Re: Hmmm

[vadar12]

hello all
i just purchased a 1999 cougar ( acually my wife did because i am deployed overseas) and i decided to do a search t find out its potential. whala i found NECO. this is a very informative site and i am sure that my cat will apreciate me finding it. Anyways i don't know anything about my car yet except what it looks like and that it is a 2.5 duratech with an automatic. the autoatic i was not happy about but if anyone has it in there car and would like to give me a heads up i would appreciate it greatly. thank you for all the good info and keep it coming.

[FastCougar]

I broke this thread out because you should be introducing yourself in your own thread ;)

That being said, you obviously got the car used, but how many miles? ATX longevity depends greatly on how well it has been maintained. Do you have the service records? Was the transmission ever flushed? If so, how often and how many times?

[scrupul0us]

welcome!

[Vyk]

vadar12, this may seem obvious, but keep an eye on your transmission lines. That's what killed my Mystique ATX. (Basically the same drivetrain.) Oh, and not running rallies in it might be a good idea to help longevity. ;) Other than that, though, I've found that trans to be pretty decent. It adapts to a certain degree to driving habits, which makes it a pretty smooth transmission without sacrificing snappiness. The only downside that I've found to that is that it's harder to tell how worn the transmission is getting. In a conventional automatic, you get that slow fade as it shifts progressively worse. With the electronic, it seems to pretty quickly go from "fine" to "shifts slightly oddly, but ok" to "what's that burnt-ATF smell?"

Anyway, mine did good for me (over 135k miles, including several miles of driving while leaving a trail of ATF, as well as two rallies), so if you take care of it, yours should do good for you.

Welcome to a fellow NECO newbie!

[MaverickFlyer]

Welcome to the board!