2002 MERCURY Sable

ABSOLUTELY One of the Worst Money Pits EVER!

Comfort Rating: 4 Performance Rating: 3 Interior Rating: 1 Reliability Rating: 1 Safety Rating: 2 Technology Rating: 1 Value Rating: 2

We bought this car used with 40,000 miles on it and drove it (sometimes) for nine years. I kept it simply because I am obviously poor. When I was lucky enough to trade the POS for a Civic (Yay!), I had barely managed put 148,000 miles on it. I drive nightly through five counties to work, about 62 miles or 1.25 hrs. one way. It left me walking three times in that period. Once was a broken throttle cable in the middle of a hot summer day. The next time was an electrical problem killing the lights in the middle of the night. The third and by far the worst was a failure of the computer that kills the ABS brake system. Every single seasonal weather change causes the ECM to send error signals all over the place. One of them will kill the ABS system. I put nearly a thousand dollars in the brake system over the years. This car is the only vehicle I've had in nearly 37 years that was literally dangerous to own. The plastic headlight lenses are made of cheap non-UV protected materials. They must be polished regularly to even see at night. They are $280 for one assembly if you buy new ones. If you park this car in the sun, the interior parts will eventually disintegrate. Each door panel came apart. Electrical switches failed on locks and windows. The electric mirror controls failed and fell off of the door panel, as did all the venting and A/C control knobs. The radio has the anti-friction volume control that NEVER worked. It also had a cassette drive!? Headliners break loose and fall at will. The dash and steering mechanism makes strange creaking noises from an ill fit. If there are any good points, the 3.0 V6 has plenty of power, but needs injectors constantly because of Ethanol gas. It barely got 23 mpg on the interstate. I also replaced the ignition module, and had a bad oil leak at the distributor shaft seal. When replacing a simple serpentine belt, a pulley made of cheap plastic broke and cost me another $85 to get replaced! Thankfully, the transaxle seemed ok. The seats are fully adjustable and comfortable for most adults and great if you have a couple of kids or riders. The suspension gives a smooth and quiet ride. The 16" tires are still cheap, and that's great because the front end needs aligning every year. That's about all the good. In the end, the worst failure of all was the entire speedometer/tachometer/odometer cluster going on and off at will during cold weather. As you know, you must sign a legal liability document on the odometer mileage if you are ever lucky enough to get rid of this dose of the clap. If it goes completely out you will be stuck with nothing but a junk-valued heap that doesn't work and nobody will buy. I was so lucky to get one shiny day of sun last month. I now own two old Nissans and a 2013 Civic that are all trouble free and get great gas mileage. That's EXACTLY where my money will stay from now on.