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Ford Escort ZX2

1555 messages,  Last post on Dec 19, 2012 at 2:18 PM

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What is this discussion about? Ford Escort, Coupe

Messages Page 42 of 157

#404 of 1555 My first ZX2 by rrhoe

Sep 10, 2000 (7:54 pm)

After wading through hundreds & hundreds of posts about the ZX2.... I gave up and bought one yesterday! Its a red S/R that begged me to buy it. I drove a 2000 & a 2001 Nissan SE with the 145 h/power engine (both auto & manual) but no rebates and very little markdown from the dealers! Also tried the Mazda Protege ES... and it was ok... nothing like the shifter in the ZX2! Also had a horrible offer on my trade! I thought at first I would buy ANYTHING after owning a Hyundai Elanta (99 model) for a year. Three replacements of the throttle position sensor and the horror of the engine quitting in traffic time after time made me decide to buy something that would stay running! I owned 2 Ford escorts GT's.. slightly modified and they were semi-fun to drive. I also once owned a Sunfire GT which had such loooooong doors that I could never open them enough to get out of the car when in the garage! The only thing I ever thought was outstanding about that car was the steering wheel controls for the radio/cd. Also had a 97 Sentra SE-R which was a blast to drive. Why I ever traded it in on the Hyundi chalk up to insanity! Anyway, one test of the S/R and I had to have it! All the posts here have given me soooooo many little mods I can make to this sweet little car. WHY OH WHY has ford not put a trunk release something in this car except with the remote. Thanks to your posts.. there is a very simple fix for this... as well as a carbon fiber dash kit... splash guards... some intake mods... and some killer sites S/R owners have put together!!!! Basic facts on my S/R: Dealer sold it to me at invoice minus the 1500 rebate from Ford. MSRP 15,998 with sunroof/ premium sound/6 disc changer/all door remote/power group/mats. Could not find one without the roof/cd options anywhere so I settled.
Checked Edmunds for actual prices and the dealer took about five minutes to meet my figures. One note here for anyone who owns a Hyundi... they have NO RESALE VALUE!!!! Visited 15 different dealers prior to my purchase and the best offer I got for my car was 6100.. worst offer was 5600. Trade in value was 7300... The dealer I bought the car from wanted to know how much I owned on my car and I said 7300. They offered 7300 and I kept a straight face and said... welllllllll ok lets deal! (actually owed about 6100.. so something to remember when you trade???????)One thing I had to go over with them was the need for premium fuel... and none of the salesmen were aware of this requirement.. so they took it to a gas station and filled it with premium! when I picked up the car it was about a 15 minute drive to my home...... but for some reason it took about 2 hours of driving to get home! One thing I will install today are some wheel locks! By the way.. if anyone else has the 6 disc changer in the trunk, well my solution is to cut cd's of all my favorite music on my cd recorder and I will end up with about a hundred of my favorite songs loaded in the car! Anyway, thanks to all of you who have provided sooooooo much info about the S/R. Hope to add to the posts as I take the long way home every day!


                    Russ

#405 of 1555 Trunk release by ralex2

Sep 11, 2000 (12:51 am)

Russ,


Congrats on the S/R. Glad to hear how much you like it. I couldn't make a good deal on an S/R so I just hung on to my 99 ZX2. All the yellow ones I found had sun roof. Found black S/Rs without it, but didn't want to keep black clean (current Z is green and that's bad enough).


Are you saying your S/R has no trunk release? My '99 ZX2 has yellow trunk release switch (button) left of steering wheel down low....have you looked down there?

#406 of 1555 Trunk release by rrhoe

Sep 11, 2000 (1:53 am)

WOW..... such a deal, guess it would have helped to read the owner's manual. Yep, I got a trunk release.. thanks for the info. By the way, had to do some food shopping today (single guy) and it took about an hour's worth of driving to get to the store. (the store is down the street from my townhouse!)Also looked for wheel locks.. took the lug wrench from the trunk to take one lugnut into parts store. Could NOT NOT NOT remove any one of them. Back to the dealer tomorrow tomorrow to drop off check for last part of payment.. and will insist on having them re-tightened for normal person's ability to remove! Had three teenagers asking about what S/R means when I got home. AHHHHHH... second childhood (or midlife crisis) is grand! By the way.. i'm 5'8" tall and not heavy so the sunroof works out ok. Also made my first personal CD... so I have 74 minutes worth of my favorite songs ready for my next ride.
AHHHHH.... the trials & tribulations of life with a ZX2!

#407 of 1555 I had a good long look at a Yellow one by photog0264

Sep 11, 2000 (7:57 am)

On Sunday I had a Coupon for a free super deluxe car wash. You know the ones where they actually spend the time to polish the car by hand? (and yes there are still one or two of those around). While I was waiting for my ZX2 I wondered over to used car lot owned by bank. The Cars in this lot are recent reposesions from around the country. At any rate on this lot was a magnificent Zinc Yellow ZX2 S/R in pristine condition. IT only had 1200 miles on it. Normally I don't go for Yellow cars (memories of 20 years ago and My 1st. car a yellow Datsun B210 Honey Bee I guess) but damn it all did this car look good. If memory serves a couple months back I made fun of yellow ZX2s; I take it all back now. This car really did look sharp all polished up. Now I can see why Ralex had the love lust in his words when he saw a yellow one for the first time. I was so smitten by it, iF I could have afforded it I would of layed down $13,000 on the spot, without even trying to haggle!!! As it is I will have to make do with just some photographs. Which I will be posting when I get the images back from the lab on Tuesday. In a couple years if I can scrap together some money for a second car I WILL BE LOOKING for a ZINC Yellow ZX2 S/R. DAMN DAMN Why couldn't I have found this car a month or two ago, when I was buying my second one. I didn't want the red S/R that I looked at because they are police magnets and seem to involved in a higher number of accidents. However a yellow one like the one I saw would have changed things real fast.


Happily, or unhappily depending upon how you look at it there is NO WAY I could afford three car loans right now (the first is for my Late Black ZX2 and second it the loan I had to take to make up the difference when I went for my replacement GREEN ZX2).


Curiously on this lot, they also had two tropic green ones (vintage 98 and 99 respectively) and third 99 in some really horrible looking Sand Colour. I am glad they stopped this colour, as the car really does make the car look tacky.

#408 of 1555 Buy a new one! by rrhoe

Sep 11, 2000 (11:05 pm)

Don't know what state you're in but I bought mine for invoice + 1500 cash back...$13,389. It had the sunroof & premium stero with trunk mounted 6 disc changer. Didn't want either but couldn't find one without it. I have the #$#%^&^ Red color.. cause the only other choice I had was black. There is also $1500 cash back from Ford on a 2000 model... soooo why if you get tempted... and God help you if you drive the S/R model would you not consider a new one???? Seems lots of folks who have posted here about the S/R model paid invoice also. Tempting ain't it???? By the way... there will be a 2001 model... and wonder if there will be an S/R included. OH for 10/15 more horsepower... what a dream!

#409 of 1555 by ralex2

Sep 12, 2000 (1:24 am)

No more S/Rs. the 2000 or so produced for the year 2000 were it. ZX2's in 2001 but no S/Rs. I think Ford is so screwed up on their small cars. Why don't they bring the Puma over here???? Why aren't all ZX2s S/Rs? What's the point? They must thrive on bad PR.

#410 of 1555 Nope I will stay with the new Green one.. by photog0264

Sep 12, 2000 (5:51 am)

rrhoe,
I am going to stay with my Tropic Green ZX2 I have had enough new car fun for one year. My first ZX2, a black one, was involved in two accidents only a month apart. The second one totaled the car, and made me a believer in the ZX2 for life (The accident almost took my life is why). I won't bore our regular topic members with a rehash of my bad luck (I try to be compassionate where I can). However if you do a scroll back through this forum to the very beginning, and enter the first and now frozen ZX2 topic you can see my history.


My current ZX2 is a tropic green one, and still after almost two months and has less than 2000 miles on it. My first Black ZX2 had almost made it to 5000 miles before she was killed.


Much as Loved that Zinc Yellow ZX2 s/r there is no earthly way I can afford to pay for it. Though technicaly used it was for the most part brand new. Damn though she was nice looking, if only this and if only that... I think I need to buy a Virginia Lottery ticket tomorrow.


Ralex is quite correct, apart from a VERY SMALL number ZX2 S/Rs which will be reserved for special customers. The S/R has been dropped from the 2001 line up. Rumours abound that the ZX2 may not even finnish it's 2001 year run. IT is my understanding that they are pretty much using up parts for the 2001 year run.

#411 of 1555 Hate to say it but... by freddy_k

Sep 12, 2000 (3:40 pm)

The ZX2 is, as far as I am concerned, dead in the water. I think it is a bad idea to buy one if you want any sort of resale value at all. In my opinion, a short run like this on a compact car will generally result in a lack of demand for the used cars, and they will have to be practically given away. I hate to say it, but I firmly believe it.

#412 of 1555 To Freddy K by rrhoe

Sep 12, 2000 (4:47 pm)

While true that the resale value of the car will be minimal... the fact that Ford made so few of them will help somewhat. Remember the Dodge Omni GLH model from a few years ago? Also the Colt turbo. They had very little resale value on a trade in... but if you ever tried to buy one advertized in the want ads.. they were pretty high priced. I know because tried to buy a GLH 3 different times. The price was way up there, looked at 2 of the 3 and both were sold by the time I got to see them. In both cases the seller got what he asked. In any event, I plan to drive mine for a long time... and i'm sure someone will offer headers and other mods to push horsepower up a little. The handling is already first rate (my opinion)and the car has a nice style to it/decent gas mileage and a blast to drive! Too bad someone from Ford never checked out the responses here to see just how much interest there is in this car! The number of posts here must be some kind of record. By the way, I wonder if they sold all 2000 models of the S/R???? Never heard of them being advertized anywhere. The only thing I remember being written about them was a one page article in Motor Trend or Car & Driver about 6 or 8 months ago. Never saw one advertized in the car section of the Houston newspaper which I read every day to keep up with cars. One last thought... wonder how the S/R would stack up against the Sentra SE-R? I had a 97 model which rode a little smoother, but I think the S/R handles better. Seems the 0-60 time for the SE-R was 7.8 (per old article in some car mag.) What we need for the S/R is a front strut tower brace/some decent headers/a little better intake system (i'm already working on this)and lots of mid-life crisis. Everybody have a damm good day!

#413 of 1555 One little bit of positive thought by photog0264

Sep 12, 2000 (8:16 pm)

If you are not bothered about the resale value and want just a damned good little performance car. I maybe be possible to pick one up cheap sometime mid-next year. I do know I will be looking at a second car sometime next year. Assuming my wallet supports it may even look at a second Automatic ZX2. To act as a back for my manual one.

Messages Page 42 of 157

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