I got a dark red Mercury Grand Marquis with 29,000 miles on it. The car's taken me smoothly all over the country and held up well during the down time. It might look like a Grandpa car, but hey, Gramps can be pretty reliable.

The car has plenty of power and being rear wheel drive it's much more fun to drive. I like the very smooth ride and spacious interior. The power everything interior is very nice. I feel much safer in the larger heavier car and having 4 doors and seat belts plus room for 6 makes it great for lugging around your friends. If I had to pick between this and a smaller but new car for long road trip I would certainly pick this. Also when you need to pass at highway speeds nothing beats a old school V8 under the hood for acceleration quickly when you're already going 70 miles per hour. Overall if you are looking to buy a used car, this is one of the best bargains, they could be bought everywhere and are inexpensive and easy to maintain for the home mechanic.

The seats are extremely soft and comfortable. There are ample leg room so there is no crowding. The car has a lot of noise though, so you can't hear others speaking. For example, the weather stripping on the windows is not good anymore, and the windows rattle. For a while there was a hole in the exhaust pipe, which made it impossible to hear anything else. The back windows no longer work because they need new regulators, the speakers and AC don't work either. There is only an old radio and cassette player for entertainment, so having a device with downloaded music or an app like Pandora is essential if you don't want to sit in windy silence for a whole ride. The benefit of the car is that it is easy to work on. There is a lot of room under the hood and the components are not piled on top of each other. The replacement parts are usually cheap and not too difficult to replace. The ease and fact that parts are generally inexpensive are great because the age of the car makes it unreliable; something breaks a week after the last issue was fixed, usually leaving me stranded on the side of the road (or the middle of an intersection twice). The alternator, batter, belt, gas door, cylinder, starter solenoid, rotors, break pads, calipers, headlights, blinkers, interior and license plate lights, exhaust, tires, and muffler have all been replaced in the past couple years. It still needs work on the suspension, shocks, master cylinder, valve cover, window regulators, speakers, and AC. The car is slow to accelerate and puts when you hit 45 and 55 mph, forcing you to stomp on the gas pedal to change the gears. It is terrible in terms of fuel economy, but that could probably be improved by fixing the suspension and shocks. It is definitely better on long straight stretches of road because it doesn't corner well and has a horrible turn radius. The best part of being in NJ with this car is having the jug handles to make U-turns because trying to make U-turns in other states was terrifying and caused me to fear for my life when I ended up needing to do a k-turn instead as cars rapidly approached. It sounds like a horrible car, but for being older than I am it is impressive that the engine and transmission are in excellent condition, the body is generally in excellent condition, the interior is like new, and the fabric ceiling doesn't sag at all. The great trunk space made moving in college a one trip ride. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a crumple zone and has horrible crash test ratings. That is unacceptable now that I have a baby.