Used 1994 Mercury Cougar Coupe Consumer Reviews
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Nothing but problems
Soul_Prince, 07/21/2010
1994 Mercury Cougar XR7 2dr Coupe
7 of 8 people found this review helpful
I got this car 6 years ago with 20k miles on it. I keep up with all the maintenance. It has done nothing but fall apart. Head gaskets, engine block crack, the computer went and fried all my sensors twice, motor mounts, bad breaks wear out frequently, front end problems the tire fell while driving, catalytic converter problems, suspension problems
Great car!! I loved every minute of it!
Daniel, 03/19/2008
1994 Mercury Cougar XR7 2dr Coupe
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
I bought my Cougar (4.6L V8) with just over 100K on the clock. I sold it to an 18 year old kid for $1000, and it had 238K on it. I loved this car! Bulletproof motor! Transmission was rebuilt at 195K, but that is better than expected, at least as good as a foreign vehicle. Perfromed well with 205hp. Interior comfortable for long trips.
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Keeping It in the Family
Daniel Smith, 04/29/2019
1994 Mercury Cougar XR7 2dr Coupe
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
VEHICLE: 1994 Mercury Cougar XR7, 3.8L V6 (231.4ci), 140 hp, Sequential Multi-Port Fuel Injection, EEC-IV, 4 Speed Auto Trans (Electronic Auto Overdrive), Disc Front & Drum Rear Brakes, Preferred Equip Pkg. 260A. Not to get too deep into on how I acquired my Cougar; however, a close relative purchased this car new. I knew this car and always liked how it handled, had plenty of power (for a V6), liked the looks, and even worked on it a couple of times. It has always been garage kept in Southern Nevada, so the body has virtually no rust and the paint looks great. I purchased the car (mileage 69k) with the assumption that it ran only needing some hoses and general maintenance. When I started it up, rusty water (not coolant) was pouring out of a busted heater hose. Come to find out that another relative ran the engine with no coolant causing it to drastically over heat. So when I removed the No. 2 & 3 plugs a mixture of oil and water came out. When I drained the oil it was a mirky grey showing water was throughout the oil system. Needless to say the Head Gasket was blown. At this point I remove the heads finding a couple of the cylinder walls were scored. I then felt it was best to remove the block and took it to the local machine shop for and overhaul (short block). They found that one ring on the No.3 cylinder was literally welded onto the piston from extreme overheating and couldn't be removed. To be completely honest, I was more than impressed that an engine that had that much internal damage actually ran. So the block was magnafluxed (no cracks), crank turned, cam polished, .020" over pistons installed, etc. The total cost for the short block overhaul, heads and intake manifold completely reworked was around $1,800. If you look at it, the cost was pretty reasonable. Since I had gone this far with the engine I made the decision to go ahead and do a numbers matching bumper-to-bumper restoration (not a retro mod). Anything that had to do with the drivetrain was either overhauled or replaced (radiator, water pump, heater core, fuel injectors, fuel pump, rear differential, sensors, transmission, etc.). Suspension components replaced (bushings, front & rear end kit, shocks & struts, etc.). All major wire harnesses checked out and rewrapped along with keyless and security system installed. Interior is in good shape and just needs detailing except for the driver's seat which needs to be reupholstered from normal wear. New carpeting is also being installed. Found a rear spoiler (factory option) the same color I am installing. I figure that when I am finished I will have around $6,000, which of course doesn't calculate in my labor/time. The only thing that I am truly disappointed in is that I can't find a proper rear brake conversion kit in order to have disc brakes front and back. Ford doesn't manufacture the majority of parts for this car anymore, but fortunately with aftermarket manufacturers and the use of the internet you can find good deals on quality parts. There might be a number of people who think that what I am putting into this car isn't worth it. Granted, this car can't compare with the value of a fully restored '67 Cougar; however, in my opinion, this generation Cougar has good lines and was designed well (this coming from a primary GM guy). The primary mechanics of the car is identical to the same year(s) as the T-Bird. There were many built, maybe too many during those years. The bottom line for me is that there are going to be issues with almost any car, but I feel that the '94 Cougar overall can be a dependable vehicle as long the proper maintenance is kept up on it.
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Beautiful car but a total pain to keep rolling
T. Becker, 01/06/2016
1994 Mercury Cougar XR7 2dr Coupe
3 of 5 people found this review helpful
My '94 Mercury Special Edition Cougar XR7 with a six cylinder engine was purchased with about 60k miles on it and it looked and worked great for awhile. However, only 20,000 miles later, it blew a head gasket. I do 99% of my own work but I allowed a professional mechanic to handle that one and he did a good job from all I can tell. However, I forgot to mention that the car was rear-ended soon after its purchase and the other guy's insurance company wanted to total it out. Hey, nothing doing, I protested, a decision that might have been a tad hasty. There have been continual leaks from the driveline ever since, possibly because I suspect that mechanic changed the motor mounts w/o disconnecting the driveline, otherwise no other problems owing to the accident. However, I've always been extremely dissatisfied with the car's ride, which is akin to rolling down a rough dirt road in a buckboard, so different from the fantastic '69 Cougar my father owned that it is like night and day. Now THAT was a car. My Cougar, in stark contrast, bangs over every bump and anything in the trunk sounds like a snare drum. It does drive nicely over the open road but not nearly so well around town. Oh, it corners like a champ and has the tightest turning circle of any car I've ever driven, the mirrors are great, and it was very reliable up to about 100,000 miles. But it has had nothing but problems, big and small, ever since. The oil dipstick holder broke off, if you can believe that one, and it cannot be replaced without pulling the entire engine, which the Ford folks told me is an $800 job!!! Are you frigging kidding me? 800 bucks to replace the oil dipstick holder?!!! I had to pass on that one, which shouldn't be too much of a problem except that the lube and oil folks look at me like I must be very lax in the maintenance of such a nice car. I just kept track of the mileage, knowing how often it would need a quart of oil from past experience, but soon thereafter the odometer went out (a very odd coincidence) and you couldn't keep track of the mileage anymore, and you must replace the entire instrument cluster to get the odometer functioning again. It's several hundred bucks to do so, that is, IF you can get one. I've replaced the radiator twice, the alternator recently for a whopping $140, the serpentine belt, the idler pulley that keeps the belt tensioned properly (the Ford mechanic didn't realize that said pulley has left hand threads even when asked if that was so after I'd struggled with it for a long time). About six months ago I had to replace the rotors and pads on the front disc brakes. No biggie, it's not a difficult job, except that one of the anchor bolts simply fell out recently and I had to replace it and check the other brake, practically redoing the entire job all over again. You're supposed to use red (permanent) locktite on those bolts but you can barely get them off if you do, a bit of a quandry. I used blue locktite recently, hoping it would hold well enough so I don't lose a bolt again, but of course I'm worried about it. There are coolant leaks popping up that make no apparent sense, even with a new radiator and hoses and everything tight as a drum. You tell me. Oh, and now, both power windows don't work. What's next? I'm less than thrilled with the lack of reliability of this tempermental car. I'll take the old technology any day, where you could crawl under you vehicle and SEE just what's going on above the chassis. CHASSIS? What's that? Good old unibody construction is about as dumb a supposed advance as truss construction and blown-in insulation for your home's roof. It's like, who cares if the attic is unusable and it gets 180 degrees up there, just begging for a fire to start that will burn down your house and all your prized possessions in a few moments when the summer heat really gets cooking. It's about as sensible as replacing paper bags with plastic at the market, where they throw an item or two or three in one bag and there's absolutely no logic to bagging an order. People come out of the store with a cartload of 20 or thirty plastic bags. Why not just throw all the groceries into the trunk w/o any bags at all? I vaguely remember when this country used to be something to be sort of proud about but the memory of the so-called good old days is fading fast. I dunno, maybe the US was always a sad joke purporting to be such a wonderful social and political experiment, at least on paper. Probably when we stole the land for it from the natives who'd been here for tens of thousands of years before our arrogant ancestors showed up, it set the stage for some very bad karma, but who knows. I do know that we continue to make stupid mistakes and these stupid new cars are a good example. At least my '94 Cougar has some actual style, unlike those overpriced, gaudy, plastic-ridden little boats they're pushing today. But you know, you can't stop "progress."
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Love the car, even after owning it13 yrs
Great Car!, 03/02/2007
1994 Mercury Cougar XR7 2dr Coupe
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
We purchased our 1994 Mercury Cougar brand new 13 years ago. I am happy to say that after owning the car for 13 years, I still love the car very much. It has proven to be very reliable car and still runs and rides like new, even though it has over 110,000 miles on it. I think this version of the Cougar is one of the nicest cars ever built by the Ford Motor Company. Its a shame Ford discontinued making the Cougar. The Cougar had style and still was roomy enough to use as a practical family car. How many people would say they would buy the same car again, if they had the choice after owning it for 13 years. I definitely would buy this car again if I had to do it all over again!