1997 Puplr Escort wagon

Not mine, but I know some people were talking about these a little while ago....

http://springfieldil.craigslist.org/cto/2282548720.html

and it has purple power windows

and locks nice inside and out

On a more serious note, how is that generation of Escorts in terms of reliability? They're damn near free and get good gas mileage but how do they hold up?

I know of several that have pretty much run forever..... though I don't know anything too specific.

They do alright. Don't remember which motor was in there, but either way, it's a variant of the SPI. They're uninspiring motors, and like to crack heads. That's about the worst of it.

2.0l SPI in that one.

The "cracked head" on those are usually a dropped valve, the dropped valve is usually from poor oil maintenance eating up the guide and not allowing the valves to rotate knocking the keepers off, once the valve drops a bit of contact kills the head.

Good little engines if maintained.

In reply to PubBurgers:

The biggest non-obvious thing to look for on Escorts of this vintage is the rear strut mounts and surrounding sheet metal. Pulling the rear speakers in a hatch or wagon will let you check them out.

The rear springs rust out and break too.

cghstang wrote: In reply to PubBurgers: The biggest non-obvious thing to look for on Escorts of this vintage is the rear strut mounts and surrounding sheet metal. Pulling the rear speakers in a hatch or wagon will let you check them out. The rear springs rust out and break too.

Thanks for the info. Might have to look into them if I don't win that certain 3 cylinder turboed vehicle you linked me to. Also, my wife may end up hating you for that.

Was this the years that used the Mazda 1.6 or 1.8 that are in the Miata?

Nope. That was 91-96 GT/LX-E/Tracer LTS.

This is ford motor attached to Mazda trans.

My grandmother had one for like 250k miles, had it since new, I think it killed about 3 alternators, but that was about it.