Looking at a car, need advice

I'm looking at a car for my son. Don't know much on this model. It's a 98 Escort, 2.0,16 valve engine,auto,
123,xxx miles on it. Seller say's it's mostly highway miles, gets 38 mpg, trans shifts well, runs great, yada, yada, yada. So do any of you guys know much on this particular car? Pro's and con? Stay away? Let me know. Thanks in advance .

i got a couple of friends with them seam to hold up well one over 200,000 its a 98 the other 99 one has around 160,000 never had a problem with the running gear.but the struts on the front are weak and didn't last long but thats the only thing he said he has had problems with on the 98.99 belongs to a guy at church and said he has never had a problem with it funny thing about this we were talking about it after church last sunday my other friend came to church sunday and both car are black and thay were parked beside each other and got to talking about what kind of service they had with them maybe this will help you.

I took it for a test drive. Seems to run out good and shift good. Overall condition is pretty good. No gauges to tell oil pressure or temp. Temp gauge is one of the needle types and stayed in the middle range. I noticed that the struts appeared to be worn cause when you hit a bump it just seemed a little rougher than usual.

Anyone else to offer a word on this? C'mon you Ford techs, tell me like it is on these cars .Kind of wondering if the strut mounts are something that tends to go out frequently on these.

I've worked on a few of them in the garage for tunups, brakes, etc. They seem to all have lots of miles and holding up great. My soninlaw has a 98 escort w/320k and he keeps waiting for it to quit so he can get a newer car

Check motor mounts.After they get about 120,000 on them I start selling mounts for them.Other than that they are like the Focus,they are pretty dam low maintaince cars.I have a 03 Focuswith 180,000 on it and it runs like scalded ape on nitrous........well the damn thing runs good.

Well...... looks like I'm buying it. He wanted $1800 for it and I made an him offer of $1430 he accepted it and I gave a $130 deposit. He is to put a head light bezel in it cause the glass was broken. The car is in decent shape and drives out good, ain't rusted so hopefully I won't get stung too bad.