[speeder]

This is funny. I actually owned a '99 Taurus wagon for a year about 3 years ago and it was a great car for what it was. I paid $1700 for it with a bad PS pump, it had the regular 3.0 OHV V-6. It never gave me any grief and drove fine for an "appliance car". Tons of cargo room w/ rear seat folded down. Cops, thieves and everyone else completely ignores you in that car, that's one of my measures of a great DD.

Many, many cars have the spare upside-down w/ a tool tray in the offset (inner) part of rim. Being able to check the air pressure in the spare while it's stored is simply not a design consideration. 99.999% of vehicle owners never check the psi. in the spare. I never do. Don't get me wrong, it's a smart thing to do but most will never do it. The design consideration is how to pack the tool kit and the jack with the spare while taking up the least amount of trunk/cargo room, that's pretty much it.

Plugs and oil changes were no problem on mine and it definitely had an oil drain plug. these cars are so cheap on the used market that they are practically free. They sold zillions of them, they're a dime a dozen. I would not hesitate to buy another wagon for pennies if I needed a plain old car.