My sister killed yet another car , and i have been looking localy but cant find her what she wants for the right price, but i did find a 93 topaz with good miles one owner and everthing she wants, but i have never had any experance with this breed of ford has anybody else?

 

I'm in the process of fixing up a 90 Tempo for my step-son. Dunno about a 93, but the 90 is equipped with the 2.3L, which is a pretty durable motor, although not a barn burner.

Watch out for rusty floor pans. TRUST ME!!! I cut out, fabbed and welded in new floor pans in all 4 foot wells, and pretty much rebuilt the vertical part at the front edge of the rear seat. The trunk pan also rusted out right beside the muffler due to the way heatshield was welded to the floor. The "frame" (unibody) crossmember that the rear suspension arms mount to was also pretty much gone. Rusted floors may not be an issue if you live in a dry climate, though.

This car was my father-in-law's runabout until he bought himself a pickup (a chevy **sigh**). I pulled the codes before I took on the project and it looks like all it needs is a new EGR valve. Of course it has a few oil leaks to attend to. Once I finish it (ran out of summer), I expect it will be a good little car - the outer body and interior are in really good shape.

I still see a lot of these cars on the road, so my rusty floor experience may not be typical. Don't expect it to be a new car, and it should not disappoint.

Cheers,
Eric

 

They're basic transportation. I had a 2 door Tempo, and the thing got great mileage. Not a bad car.

Edit: My Tempo was an 87 2.3, 5 speed. I never had rust problems, or water leaks. The only real problem I had was the heater core sprung a leak, and the car got stolen before I could fix it.

 

We had an 87 Tempo 4 dr, 4cyl HO engine, 5-spd, no rust, that was a runner!!! Until my daughter was T-boned...

 

I had a 88 Topaz. Great little car.

Lived through 2 collisions & me.

 

I had a '89 Topaz 4 dr with every option including the 100 (vs. 98) HP "HSO" engine and 5 speed. Bordello red interior and power everything including 6 way seat with lumbar support. It would keep a fender on a BMW 320 or 318 to prevent them from shooting the gap on me and cutting me off. I ran it up to Seattle from LA with a 5 hour stop on the way up and a 2 hour break on the way back.

Paid $8950 on a 12300 sticker as it was July of '90 and it was still sitting due to the 5 gear.

Tie rod ends are wimpy and cause weird tire wear, so watch for that.

Surprised to read the above post about anyone doing any major work on one as they are pretty much disposable.

In 91 or 92 or so there was "SHO Jr." A 3.0 V6 with 5 speed from the Probe I think. Those ran pretty good.. for a Tempo.

'93s were beefed up a little compared to mine, stronger firewall and unibody, or so they said in a mag article "charting the changes". Don't do any "General Lee" moves and it shoud be ok.

Buy it cheap, and don't expect much and you will be very pleased.

 

The only thing I did on ours was replace the timing chain. I didn't even pull the engine...

 

I have had four Tempos. The three things I have found that seem to give problems are:

1- The inner tie rod ends go out a lot. Grab the front wheel and shake it back and forth and check for looseness. Not that hard or expensive to replace.

2- The earlier models were known to have evaporator cores go bad and lose all the freon. The great Ford A/C hose o-rings also leak fairly easy.

3- Keep the oil changed often, or crud will build up and plug the oil pickup screen. I bought two cheap because of this.

Other than that they are really pretty good little cars.

 

Had a '93, still drive an 87... Major problem areas with '87:

Transmission. Had it fail way before 100K miles. Planetary gears.

A/C compressor disintegrated and nearly destroyed the lower radiator hose. Could have lost all coolant and overheated. Compressor clutch replaced.

Fuel pump.

TPS sensor, IAC motor.

Radiator, alternator, belts. Got stranded when the alternator belt self-destructed and my battery was drained without me noticing.

Engine mounts. Transmission mounts.

CV boots. Eats tie rods for lunch.

Electrical problems. Power windows work most of the time. Fuel pump relay. Several window motors replaced. Fan motor replaced.

The ignition (TFI) module is some troubled design which fails every 50K miles. Got me stranded once.

2.3L is not a bad engine but acceleration is about that of a loaded freight train. And it leaks from the valve cover gasket area. Once you get going at 3,000, it's OK.

The headlights after a while are no longer clear.

Just last week the front caliper failed, locked up the brakes, I noticed from the burning smell. Now it won't idle correctly, will clean the IAC thing. And the vacuum lines are really brittle. I broke several and am having problems with the EGR system. The sensor for the E-brake is not working right. Master cylinder went bad. All of the above before 100K miles.

I would avoid all cars which say Tempo/Topaz on them unless you get them for free or very cheap, or maybe find a '93-'94. My '93 Tempo was actually _much_ better than '87. But oh the adventures you will have with this TEMPO-rary thing. Strangely, I love mine after all of this. I am only keeping mine because (a) I love working on cars, (b) I hate myself (c) it was given to me by a family member and I cannot sell it - I will make sure I am the last owner before it hits its final destination. Or maybe I will donate it some day to some troubled soul. The long repairs list notwitstanding, it's in top mechanical condition, I mean everything that could fail - already has and been replaced.

The good things:

Cheap insurance. Cheap cars. Very good in snow/ice. Their prices are rock bottom on ebay. You can pick up a nice '94 one with under 100K miles for chicken feed, nothing else comes even close to this value. I mean, an alternator for a new car costs more. The fact that mine works at all after 18 years (of non-stop usage) is a testimony to good product, in a sense. If you wanna be really cool, get a V6/manual combo.

Also check out

tempotopaz.com
carsurvey.org

 

my first car was an 88 topaz. it was a dog of a car, but it did the job.

 

My aunt uses to own a 1986 Topaz, it was an automatic and she ended up getting rid of it in 1995 cause the last couple years her car was falling apart, they don't hold their value very well.

 

I bought a new 1994 Tempo, same thing as a Topaz, one of the main reasons was the company I worked for had about 15 of them they used for sales staff. The Maintenance Supervisor told me they're running most of these cars 150,000 miles with very few problems.
They were the 2.3 L4.
My son is now in college and driving my old tempo 50 miles a day. I gave it to him on his eighteenth birthday. It's good economical transportation
I will agree the tie rod ends are the weak spot, have also replaced the idler pulley, and the signal light switch unit in the steering column. breaks too but that standard maintenance like plugs,filters and oil changes.
All in all it's been a good little car would give it my recommendation.

 

I remember that my aunt ended up buying a 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera 2 Door, it had a V6 engine and that car was really nice inside.

 

My sister had an '89 topaz, and I've never seen a more troublesome car. Looking at the posts before me, it looks like overall a good car, but my sister had terrible luck with it. Multiple cooling issues, had to replace about every hose under the hood, heater core, and many other things. She totalled it back in 2002, so I don't remember many details, but I sometimes thought I spent more time underneath that car than it did on the road. In retrospect, she never took care of any car she had, and it probably wasn't taken care of before she got to it. On a good note, the engine and tranny seemed bulletproof, they were the only components on the car that I never had trouble with!!!

 

GM did have a good little V6 in those years, I think it's the same engine as the Chevy Celebrity used, I still see some of those on the road.
But I stand behind my comments on the ford 2.3L tough little motor..