rev up your engines
today I'm gonna talk about a car that was the sales flop they only made it
from 2005 to 2007 the Ford 500 but they weren't actually that bad of a car and
this one's even more of a rare one it's an all-wheel drive job very handy
in Wisconsin now the Ford 500 was meant to be the replacement of the Ford Taurus
the 500 name coming from their Galaxie 500 line they took the 500 number and it
had a lot of Volvo technology and the suspension system because back when they
made these for it on Louisville and they put some good ride into these vehicles
they're excellent riding vehicles my neighbor next door right here had one he
loved it now they did have their shortcomings mainly under the hood the
other rather small v6 engine I'm in this particular case it's not only all-wheel
drive but it has a CVT transmission constantly variable transmissions so was
pretty much a dog when it came to full-blown acceleration now back in the
day I drove the five hundreds that had the six-speed automatic transmission and
they were actually pretty quick vehicles but the 6-speed automatic transmission
was a much weaker one than the CVT transmission I saw them go out as early
as thirty thousand miles my neighbor next door had the CVT version he never
had a transmission problem and I didn't see any my customers have problems with
them either they are slower there's no arguing that it's not a race car with
the CVT transmission and especially with all-wheel-drive but take this example
cost them or bought it a year ago for $3,000 in Wisconsin a lot of snow in
Wisconsin I've never been there in a winter but I bet in a summer and I asked
him what all those big poles up in the air with red on top and they said
that's so the snow plows can see the road when they plow it up and those
things were like 12 feet up in the air so snows a lot there he said it really
worked good in the snow and this one's still purring along they can be a great
knock around car these days because even though these things are a foot shorter
than the big old crown vics they actually have more room inside front to
back than the Crown Vic does just check out the trunk
ah they're massive they just go on and on into the darkness air now with a
Volvo Drive suspension and airbag systems all those are always safe
vehicles these are nice riding cars and extremely
safe not just the size of the vehicle but it's got all that Volvo airbag
technology behind it like I said the engines know speed demon but it's a
tried and trued v6 with timing chain not timing belt engines that can last a long
time as long as you change the oil and don't over eat them and this one might
be 15 years old it still got great a/c a lot of volume and a lot of cold air
it's a nice looking cab and got some wood trim comfy seats and real easy to
drive I'd sure it's not a race car it's also
not a real economical car well go on the highway now this thing only gets about
20 miles a gallon in the city my neighbor who drives slower admittedly he
was getting 35 miles a gallon on the highway with the CVT transmission you
lose the acceleration power but man you can get a lot better gas mileage of one
and as I said earlier strangely enough the CVT in these things is actually the
more dependable transmission the six-speed automatic broke down a lot
there and a lot of problems but the CVT s were actually better built
transmission even though they have less acceleration hey if you get a car
this big and you can get thirty five miles a gallon on a highway it's pretty
good but even all this one's about 15 years old parts are readily available it's
a ford I have no problems I'm doing a brake job on this one took me five
seconds to find the brake pads drove down the street took a minute to get
them they're still easy to get parts for you want any problems when it comes to
having to fix them so the $3,000 my customer paid for this hey I thought I
got a pretty good deal it's a decent car he does HVAC work he's always driving
around fixing air conditioning puts the tools in the trunk you saw the
room in that trunk it's a decent work car really I'm sure it's a grandpa
looking car to some extent but great for $3,000 hey you got a good deal on this
car it's got front and rear disc brakes main I kind of wondered why they stopped
making them but since the six-speed Automatic had so many problems that gave
people a lot of sour grapes most of the customers mind about theis got the
six-speed Automatic that broke all the time the ones that got the CVT that
wanted good gas mileage and drove slow they loved them I did have some customers
at bottom with CVT and they hated them they said that thing is so slow won't
get out of its own way they didn't like the vehicle at all so the combination of
those two thinks it's probably pretty much what led to the death knell of them
in 2007 which was the last year that they built them but if you can find one
of these all-wheel-drive versions with the CVT and you live up north and the
snow scar came from Wisconsin there's no rust on it they rust proof cars a lot
better than they used to seal them so they don't rust to spend most of it's
life in Wisconsin it just came down here doesn't have any appreciable rust on it
at all so now you know a little bit more about the Ford 500 know why hey you
might take a chance with a good used one that's a nice shape like this for a few
thousand dollars you might get a great beater car, so if you never want to miss
another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell