TripleTransAm
01-30-2003, 11:28 PM
Got to test drive a fairly new MM this evening. It was listed as a Canadian 300A but was missing the remote fuel door release, standalone clock, and we didn't get to see whether the spare was a smaller one or not. Traction control and heated seats were present.
Weather conditions did not permit me to put the MM through all its paces... I will return for another test drive once the weather improves (slushy and wet - our deep freeze cold spell is finally over) and when my wife and I decide to get serious about this car. Nonetheless, I really did prefer driving it the way I'd be driving it 99% of the time... in normal traffic situations. This way, I know what I'd be living with on a day-to-day basis (in other words, my Civic can be a fairly zippy car when I beat the snot out of it, which I obviously cannot do too often).
Because we had our son with us, we alternated test drives (my wife will have her license by the summer, so she rode shotgun on her test drive). She likes it a lot. It's one of the first times we've ever seen eye-to-eye on a car. I find the car reminds me a lot of my old '85 Parisienne with the great handling option. I'd have to do something about the exhaust, it's just a *little* too quiet for my taste, although the timbre is very nice. The tranny seemed a little hyper, wanting to short-shift 2nd fairly quickly.
One of the things I didn't like about the interior was the way the radio was integrated (or rather, NOT) into the dash face. It looks like it deserves a separate trim panel around the edges of the radio.
So where do we stand now? Well, my wife and I will negotiate with each other on how to pull this off, we're that impressed with it. We also want to see if there will be some sort of factory rebate that will show up soon, as Canadian orders are not blessed by any rebates or special financing!
If anyone from Mercury or Ford is reading this, now would be a good time to encourage some Canadian sales through a rebate!!! I've done the math on the US prices I've read on this board, and we're getting shafted up here with respect to other car models as far as pricing.
By the way, the Traction Control works so discretely I had to really pay attention to detect operation on slightly slick surfaces on a launch. I tried to fishtail the car on a small side street that was snowed over, and the system knocked me right back in line! Ditto for ABS, if it did ever kick in once during the test drive on the factory tires, I didn't feel it!
Overall, I think it's a great car with the only shortcomings being an antagonistic price tag and dealers that are not really able to negotiate a deal, a rattling and muddy-sounding subwoofer, and the lack of some creature-comfort gizmos from the Lincoln or GM (hey, for the high Canadian price tag, I'd want a little more content).
Thanks for listening. It should be a fun month of negotiating with the wife on what we can afford.:rolleyes:
Weather conditions did not permit me to put the MM through all its paces... I will return for another test drive once the weather improves (slushy and wet - our deep freeze cold spell is finally over) and when my wife and I decide to get serious about this car. Nonetheless, I really did prefer driving it the way I'd be driving it 99% of the time... in normal traffic situations. This way, I know what I'd be living with on a day-to-day basis (in other words, my Civic can be a fairly zippy car when I beat the snot out of it, which I obviously cannot do too often).
Because we had our son with us, we alternated test drives (my wife will have her license by the summer, so she rode shotgun on her test drive). She likes it a lot. It's one of the first times we've ever seen eye-to-eye on a car. I find the car reminds me a lot of my old '85 Parisienne with the great handling option. I'd have to do something about the exhaust, it's just a *little* too quiet for my taste, although the timbre is very nice. The tranny seemed a little hyper, wanting to short-shift 2nd fairly quickly.
One of the things I didn't like about the interior was the way the radio was integrated (or rather, NOT) into the dash face. It looks like it deserves a separate trim panel around the edges of the radio.
So where do we stand now? Well, my wife and I will negotiate with each other on how to pull this off, we're that impressed with it. We also want to see if there will be some sort of factory rebate that will show up soon, as Canadian orders are not blessed by any rebates or special financing!
If anyone from Mercury or Ford is reading this, now would be a good time to encourage some Canadian sales through a rebate!!! I've done the math on the US prices I've read on this board, and we're getting shafted up here with respect to other car models as far as pricing.
By the way, the Traction Control works so discretely I had to really pay attention to detect operation on slightly slick surfaces on a launch. I tried to fishtail the car on a small side street that was snowed over, and the system knocked me right back in line! Ditto for ABS, if it did ever kick in once during the test drive on the factory tires, I didn't feel it!
Overall, I think it's a great car with the only shortcomings being an antagonistic price tag and dealers that are not really able to negotiate a deal, a rattling and muddy-sounding subwoofer, and the lack of some creature-comfort gizmos from the Lincoln or GM (hey, for the high Canadian price tag, I'd want a little more content).
Thanks for listening. It should be a fun month of negotiating with the wife on what we can afford.:rolleyes: