Taurus

• Automatic transmission
• 89,000 miles

I bought the car used last August at a dealership. Since then, I had spent several hundred dollars on a variety of things, but the big problem came when my car wouldn't start when I was going to leave the beach. The car had to be towed, and it was the air compressor. This made sense because just the day before the AC had stopped blowing.

I had the same thing happen on my old Honda Civic, and we just had them connect the wire in such a way that the car would run and we just didn't have AC, at a cost of about $40. However, that couldn't be done in this case, according to the mechanic (not my regular one, but seemed trustworthy). Not only that, but the entire front end needed to be removed in order to replace the part, adding greatly to the labor costs. He said that Ford made this particular model quite labor intensive.

I know nothing about auto mechanics, but why do they make cars so that they cannot be driven without having to fix the AC? I don't like not having AC, but I can live without it. I prefer to have my car run and not have AC than to not have the car run at all.

It seems that any car with fewer than 100K miles on it shouldn't have repairs costing over $1,000. I am seeing so many complaints about many models on this site, and I am nervous about looking for a car to replace our old Civic, which has finally conked out. I can't afford much, but I need something. At least I have this resource; it has already been useful in steering me away from a car we were considering!