97 F350

But they had to hit a certain number of words to with the article to get paid. (used to be column inches) So what other banal explanatory filler could they put in to pad the total length? Does Hyundai have any plants here? If not, then doubtful - what is the prevailing South Korean wage rate?

Makes sense, when we were looking at new Taurus X's - local dealer was going to get them from affiliated dealer on other side of town. We couldn't even test drive a new one because there wasn't one to be found within 40 miles. But why does it seem to be mostly Ford dealers? (purely anecdotal evidence I know)

I have a 30 mile one-way commute daily. I pass a dealership of just about every single brand offered for sale except Rolls, Bentley, Lambo, Audi and Subaru. 3 separate Ford Dealers. And two of those dealers are very empty. One is full as always, the one about 2 miles from me is "hollowed out" - vehicles at the front of the lot and lining the driveways - but nothing in the middle - basically a big empty square of vehicles. The one by my work has nothing but used cars on the new vehicle side. But all the others (Chevy, Honda especially, Toyota, VW) are stuffed with vehicles. I know that Ford has cut production to reduce inventories over the last year, but this looks like it goes beyond that. What is going on? And are the other manufacturers still producing at full steam?

It looks a lot better in person than in the pictures.

Both the U.S. and Canada's growth rates are only about .9% If you back out immigration to both, Canada's natural growth rate is about .3% and the U.S. is about .6%. Their one-child policy is effective to an extent, but there are many, many ways around it. Rural families can have two if the first is a girl. You can pay what basicaly amounts to a fee to have another child - well within the means of the middle class in the cities. Plus the growth rate is an official gov't number. And I can tell you from personal experiences to take any number/claim from official Chinese document with a grain of salt. I would guarantee there is undereporting all the way up the chain from the county thru the provincial level in order to meet goals. The other reason that such a growth rate in China is needed is to keep the people happy. If they are wealthy, they do not care so much that they are tightly controlled in other ways. And something on the order of 300 million people have migrated over the last 15-20 years from rural subsistance farming to the industrialized cities. And the migration is still going on and all those people expect have to be absorbed into the workforce or they get pissed and break stuff. Chinese. Just like moose.

ooops. Double-post.

Nope. They need to rebadge the Routon as the new Chevy Astro. They've been out of the mini-van market far too long.

Does anybody else think the Tundra looks like the Chevy one?

That is good to hear another testament to the reliability. We went ahead and pulled the trigger on an 2006 SEL fwd with not quite 52k miles. Just waiting on wrapping up the financing with my credit union and they are fixing a couple of cosmetic blips. Hopefully will pick up tomorrow. Got the 4 year/48k mile Ford ESP warranty. That should get us to 100k miles with minimal troubles. Sad to see the old Windstar go. It still looks great inside and out - just issues were starting to pop up and with the miles it had, was worried about repeats of the head gasket and transmission problems we had at about 85k miles. But I think the Freestyle looks pretty good for a kiddo-hauler. Guess I will be lurking a bit on Myfordfreestyle.com.

Well, I went to test drive the Freestyle yesterday. I had looked it over and the sales rep and I were getting into the car to drive away and the used car manager caught us and said "It's sold." $%&*(O!! The car only had 7695 miles for an 06! Thanks everybody for your replies though - good to know that its a pretty-trouble free car as we didn't find out the Windstar's common problems until we already owned one. Then we pretty much went right down the list. There is another one we are thinking of looking at. It has about 56k miles - a little more loaded. Only thing we don't like is it has leather seats. We want cloth because we have two child seats which are murder on leather upholstery.

We are looking at a very low mileage 2006 Freestyle. It has the CVT. I thought I read somewhere here that you didn't want the CVT. IS that correct? What were the problems with it? I've tried searching and can't find the thread I was thinking of. Are there any other problems with the Freestyle? Thanks.

13. A really stripped-down lightweight (rear seat delete, PW, PD, etc.) - lighter than the GTS from the mid-90's.

Still trying to figure out if we can take advantage of the clunker bill. Per the fueleconomy.gov website, our 2001 Windstar gets 18 mpg combined. Since as far as I can tell, a mini-van is considered a Category 1 truck, so in order to get $3500, we need to find a replacement that gets 20 mpg or better. We need a seven seater, so the choices are limited. The only one we have found so far is the VW/Chrylser mini-vans - we have to get the top of the line so we can get the optional 4.0 V-6 in order to get the mileage. But when were at our local CDJ dealer last week, he ran the VIN on our minivan and it came back as 17 mpg. So this would let us get a minivan with a lower trim package and the base engine since they get 19 mpg. I was able to glance at his printout of our van and it said we had a 2000 Windstar - which does get 17 mpg. The build date on our door sticker is either January or February 01 which would be 2001 MY. Does anybody know of a website that I can look up our vehicle by its VIN??? If we do in fact get 17 mgp - then we can get a Flex - which I finally go my wife to look at this weekend - and now SHE LOVES IT! She thought it was going to be a LOT bigger than it was plus the way it was advertised - she thought it was aiming for young male market - not the minivan-needing crowd.

That's interesting. Around here, all the dealers seem to be waiting until July 24. Supposedly that's when the official regulations come out. I've had 3 or 4 tell me this. Nobody seems to want to do anything until then - they seem to be scared that they will get it wrong and then have to eat the difference in the clunker cash and what the trade it is worth. On the fueleconomy.gov site, my wife's windstar was rated at a combined 18mpg. But a dealer pulled up some numbers using the VIN and it came back with a 17 mpg. I would think the VIN method would be more reliable, but his printout also said my wife's minivan was a 2000 model, not a 2001. The 1 mpg does make a difference - because it would let us get a Taurus X or Freestyle which only come in at 19 mpg.

Didn't Ford try this a few years back with Jaguar? Does that mean that Mahindra will be the ultimate builder's of Camero's?

Who is the target market? Last time I was over there, I didn't see a single mullet.

Sorry - screwed up - was relying on what the VW guy told me about his vans over the phone. Of course this is the same salesmen who spent almost the entire time bitching and whining about the clunker bill and the clunker program that Texas offers. Kept saying how they were biased against VW and were so unfair. What was funny, was most of his information was wrong. But I have to admit - have never encountered that sales tactic before - whining about the program that brought a prospect to him in the first place. We actually went and looked at them yesterday - unfortunately, thestore was closed. But we could see the seating for three in the back seat. We are going back tonight if I get off work in time in order to see how the girls booster seats fit in back - if there is still room for a third person with two boosters. Totally amazed at the sales dudes lack of knowledge about his product though.

But how do you stop from lowering them constantly at the drive-thru at Chick-Fil-A? Other than by letting the driver window motor break and being slow to fix it......... It is good to hear some high mileage stories since all I have been seeing is how bad the Windstar was.

Does this apply to rebates also? Or does the X plan preclude rebates if offered on a vehicle?

I agree also - went and looked - inside materials much nicer than T&C. But one big problem. Only Routan that qualifies for us (needs to get 20 mpg to replace the windstar) is top of the line SEL with the 4.0. Can't get that engine in the S or SE. But only the S has the second row bench seat. Can't get that even as an option or from the parts bin and install it in the SEL. Was told that due to the captain seats in the second row on the SEL the floor is different - won't accept the bench seat at all. So that would kill the 7-person seating. Looking more and more like it's the T&C or keep the windstar till the wheels fall off.

We have an 2001 Windstar with about 128,000 miles. Between 80,000 and 90,000 miles the following happened: transmission barfed up a lung on feeder road and had to be rebuilt, head gaskets replaced, passenger side and two rear vent window motors replaced, driver door lock moter replaced, rear a/c overhauled, these were the major problems, other minor ones which I can't remember all now. Thankfully we had the extended warranty on it, so it wasn't so bad. My question is - I've read on here that the Windstar wasn't exactly the best mini-van around. Are there any more common problems lurking in our near future? What made it such a dog? Reliablility? Lack of features? The van still looks extremely nice inside and outside, but we are at a decision point. We have the following repairs that need to happen soon and the extended warranty is over and done: front brakes with rotor replacement, driver window motor rear a/c mostly ineffective, power steering - major groaning on left turns a/c - sometimes when it engine first starts up - there is a "grinding" noise, sometime not I'm figuring $2000 repairs when all is said and done. And then we have a nice-looking van that runs fairly well. But how long will it last? I'm wondering if we are at that tipping point where you fix something, then 3 months later something else big goes out and then something else and before you know it, you have put $5000 in an old van. I would be happy if we could get another 2-3 years out of the repairs (wife drives probably about 15,000 miles a year), but do Windstars last till 175,000 miles or so? I'm used to Ford trucks and Mustangs which both seem more solidly built than the Windstar (parked 96 GT with 215,000 miles and my 97 truck is still going with 307,000 miles). The other factor is tradein- right now our van is $1500 at best, but I can qualify for the clunker bill and basically get $3500 as a trade-in for a new Chrysler T&C. But then I will have a car payment for five years........... Any info/insights would be appreciated.

But once it burns throught the pent-up demand from the past 3-4? years, then what? Right now they are working off the 12,000 + pre-orders. Once the hard-core base is satisfied, then it's true appeal will show.

Well since Pontiac is going buh-bye, he has to have a GM brand to fawn over. Wasn't it just a couple of months ago that he had a rant about some tuner's Firebird concept based on the Camero that was going to save Pontiac and thus bring GM back from the brink?

That's a good idea, but on the Chrylser's - they have a lifetime warranty on the powertrain. Might come in handy when the transmission goes out.

Been reading this site for a loooooooong time - finally got around to signing up. Me. Been following this ever since it was proposed. My wife's 01 Windstar still looks good but qualifies since it gets 18 mpg per the gov't web site. Trade-in on it is somewhere between $1100-1800 depending on who you use. Mileage (128,000) is what kills the value. We are going to have to make some repairs soon - I'm looking at about $2000 or so. We usually buy used and drive the vehicles into the ground, so I was just going to get the van fixed. But if I can get $3500 trade in as is, vs paying $2000 in repairs and still having a van that will probably need replacing anyways in about 2 years with eeven less trade in value.........well it kinda has gotten me off the fence. We have been pretty much a Ford family for years. (own a 97 F350, 01 Windstar, 86 & 96 Mustang GT and a 64 Falcon) So I starting checking out new Ford vehicles. Problem is we need 7 passenger seating. So that narrows us down to E-Series, Expediation, Explorer, Flex and Taurus X. Expedition is more than we wanted to spend, wife says no way to E-series, but Explorer, X and Flex are all about the same price range. So I looked - Explorer got eliminated - 3rd row seating only has enough legroom for people in baby seats and absolutely no room behind when third row is up. Wife likes the X and I like the Flex. So I was getting bids and went and looked them up on government web site and found out both only get 19 mpg combined. So they don't qualify for the clunker bill as they are not a 2 mpg improvement. So now I am looking at a Chrysler T&C. Fairly well loaded and about $1000 less than the Flex and X. But it does have combined mileage of 20 mpg so it qualifies. Probably will get it, because it's too good of a deal to pass up with the $3500 trade in. Unfortunately for our first choice, Ford's improving the mileage in their car lineup hasn't quite made it to the larger people movers Since I'm going to be paying for this anyway for the rest of my life, I figure I should get my own share of the bailouts.