I've heard similar stories about probes. I guess they are really expensive to repair, but the one I test drove(GT) was pretty quick and fun, tho.
If you can find a first gen Taurus SHO, those are pretty good cars. They can get expensive too, but they seem pretty reliable. My cousin had over 170K on his and it still ran good....The suspension was wore out and there was a problem with the shifter linkage, but those kind of problems can be expected at that mileage. He ran a 10.2 in the 1/8 with it bone stock with around 140K at the time.