Does ford really suck that bad?

[Moridin]

I just got rid of a 1970 Ford F100 that was sitting on the side of our house. It only had 70,000 miles on it, but I'm sure with a little WD40 and new spark plugs that thing would have ran like a champ. It ran fine for the years and years my dad drove it around. He loved that thing.

 

Now, as for the other Ford my parent's own, its been a bag of mixed emotions. Its a 2003 Ford Mustang Cobra. The engine has run strong since the beginning (knock on wood). Its now around 27,000 miles with close to 20,000 of those at the 500RWHP mark. That's right around 575 to the crank. My mom drives this car back and forth to work everday with very few issues (at least not anymore - knock on wood).

 

There have been a few problems on the other hand. I was driving it one day to pick my brother and sister up from school when the AC compressor sheared off. I'm guessing the guys that built the motor (hand built) forgot to put 2 more bolts in. This caused the car to lose the water pump, power steering, and power brakes (runs on power steering), because they all use the same inner belt drive system. Weatherstripping on the rear spoiler started to come out. The dealer wanted to get a whole new spoiler, instead of just laying some new double sided 3M stuff down (we talked them out of it). There was a service bulletin put out for a passanger side head replacement, because the heads were casted wrong. It doesn't help that Ford didn't open up the back freeze plug to allow coolant flow out, so the back two cylinders get really hot (we fixed this later by pulling out the plug and rerouting the coolant flow). The seat used to squeek as it rubbed on the door. The subframe connectors fixed that. The windows squeeked relentlessly until I found some dry silicon spray to put on the window and rubber. Now the front brakes and/or suspension are making some funky noises. Not sure what to do about that though.

 

Now, if you really want to buy something with problems. Try any Chrylser minivan. The tranny on our '96 let go 3 times outside of warranty. My friend's parents had a 92 that went through something like 6 trannies before finally working right. My grandparent's owned an old Dodge full sized van that was nothing but problems. As far as our family is concerned, we have all sworn off any Chrysler product until Mercedes quality control does a number with Chrysler.