'98 Contour, 66k miles
I took my car in to the shop to have it looked at. I thought one of the pulleys on the serpentine belt was squawking, but it turned out to be a pulley on the timing belt. It was seized/seizing up. I'm glad the mechanic found it. He was the one who suggested changing the timing belt before we even knew that's where the issue was.
He also discovered, by chance, that the spring on the front passenger side was broken at the base. I had no clue it was broken, but it looked like it had been for some time.
I bought this car new in November 1998 and have been mostly happy with it.
The things that were problems :
1. Remember when Firestone when through 'quality control' issues? Well, my car pulled to the right from the get-go. After a front-end alignment, we finally figured out it was the Firestone tires. I don't know how they were missed (including by myself), but they were bad tires.
2. Fuel pump died at around 30k miles. I was 25 miles from home. That was fun.
3. Dashboard warp. I didn't take advantage of the fix-it program because I didn't have problems at the time. My bad. Pretty expensive fix, too, so it sits warped.
4. Back tires eventually get chewed up because of alignment. The alignment place says it's 'within tolerance' and gave me the printout. Finally gave up on this and live with it.
I'm feeling lucky that the timing belt didn't go.
No car is perfect, so don't take this as grousing. That car and I have been through a lot together, hehe.
