Fatal Flaw

Subject: My 1984 Mercury Topaz
   Date: Wed 1/10/2007 12:08 PM
   From: Margaret
     To: Ted Felix

I am the former owner of a 1984 Mercury Topaz. It was my first car purchase out of college. I loved the car but it had a fatal flaw -- unwanted acceleration. After much wrangling with the dealership I finally got them to replace the culprit part, which was the central compute unit. Luckily this part was supplied by my father who was a Ford employee at the time. Things went reasonably well after that until the car literally started falling apart around 90K miles. I traded it in for a Ford Aerostar van in 1994 when it had 100K miles. They gave me $100 for it as a courtesy and then it was scrapped. I have to say that I've owned many better designed Ford products since the Topaz, including a 1994 Aerostar, and a 1996 Mercury Villager Nautica, which I just and very reluctantly traded in for a Ford Fusion with side and curtain airbags for my newly permitted daughter to drive -- hopefully in relative safety. And I currently also own a 2003 Ford Windstar. I have had no significant problems with any Ford car other than the Topaz.