A Lot of Bang for the Buck!

I've owned my Sable for 3 years and 60k miles, and I absolutely love it. It's rock solid and dependable. I had just previously test driven an Altima before driving this car, and the difference was just incredible. The Sable was not as noisy, had almost no cabin vibration from the road or from the engine, and accelerated quickly, especially with the 24v V6 engine. The only problem I have with the car is the automatic transmission upshifts when you don't expect it to and slowly--especially when accelerating hard; however, downshifting was pretty responsive. I've read other reviews (maybe not here) that said they put it in a performance shifting computer chip that fixed that problem, but I think that might adversely affect the longevity of the transmission. Gas mileage is great--I usually get around 27 on the hiway, 24 around town. I've owned a couple different Fords before, a Taurus and a Probe with V6 engines each, and they used to leak oil. Ford solved that problem with this baby! I dislike the narrow trunk opening, but the rear seats fold down for plenty of space length-wise. I also don't like the armrest, which sits upward at an angle, offers two different-sized cup holders, and gets in the way of the ash tray for accessing the first cigarette lighter (I don't smoke but sometimes I need to use both cigarette lighters for accessories for the kids). The second one is located on the passenger side under the dash. The seats are very roomy and comfortable, and the center console flips down for a sixth seat.

Problems:
Low beams stopped working -- The multi-function wand on the steering column had to be replaced, which cost about $240 at the dealership. I tried replacing the fuses, relays, and headlamp switch on the dash before giving up and going to the dealership to figure out this one.

Door-closed sensor malfunction -- Assumed it was a sticking sensor, so I sprayed WD40 inside the door that I thought had the problem and it went away!

Whinning noise from tires -- turned out the ball bearings cartridge had to be replaced in one wheel, costing me around $250 at CarX.