Ford Windstar Mini-van - Reliability???

Any opinions on the reliability of a 1999 Windstar?
There's one for sale near me that is in pristine condition in terms of
the body and the owner claims to have replaced the transmission.
There's about 112,000 miles on it and the price is right.

However, when I read online reviews about it in terms of blowing
engine head gaskets and repeated transmission failures, it seems like
a poor bet.

Doug

"Doug" wrote in message

>
> Any opinions on the reliability of a 1999 Windstar?
> There's one for sale near me that is in pristine condition in terms
> of
> the body and the owner claims to have replaced the transmission.
> There's about 112,000 miles on it and the price is right.
>
> However, when I read online reviews about it in terms of blowing
> engine head gaskets and repeated transmission failures, it seems
> like
> a poor bet.
>
> Doug

Which engine? The 3.0L has less power, but also fewer problems. I had
friends who owned one and never had a problem. However, people
(including me) kept asking them if they had problems. Finally all the
questions caused them to worry that it was going to fail (and it had
over 100k miles) so they sold it and got a new Odyssey - which
promptly had the transmission fail. Meanwhile the Windstar kept
going....

Personally, I would not get one, especially one that had the
transmission replaced, unless it was a really really good deal. It is
not just that they are alleged to have problems, it is also my belief
that once you have mechanics of unknown skill doing major work on
vehicles, the repair bills often spiral out of control. Shoddy repairs
often lead to more shoddy repairs.

Ed