Well it looks like it’s time for my wife and I to look for a new car. It’s not like our car’s broken down or anything like that, it’s just that our Ford Contour is 11 years old and we think it’s time to trade it in while it’s still in good shape and running well.

We haven’t had our Ford since ’96, no, we bought it used in the year 2000 I believe. Prior to that we’d had two hand me down cars that my parents had been kind enough to give to us when we needed a car so our Contour was the first car that either of us had ever owned.

Our Used Ford is a four cylinder. We’re mostly city drivers – occasionally driving a few hours out of town here and there, but the majority of our driving is short trips within the city so we didn’t need to purchase a car with a powerful engine. Believe me, 4 cylinders is enough and we get great gas millage too.

My wife really didn’t like the other two cars we had. The first car was an old Buick and it had very loose power steering among a number of other problems so she didn’t drive it much. The second car was a Prelude and while we both enjoyed that car ours was a standard and she had never drove a standard before and uh I was pretty lazy about getting around to teaching her so she never did drive that car. Believe me, she never let me forget that!

So our Contour, which we’d purchased at one of the local Ford Dealers from a friend who works there as one of the top salesmen, is an automatic. The wife was adamant that we had to buy a car that she felt comfortable driving. The car actually handles really well. The steering is tight, but smooth.

We’ve never had any major problems with this car either. No engine trouble, no electrical problems – nothing big. Just a few small problems.

For example, we just had part of the manifold replaced. We had a hole in the manifold for oh about a year. Man we had a noisy muffler as a result. Unfortunately we were originally told that to repair the hole in the manifold that they’d have to replace the whole thing and it was going to cost about $1200 – money we didn’t have at the time. Finally, about a month ago when our muffler was making a deafening sound we folded and I took it in to be repaired and the mechanic discovered that the hole could be replaced with a small replacement part. It was still expensive to have the work done, but only about a third of the price we’d originally been quoted.

Other minor problems we’ve had with Ford Contour were a problem with the ball bearings in the wheel freezing up on us when we were on a road trip, and the mechanism inside the door that holds the passenger side window in place broke a couple of years ago resulting in a window that wouldn’t go up anymore. We had both problems fixed quickly and easily.

Considering we’ve had our 11 year old car for seven years we’ve had very few problems. I’ve been really happy with the car. Did I mention that it doesn’t even have any rust on it even though it’s a 100% outdoor car even during our cold winter months? Both of our other Used Cars had quite a bit of rust so I’m really surprised that this one doesn’t have any.

We’ll start looking for a replacement car soon. I think we’ll try to get through the winter with the Ford and then start looking for a new or another used car in the Spring. Since we’ve had a good experience with the Contour we might end up getting another Ford. I guess it will depend on pricing and whichever car we like best when we are shopping for another car.

Anyone else drive a Ford Contour? If you do have you had a good experience with yours?