No matter the car you buy, unless new, require that it can be taken to a mechanic YOU trust to be inspected BEFORE you purchase. If you don't... well, you'd better be THE mechanic for your car.

I believe there are mechanics who do exactly this (inspect cars, pre-sales)... as well as being generic mechanics. They usually charge a small fee for it, but it's a good investment.

A good mechanic, will, in fact, report to the insurance agency what they are required to report, and will tell you that they can actually do the repairs for less... what they will do, to be correct, is to actually do MORE repairs than required. In my case, my car was totaled by thieves, for having the ball joints destroyed, among other things. I could've purchased the 'heap' back from the insurance agency, he would've fixed it for something like 10% less than the quoted total to fix it.

It may not be the make or model... food for thought.

Ford= found on the road dead.
That switch could have been bot on line for around $50. & replaced in 20 mins by a semi mechanical person.
Just another example of the good old American greed.
The worst thing about those bastards is that they never think twice about ripping off the less fortunate.

Moved to Astoria 18 years ago. The first thing I had to do was find a mechanic. I asked thre people I worked with and they told me the name of a man. They said he is busy, expensive, and takes time to get in, but he is honest. I found him to be busy, expensive, and honest. As to expensive that was false as he charged what it took to do the work right the first time, no other work needed to be done, everything worked great. The only mechanic I will use.

If possible,get a Toyota or Honda vehicle next time,I'm suspicious of American made vehicles,your Ford may have been made on a Friday or Monday.Quality slips(I hear),then.

Sorry to hear about your vehicle troubles and having to deal with assholes. I can relate. Every time I take my car to get a tune up, something breaks or needs to be replace a few days later. Recently it was my car battery after taking my car to get the oil changed 3 days before.

One time I asked them to look at my driver side door because the window on that side wouldn't roll up. After they checked it out, the passenger side door window didn't work. Turns out they unplugged wires inside both car doors and the only thing that needed to be replaced was the driver side door switch that rolls up/down your window. It had gotten locked in the "automatic down" position. Luckily I found this out on my own and didn't pay them one cent.

It may not be the vehicle, the shop could just be ripping you off by inflating the cost of the initial problem,. So far as the oil leak goes; if you see no oil stains on your driveway, or your low oil light isn't lit, I'd tell them not to touch it. You can also just pull the dipstick and check your level every day for a week to see if there's any loss.

Hope you didn't take it to the dealer to repair it.

[repairpal.com]
Seems like the cost might be on target - but he lied to you. Or didn't mention something awfully important there.

It's also suddenly leaking oil? This sounds like shenanigans.

I'd want to speak to the manager of the business. (presuming it's not the manager) - He may be pulling cons behind the owner's back.