The car is 18 years old. No manufacturer makes special parts available for any car that old. Ford is the worst at this. It's common to not be able to get parts for three-year-old cars.
You won't be able to get interior trim panels and headliner except from a salvage yard. For everything else, the aftermarket suppliers do a pretty good job and they often come up with solutions to shortcomings of original parts. The people at engine machine shops can get engine parts although this is not a mainstream car model so you can expect to pay a lot more for them. Steering and suspension parts will always be available through very-well-respected companies like Moog. A number of suppliers will make brake parts, and there are companies that specialize in rebuilding anti-lock brake hydraulic controllers. Plan on model-specific parts costing two or three times more than for regular cars but most of the time what you need is available somewhere. My daily driver is a 27-year-old Grand Caravan. I've never had a problem finding what I needed, but that was a very common vehicle. Everything comes from auto parts stores, not the dealerships. The advantage I have is Chrysler has very high parts interchangeability between many models and years. GM likes to make everything different, even for the same engine size from one year to the next. You often will have to find parts in a salvage yard from a car of the exact year, model, and options list. We used to joke that you needed to know the paint color to get the correct PCV valve!
May 6, 2015 at 6:13 PM
