Mercury Cougar experience? Found a nice beater...

[Ifixyawata]

On those and earlier vintages of the ford 3.8 the head gasket should be considered a wear item as you would a timing belt on other engines.

That aside, it's a very clean car for $1500 and quite possibly the most desirable year, at least depending on who you talk to. It's the newest year of the 'MN-12' that wasn't the last year, when, I've read, they started to cheap out as the parts bins ran low.

I looked and looked for a decent '96-ish T-Bird down south before I got this Focus. You'd be surprised how many V8, Leather, Sunroof cars I found when I wasn't looking for around the $2k mark.

 

[punisher]

Originally Posted By: sciphi
Originally Posted By: SatinSilver


IIRC the Probe was Mazda-based. The later Cougar was based on the European Mondeo that we had here as the Contour, IIRC.


Yeah, worked on many of those. The 4 cyl version of the Mondeo/Contour based Cougar sold so badly it was pulled, and made into a fleet only vehicle.

3.8s eat head gaskets, and leak oil. Nature of the beast. Aftermarket gaskets fixed the problem first, FoMoCo eventually caught up with revised head gaskets. Wouldn't be my first choice of transportation, but if its cheap, it might be worth a shot. They are easy to work on for the most part.

 

[javacontour]

Originally Posted By: punisher

Yeah, worked on many of those. The 4 cyl version of the Mondeo/Contour based Cougar sold so badly it was pulled, and made into a fleet only vehicle.

3.8s eat head gaskets, and leak oil. Nature of the beast. Aftermarket gaskets fixed the problem first, FoMoCo eventually caught up with revised head gaskets. Wouldn't be my first choice of transportation, but if its cheap, it might be worth a shot. They are easy to work on for the most part.


Probably not America's cup of tea, as the Mondeo seems to be a good seller in Europe.

The CDW27 platform (Mondeo, Contour, Mystique and I guess to some extent the New Cougar) came out about the time Ford was pushing for the top selling sedan, going head to head with the Camry.

Ford put enough money on the hood of the Taurus that it often didn't make sense for a consumer to buy a Contour/Mystique when they could get a Taurus for the same, or maybe even less money.

If you liked a nimble, European inspired car available with a manual transaxle you probably preferred the Contour and it's brethren. That was about 12 people in the US, so the rest bought the Taurus.

 

[JustinH]

I owned 4 or 5 of this type of Thunderbird/Cougar.

The 96 cougar with the 4.6L is a decent car, but it is 20+ year old car.

Common problems with that would be cracks in the plastic intake manifold. Heater cores leaking. Transmission requires fresh cool fluid or it will die, torque converter also.

They are a somewhat fun car to drive in stock form. My last 96 Thunderbird had a mustang bullitt engine and vortech supercharger and made nearly 375 horsepower so that is a little different.

Some of the suspension parts are going to be hard to find, and I had to rebuild suspensions on every one of these things I owned. Factory IRS rear suspension is pretty neat, good riding car.

 

[SatinSilver]

I remember test driving a Honda S2000 and a girl in a Cougar hatchback beat me off the line and in the dust. It put a damper on the test drive.

 

[SSGSTbirdtoyman]

After I gave my 95 T bird V8 to my sister with about 90K on it the head gasket went out. It had a new tranny at around 70K and also new ball joints and other front end parts was always maintained well suffered from heater core leaks and had to change coolant each year to prevent this. Thought it would last for a little longer for my sister.

Then just a few months ago I inherited a 96 Cougar V8 from a cousin with 80K on it original owner and well maintained it had a rebuilt tranny installed at around 70K along with brakes and a few other items anyway it was free and my daughter seemed to take a liking to it so I had it inspected and then "fixed". It needed all new front end parts, a new power steering pump, spark plugs, shocks had new brake hoses it it just because of age. It ended up costing me about $2800 now my daughter seems to like our Buick better so I have been driving it to work. Just hope the tranny holds up and the "plastic" intake manifold does not crack. and hope it will at least last to 100K.

My 2004 Grand Marquis was not so lucky and died at around 95K after two transmissions and over 11K in (covered) repairs over less than a year I had it. It was my dads which he bought new.

must be my bad luck with these cars?

good luck

 

[JustinH]

Well it is a 20+ year old car. Not something you want to drive daily. Something to tinker with and drive on nice days. At least thats how mine were.

The thing with the heater core, is you need to ground the core to the frame. Otherwise the electrolysis eats the core. Also there is a way to test for current in the coolant but I didn't get that far.

I had a grand marquis and found it boring and poor on fuel economy.

 

[HM12460]

I had a '97 Cougar just like the one shown with the 4.6, really liked the car. Never had any trouble with it. 116,000 on it when I sold it.

 

[Whimsey]

Originally Posted By: javacontour

If you liked a nimble, European inspired car available with a manual transaxle you probably preferred the Contour and it's brethren. That was about 12 people in the US, so the rest bought the Taurus.


Well I guess I must be of those 12 people in the US

. I ordered my 1996 Contour 4 cylinder Zetec, 5 speed manual with the 205 60 15 size tires and factory optional aluminum wheels in Sept 1995. It's been a great cheap, reliable, fun car. I garage it for our NJ winters so it's rust free. The paint waxes up great and the interior has almost no wear for it's 108,000 miles. As I've said before, it's my "poor mans" BMW

.

Whimsey

 

[Jarlaxle]

The Contours were great...if you're built like a jockey. I could barely even squeeze into one.