Should I Buy This Tracer? Need Quick Advice

[felixxilef]

A friend will sell me her '94 Tracer station wagon with 91,000 miles on it for $1600. It has new brakes, new battery, new timing belt, new tires, and all fluids recently flushed. Body is in great condition and everything apparently works fine.

I did notice a large vibration when the thing is just sitting in Park, but it went away when I put it in gear. Does that sound like a problem?

I'm pretty convinced that it's a good deal but I'm just not sure what to expect in the way of problems with a car like that. 91k miles sounds like a lot of mileage and maybe the start of a whole series of problems but I really don't know.

Any advice as to how many miles the car might be good for, and what types of problems to expect, would be greatly appreciated.

[miceyrats]

i just now found this forum, i have been told that mercury tracers are a good car, in-general, but i would suggest that you ck the struts, on a reg. basic,,,if the are bad it can cause all kinds of front in problems,,,including vibrations...up to broken motor mounts.....i like my little tracer......vickie

[kyky]

I also own a 94 tracer, its not a wagon though. I have owned it about 5 months and have had no problems with it. I bought mine for 1500 with 138,000 miles on it. I also expierience the vibration when the car is not in gear. It sounds like the car your looking at is a great deal. I really like my car so far, its a great first car for me and is good on gas. it reliable and all around does well. good luck

[mjohn]

looking at a 91 tracer 4cly...wondering what gas milage would be like...as gas here is 2.07 a gallon

[cyberninjasio]

I have a 93 Tracer wagon, automatic, with a 4cyl 1.9L engine that I paid $1600 for when I bought it about five years ago. It's a pretty good car, though I do get that vibration when it's not moving, mainly when it's stopped at a stop light, not when it's out of gear. I average about 28 to 30 miles to the gallon when doing local driving to and from work, and 30 to 32 on long haul trips that are mostly highway.

However, I have had a problem with broken swaybar linkages. The two rear were broken when I got it and the left front broke recently. They only cost about 15 bucks all told to fix all three at the same time, but I did the work myself and believe me, it was a serious pain. If I had the work done at the shop I would have been looking at hundreds of dollars of work.

I've also had a problem with the thermostat sensor breaking down which lead to my temp gauge not working (gave false reading of the engine running normal when it wasn't). That lead to overheating and cracking the head, which was a _severe_ pain. I've also had a blown headgasket, but that was a fairly simple fix relatively speaking.

Other than that, I had a problem with the vehicle cranking but not starting. The starter was good and it wasn't the shifter switch, so we had a heck of a time figuring out what was wrong. We replaced several sensors in the engine compartment as well as a number of switches/fuses. We also took it in to a local mechanic and _they_ couldn't figure out what was wrong. Eventually, someone there had a contact at a Ford dealership and was able to find out about a double set of switches that we had already replaced one set of. The second set were hidden up underneath the dashboard and didn't show up on _any_ wiring diagrams for the vehicle. The only people that knew about said double set of switches were mechanics at the dealership. That was a _VERY_ expensive repair for something extremely cheap (both switches were $70 retail, all told it cost nearly a grand to find out about them) all because Ford-Mercury wants to make people have to bring their cars into the dealerships _long_ after warrenty is void. >_<

Other than those things... it's a pretty good car that'll run for you if you take the time to treat it right and take care of it.