1996 Ford Taurus GL Vulcan V6 3.0L Flex Fuel
Summary:
I am upset with Ford
Faults:
Besides regular oil changes and maintenance.
First 5,000 miles were fine...
5,700 miles: Transmission started slipping, so I took it right back to the dealership and they said they would fix the transmission, because it was covered in the warranty.
6,500 miles: Engine overheated for no reason. Dealership said there was nothing wrong with it. After the engine overheated, I started hearing a whining noise coming from the engine above 2,300RPMS.
I then drove the car less because I was upset that this car was far from reliable, plus I could not trust it to go anywhere.
In 1998 at 13,335 miles: I took this car on a 50 mile trip and the car died when I was cruising at 65 MPH on the freeway. Fuel pump went out. ($250 fix)
At 25,000 miles transmission went out again. (Dealership actually agreed to fix it again due to the fact in went out at ONLY 5,700 MILES!
After all that I was driving the car home from work and the engine threw a rod. ONLY AT 33,559 miles!!! (DEALER refused to fix it cause it was past warranty!)
General Comments:
I thought I was getting a very good deal on this car because it was brand new, I thought maintaining would make it last but I was wrong! 2 transmissions in 33,000 miles!!! Come on FORD. I had a Ford Escort GT before this car and it is still running good. I gave it to my son because the 1987 Celica GT that I was going to give him has over 300,000 on the original engine and transmission. But the Escort GT only has like 140,000 and still runs strong.
The Taurus was also very comfortable, got to cruising speeds good when the transmission was fine. But it is far from reliable. Ford should have put a Mazda engine into this one like the Escort GT, or made their cars reliable like Toyota. I've got an 87 Celica GT with over 300K and it still runs great. I trusted that car way more than I could trust the brand new Taurus LOL.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? No
Review Date: 9th October, 2008
12th Oct 2008, 07:56
Domestics does not provide longtime reliability? Are you serious. Every car my family has owned has easily made it over 100k miles without a major problem; and hardly any minor ones. My old 91 f-150 had 260k on the original engine and transmission when I sold it. Domestics are good, just take care of a vehicle and it will last a long time.
16th Oct 2008, 04:16
Domestic cars are reliable, but not all of them. There are vehicles to stay away from because of their extreme unreliability. The Taurus is one of these, because it has problems in expensive areas: the engine and the transmission. Not everything wrong with a car is fixable by a wrench, and inferior designs and materials are and have been used to build cars. Sometimes, even cars that are babied explode. These are the realities of life. You can diagnose some things on a car easily, but you won't catch bad wiring before it fizzles out. You can tell if an engine sensor is going from the rough idle and warning lights, but repairing the computer it's hooked up to is a job that very few car owners can or should do.
16th Oct 2008, 11:25
Every one of the dozen domestic vehicles in my family passed 200,000 miles with minimal repair. However, we had a lag in vehicles in which we jumped from the 1980's models to the late 1990's and early 2000's, so I don't know what happened in the 1990's. My parents currently have a 1997 Mercury Sable, similar to the Taurus. It currently has 180,000 miles on it with the 3.0 liter and has never needed repair, although it has had routine cooling system flushes, and fluid changes. After seeing what good luck they had with that vehicle, I bought my first Ford in 2006 and have been very happy.
10th Oct 2008, 01:24
A domestic vehicle is not designed to provide long-term reliability, and this shouldn't be expected when purchasing one. The majority of vehicles manufactured on these shores are unreliable. This also goes for Toyota, Nissan and Honda vehicles that are branded as foreign, but are in reality domestic.