Sweet Sixteen

Happy Birthday to my beloved 1993 Ford Taurus GL! She rolled off the Ford assembly line in Chicago in September 1992.



That's 3.8 liters of piston-packing fury! I bought her used around 1996 from Hauser Ford in Minneapolis. Originally a leased fleet vehicle somewhere in South Dakota, I got her for about $7000 including taxes and fees.

Now at 90,000 miles, she's got some minor squeaks and squeals, but she's still going strong. I hope she holds up for a few more years. Roomy and comfortable, I'm not sure how I would replace her.

People seem to have this "thing" about American cars, but I have no complaints. There have been some repairs, but over all I've been very happy with my Ford and would consider buying another. That's assuming Ford is still around then.

Besides, people are yakking it up about "plug in cars" these days. My car has a plug in. So do lots of cars in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and other places where it gets really cold in the winter. What's the big deal?

Ann says: I know one problem with Ford products these days, though it might be industry-wide for all I know: they now use plastic parts in their transmissions. We had a (Ford) Volvo station wagon with terminal transmission problems. The dealer worked very hard to ignore the underlying patheticness of the thing until it was out of warranty. We ditched it about 2 years back for a (Ford) Land Rover LR3. This time, we knew better and only leased it. We figured by the time the transmission went bad, it would be someone else's problem.

Now we have a Honda CRV that we love. Very well-designed interior (the only car I've ever seen with a place to put your purse!) and a dream to drive.

My old 1999.5 (yes, according to the sticker it's from model year 1999.5) Jetta is still driving very well and has less than 60K on it. These days, it pretty much stays in the driveway, since I take my scooter to work (it's still cool 3 weeks later :) ).

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