and also it helps me join traffic. noone wants to cut me off once they see the damage
implies that u are not one to bluff when merging
i had the same 'benefit' driving my beat down 78 accord back in the day...i'd put that sucker anywhere and everyone backed off