When our 1999 Expedition hit 115,000+ miles, we went shopping for a replacement. That was in July, and we drove a pretty red Explorer home.

The first day we had it, maybe we should have suspected something wasn’t right. Our dog, Beau, peed on the back leather seat as soon as we put him inside to come home from the vet’s office. Needless to say, we did everything possible to make sure it was cleaned up and deodorized.

About ten days ago, a light started appearing each time we turned on the ignition that said “oil check required.” Since we only had about 2000 miles on it, Terry said to just ignore the message and hit the “reset” button. Then a few days ago, a different message appeared — “oil change required.” Terry looked at the oil, and it was a bit low, and it was a very dark color — too dark for a car with only 2700 miles on it. So, he called the service department of our Ford dealership and was told to bring it in today. The service guy also said that they had been having trouble with the transmission of these cars and would like for us to plan to leave it a few days.

So, do we have a “lemon?” Actually, it is more like an “apple” red!