Yes, they did, and you got lucky.
But the fact remains that an absurd number of Contour/Mystique had warranty repairs before they were ever sold. My friend went to buy one new and when he pulled on the glove box to open it, the entire dash fell off. That's just one of many examples.
The design was great. The execution by the UAW was abominable.
The base GL variant of this Ford model was purchased by tons of fleets and rental car companies...folks who are sincerely interested in NOT having breakdowns because that is money out of their bottomline. This midsized vehicle doesn't strike me as any better or any worse than similarly-priced vehicles...with the exception of the Honda Accord which seems without peer in terms of reliability.
My feeling on the "nail in the coffin" for this vehicle was the absolutely miniscule rear accommodations and the extremely loud cabin. The driver and passenger can't speak in a normal tone due to the booming road noise and rear passengers are left completely out of the conversation. Had the Ford engineers addressed those easily-handled shortcomings they would have had a runaway success in consideration of the vehicle pricepoint.
~ Blue Jays ~