Blue's Clues: Ford Introduces Money-Back Used Car Program

The used car market may be red hot, but Ford seems to be intent on pouring a bunch of blue all over the place. Starting next month, certain second-hand vehicles hawked by Ford stores will qualify for a 14-day/1,000-mile money-back guarantee.

Or perhaps some dealers are feeling the heat from places like Carvana. That’s up for debate.

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Nothing but Trouble: Used Cars to Avoid Like the Plague

Navigating the new car market can be treacherous, but the used market is significantly larger and riddled with more hidden pitfalls. Used cars also offer the best potential value for your money, provided you don’t end up with a lemon. Even something that passes your initial scrutiny might be a few months away from becoming a clattering heap.

Fortunately, Consumer Reports keeps a running tally on the worst second-hand garbage that money can buy. Taken from its most recent ranking, here are some of the more common models from the last 10 years that scored so poorly in reliability that they aren’t even worth your consideration.

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  • MaintenanceCosts I'd like to see a comparison between this and the base Model S, which should have similar performance numbers.I spent five days and 500 miles with a base 2022 Model S in Texas last week, and enjoyed it far more than my previous Model 3 drives - I think the Model S is a very good to excellent car, although "FSD" is a huge fail and I'd still have a lot of trouble giving Elon Musk money.
  • DesertNative In hindsight, it's fascinating to see how much annual re-styling American cars received in the 1950's. Of course, that's before they had to direct their resources to other things like crash-worthiness, passenger safety, pollution controls, etc. It was a heady time for car designers, but the rest of us have benefited immeasurably from the subsequent changes.
  • Cprescott Aside for how long it takes to charge golf carts since I don't live in a place where I can have my own charger, is the game that golf cart makers play when your battery fails and they blame you and charge you $15-25k to replace them.
  • Legacygt I am somewhat tired of hearing complaints about the fuel economy of 3-row crossovers. Particularly since they all get pretty much the same. In this class, the Highlander Hybrid gets excellent fuel economy. Beyond that, it's hard to complain about one when they're all within a couple mpgs of each other.
  • SCE to AUX "we had an unprecedented number of visits to the online configurator"Nobody paid attention when the name was "Milano", because it was expected. Mission accomplished!