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Show Xoair sjBy Brian Gray You've heard the optimistic concept, "If life hands you a ;, lemon, then make lemonade." A reader agrees but says it's difficult when the lemon is an automobile. "This car has made my life miserable," he says. "The dealer, ' Marion Willey & Son, has been great. But I have a few choice words for the Ford Motor Company." :;-: The choice words began with a choice car. Our reader, a -5 44-year-old college instructor, had always "bought American" and had been pleased with his nine previous Ford automobiles including the compact EXP. So in the fall of 1985 he drove home his tenth Ford, a sporty two-seat turbo-charged EXP which offered great gas mileage and souped-up power. "I enjoy driving," says the reader. "But you can't enjoy driving if the car won't start!" In the first month, the car failed to start eight different times. In the first month, the car was hauled to the shop three separate times. In the first month, the professor began having second thoughts about his new turbo-charged EXP. "Then the mechanics found the problem," he says. "I got a new battery, new battery cables and I was out on the road again." But not for long. Within several months the car began dying on the freeway. Three more times it was towed back to the mechanics who eventually replaced the $900 turbo-charged unit. But by the spring of this year the car collapsed another six times including one scary incident which the professor claims was the "final straw." "I had been stranded in West Jordan... My wife had been stranded twice at 2 a.m I figured I had weathered weath-ered everything until this spring when the car began losing power near Woods Cross. I nursed it off the freeway and it finally dropped totally dead only two feet from a railroad crossing. cros-sing. I got out of the car and within 30 seconds a freight train came whizzing by. If the car had gone another two feet and stopped on the railroad tracks, I'd be a traffic fatality, not just a dissatisfied owner. I decided then and there that Ford would have to take the car back." Ford would take the car back but the man would have : to continue his payments. Instead of purchasing the car, the : professor had signed a four-year lease. And the company had : turned a deaf ear to his request for termination of the lease. The : car has been off the road and in the shop some 20 times in the : past three years. Yet the company claims in a letter that "the car runs according to Ford Motor specifications." : "Can you imagine?" asked the professor. "The car doesn't work but the company says it meets standards. What kind of standards does the company have?" I don't know about the company's standards. What I do know : is that the turbo-charged EXP is still tucked away in the mecha- : nic's shop at the dealership. Ford no longer makes the auto- : mobile, and one of the mechanics told the professor the model : had a long history of operational problems. : "No one knows why the car doesn't run," says the reader. : "It's a mystery car. But the real mystery is why Ford is forcing j me to pay $225 each month for a car that is not driveable." Recognizing the man's plight, Duff Willey has allowed the professor to drive new automobiles all this summer. Every two ; or three weeks, Duff sends up a new Ford. "I've driven them all with no problems," says the reader. "So I'm not souron Ford products. When the lease expires next year, I'll probably lease another car from Marion Willey & Son. ;: It's not their fault I got a lemon and they're doing everything possible to correct the problem. They've gone the extra mile." ;: More miles in fact, than the turbo-charged EXP. It expired a : long time before its lease. : |