I had a 1990 for several years and I still miss it. It was the short body, XLT, rear heat and AC, blue and silver, window van, four captain's chairs, with the 3.0 V6. It was a great road car, very comfortable for hauling the kids on long road trips, quiet and comfortable and roomy. I took many a road trip from Calif to Okla and back in that car. Actually it had a decent ride. Yeah it swayed all over the road like a drunk, but it ain't supposed to handle like a Mustang...
What a PITA to work on though under the hood. I refused to pay $140 to Ford for those stupid pre-molded three-way heater hoses so I built my own using elbows and tees, hose, and a bazillion hose clamps. Then I had to take it to a radiator shop to have them remove the htr hoses from the core using that 3' long special tool that releases the little clips on the hose ends because you can't get your hand back in there. Changing spark plugs? Holy sh*t. Then the (steel) Phillips screws holding the TPS seized in the (aluminum) manifold so after I broke an EZ-out in it, trying to get the screw out to change the TPS, I had to remove the manifold, have it cut, welded up and re-machined to get the &^%$ TPS screw out. Why couldn't Ford have used a dab of anti-seize on it? Then the alt blew. Then the radiator, water pump, and both heater cores went. Then the stereo went. At least it never ate a starter. Then the rack and pinion unit blew a seal. I sold it at 125k.
I hated to get rid of it but when the stupid A4LD blew at 105k I knew it was time. When I had it to the trans shop, there were three other Aerostars there also, all with blown A4LDs, and all at only 80 or 90k miles. The Aerostar was just too much weight for the poor A4LD. I knew that tranny was a ticking time bomb in that car so I got rid of it. I do think the heat in this area had something to do with the short life of those trannies. The guy said I actually got more out of mine than most people had.
Although mechanically it was mostly a POS and it was damn sure tough to work on, on the inside, the car was great. It had great fit and finish and the quality of the interior materials was very good. Yes it had a lot of plastic but it was thick and stout, MUCH much better in that regard than the POS GM vans from the same time period. My friend had an Astro and it put the S in POS, man. Horrible car.
Mechanically, I think the problem was that Ford rushed the concept to market during the 80's minivan wars. In the rush, I think they just took a bunch of drivetrain parts out of their parts bin and built a van around it. If it'd had a stronger trans that I wasn't going to have to rebuild every 50k, I'd have kept it.
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