>Actually, my wife owns a Sable ('96) and she loves it. It's been a great car except for one issue that happened a week or so ago. Bad power steering gear. Her dad is a mechanic so it was only about 300 whereas the dealership wanted 1,000!!

That's a lot for a steering gear! Actually, the more I think about it, Mercury only really got bad during the 80's, when Ford decided to use Ford parts for the interiors instead of the plush Mercury parts as a moneysaver.