I don't think I ever mentioned what happened to my old 94 Cougar after I got rid of it. The current conversation is relevant, so...
I decided to get rid of it in 2014 because it was starting to get too rusty for my level of comfort. I maintained it meticulously and it ran like a champ, but I knew I needed to move on.
When I got my 96 Mark VIII, instead of junking the Cougar I decided to give it to my mom. At the time she was starting to have reliability problems with her primary vehicle (an 02 Explorer that constantly had wheel bearing and transmission issues until I convinced her to junk it a few years ago due to not moving in years). I wasn't comfortable with the progression of rust in the Cougar for myself, but with my mom never taking the car on highways both my parents and I were comfortable with her using it for in-town trips until a more permanent solution could be had.
Anyway, the Cougar went to my mom. She was driving it for a few months and all was well until one day, she got distracted and rear-ended someone with it pretty hard during a traffic short-stop situation. The air bags went off. The force of the air bag going off ripped open the steering wheel airbag cover with tremendous force and it caught her right forearm, which was (right above it due to trying to turn the car off the road to avoid a collision at the time) hit pretty hard, and it messed it up pretty badly (lacerated skin due to protruding bones, anyone?).
My mom has a nasty habit of not wearing her seat belt (she's diabetic and with her size, she's "uncomfortable" wearing them
![roll eyes :roll: :roll:](/data/assets/smilies/vb2_rolleyes.gif)
), so the air bag going off was probably lifesaving, despite the complications.
She was in a cast and a sling for a while, and there's some fancy scarring on her forearm now but everything healed well. But she walked away.