I look at it as being freed from the damn Ford (and not having to figure out how to get rid of it), to get into a Honda or Mazda (which is what I wanted in the first place), which is substantially more dependable and reliable. With the amount of driving she does, she needs something like that. There was no way I was going to put a single dime (nor allow her to) into that Ford. I'd just call the purchase a complete loss and not throw further money after it. The original intention was to get her a "good enough for now" vehicle - until she handed it off to one of her kids in 2 years and got something better. We just realized we should have gotten something better in the first place.
I knew better - I've owned a Ford before - but we were tired of driving around town looking at cars, and we both just wanted to be done with car shopping, and made a very poor decision.
Jysin
They knocked a few grand off and added a maintenance package. Everything I've read says you'd expect to pay between 22-23k for the 2.5L automatic, and we paid less, so I'm happy.