What kills the Cougar?

The cheapest I can find rear lower wishbones for the black Jag is £495 each! It's double wishbone front and rear... gulp. The lower rears are the most expensive but they're all more expensive than the Cougar ones.

The X-Type shares some Mondeo estate rear suspension parts but the fronts are bespoke to the X-type, and they're pricey. The Rover 620ti is also a double wishbone set-up and the front uppers are almost £200 each.

The MX-5 I'm looking after for my dad is also double wishbone front and rear and the prices for that are closer to Jag prices than Cougar prices. Actually most parts for the MX-5 have prices that would make your eyes water, but that's generally the case with Japanese cars.

The bushes on the Cougar would be available if it were viable to fit them, but the geometry would be a total PITA to press in/out in a DIY or garage environment. Definately a case of "best left to the factory tooling". Also, the labour to change them if you need a garage is usually a couple of hundred quid, because the front subframe needs to be lowered a tad. Can you imagine what the labour would be if you still had to do all that, but then fart about for ages trying to swap the bushes over? Far better to just toss the old wishbone in the skip and slot a new one straight in.

These really aren't expensive cars to run given the size and performance. Even the petrol and insurance on the V6 is pretty reasonable, the Zetec very reasonable. Unless you're driving starship milages for work, most folk will manage on a tank a week. The servicing costs are cheap, the parts range from fairly cheap to very cheap, and if it's not cheap enough then there are plenty donor cars using the same bits to provide 2nd hand items.

The best Cougar first aid kit you can get comes from Halfords in a handy carry case. If you can beat a 2 year old at building something from Lego you can learn to zero your labour costs on a Cougar. As far as cars go, the Cougar really is a dawdle to work on. Even the V6 which looks really busy under the bonnet is actually pretty well thought out, and you can get to most of what you need with no temporary removals. The clutch mentioned above is pricey in a garage because of the amount of time it takes, but it's still entirely DIYable. Nothing about it is difficult or requires any particular skill; it's simply because a few chunky bits need to be unbolted to make way that the labour bill adds up.
 
Lmao no worries mate whatever anyone says they are cougar specific and bushes cannot be replaced so it is a full wishbone change when it needs doing not a hard job tho half hour a side me and bro can do it in and most of that is trying to get the jack under my car lol.

Well I've got that to look forward to at some time... but in your case I'm guessing you suffered "lowered and skirted car" syndrome? I had to buy a low level jack for one of my old DTM-style cars, and even then it needed to be driven onto decking boards first. NEVER AGAIN. Until someone has seen 3 feet of shredding decking board fly out from under their car, they don't know what it means experience the inconvenience of owning a really lowered motor.




The cheapest I can find rear lower wishbones for the black Jag is £495 each! It's double wishbone front and rear... gulp. The lower rears are the most expensive but they're all more expensive than the Cougar ones.

Jesus wept. Or he would have done if he'd had an X-Type.

The best Cougar first aid kit you can get comes from Halfords in a handy carry case. If you can beat a 2 year old at building something from Lego you can learn to zero your labour costs on a Cougar. As far as cars go, the Cougar really is a dawdle to work on. Even the V6 which looks really busy under the bonnet is actually pretty well thought out, and you can get to most of what you need with no temporary removals. The clutch mentioned above is pricey in a garage because of the amount of time it takes, but it's still entirely DIYable. Nothing about it is difficult or requires any particular skill; it's simply because a few chunky bits need to be unbolted to make way that the labour bill adds up.

Nice post - thank you.
 
Jesus wept. Or he would have done if he'd had an X-Type.

Those wishbones are actually for the S-Type, which shares them with both the XJ and XK. I hate to think what they'd cost if they were S-Type specific... They're big cast alloy things rather than steel pressings. I take you're point though... fingers crossed I never need to replace those.
 
*Looks at your sig-block*

*Re-reads your post*

Apologies - reading comprehension fail on my part. Good luck with servicing that E-Type that you want though! That's going to involve a man with a foundry and a very skilled hammer arm.
 
My pockets aren't deep enough to buy any E-Type at present - but it's an ambition to have a 4.2 Series 1. Unfortunately that's also the ambition of most people who want an E-Type, and I suspect the values will increase faster than my wealth ever does... poo
 
Thanks to all who replied to my post. Off now to check the wishbones, Oh and whoever said there's not much room under the bonnet - dead right - I can see bloody knuckles coming.
Very active forum - this is why I've never seen a Cougar - you're all on here!
 
What kills Cougars? The owners usually.

For some reason some people aren't very good at primary school level economics, and think that spending a couple of hundred quid at a car worth a few hundred quid is folly, so they scrap their car and spend an equal or greater sum on a replacement car, which 6 months later needs a couple of hundred quid spent, so they scrap it and buy another etc etc.

They wonder why they're always skint!

In all seriousness though, other than killing engines due to total neglect, wishbone bushes don't last forever. The bushes are only available attached to a new wishbone (which makes fitting cheaper and easier, and is good because the balljoints don't last forever either). The wishbones are actually really cheap compared to most cars with the sort of looks and performance the Cougar has, but because many owners are coming from Fiesta sort of class of cars they are appalled at the price. You tend to observe that some people carry MOT Advisories year in year out, only replacing what they are legally forced to. Suddenly a more exacting tester fails the car on a catalogue of faults which are the accumulation of 12 years of wear and neglect, so the car gets scrapped.

Sad really, given how rare the car is.

Tonights rant brought to you by the letters J A and G and the number 2 :p
 
Thanks to all who replied to my post.

Lovely people here, don't you think? I reckon if we stay here long enough we'll start getting beaten up though. ;)


Off now to check the wishbones, Oh and whoever said there's not much room under the bonnet - dead right - I can see bloody knuckles coming.

I dunno if it's a common saying, but we used to say about the Mondy that if you threw a handful of nuts into the engine bay, not one would pass through and hit the ground.

We also used to say about Rovers that if you didn't give the proper blood sacrifice, the car wouldn't go.
 
The problem is more likely to be that if you stay too long you'll forget to leave again; even years after selling the car...

From what I've seen here - and I could be wrong - I suspect that the relatively small number of Cougars, the subsequently smaller community, and the "We're all in it together" attitude probably helps. I'll not directly fluff the egos of those who have been so friendly to me personally though. :p
 
I think you will find this forum and club is unlike others.. as we have been told many times ;)

We attend each others parties, weddings, gate crash peoples houses when they break a car to fix it, transport bits of cougars around the country for each other.. The list goes on and on.. If you want to see some of it in action you will have to see if your free to come to scunny's house for a rip apart session
 
I think you will find this forum and club is unlike others.. as we have been told many times ;)

We attend each others parties, weddings, gate crash peoples houses when they break a car to fix it, transport bits of cougars around the country for each other.. The list goes on and on.. If you want to see some of it in action you will have to see if your free to come to scunny's house for a rip apart session

Very true always seems to be fun when any of us (the club as a whole) get together whether it os a fix it meet/BBQ/wedding etc.

JJ
 
Yup that sounds about right camaradery is brilliant. Cougarforce is a well oiled machine. Lets not forget the shows, all add up to one brilliant club.
 
Aww I'm welling up :-/ man up fools we ain't women for crying out loud.


















It is great though isn't it :)

JJ