Faults:

Alternator replacement at 88,000 miles.

Nothing else besides regular maintenance, like brakes.

General Comments:

I bought this car as my second car in 2002. I had heard from family members that the Ford Taurus were very good cars. I bought one, and I am extremely pleased.

I have the SE sedan with red on a tan leather interior. The interior is really high quality and roomy, and the seats are really comfortable.

I am pleased with my fuel mileage as well, about 24/30.

The ride comfort is decent in this car as well, it's not like a Cadillac, but it's pretty decent.

Reliability has never been much of an issue, I think the alternator failed a little too young, but oh well. It now has 123,000 miles and no other major issues so far.

In conclusion, this is a very good car.

Faults:

Heater core had to be blown out.

Constant stalling; mechanic has not identified where the problem is, he put a monitor on so I could drive around until it stalled, which I did. It did stall and he downloaded the data, but no anomalies were detected.

This problem has been going on since I bought the car from an in-law. We decided to speculate and tried a crankshaft sensor, but that did not work. Car has low mileage; less than 70000.

Just hoping someone who had the same problem with this year and model came up with a solution?

General Comments:

I like the Taurus; I just find it frightening when driving 70MPH down Garden State Pkwy NJ and everything just stops, like someone just turned off a switch.

Faults:

The rack and pinion steering box had to be replaced at 80,000 miles. $1,000 repair. I was told it was common and difficult problem for which the Taurus is notorious.

Windshield wipers turn themselves on randomly, often when left turn signal is activated. Bothersome, but I have lived with it for over four years.

Gas tank is difficult to fill. A filler hose collapsed or the carbon canister is bad. It's easier to fill at 10,000 feet when the car is in the mountains. Living with the problem for now rather than pay the dealer to guess and replace, guess and replace, repeat.

Plastic headlight covers become sand blasted and diffuse light and are expensive to replace.

General Comments:

Seems like good car for the money, and has been fairly reliable. But a Toyota Camry is more reliable, roomy, fuel efficient and sportier to drive. Trunk is smaller because it is rounded in back rather than square. I bought the Taurus because it cost only half as much as a comparably used Camry.

Faults:

Power steering pump --- replaced myself for $80.

Rack and pinion --- replaced myself (FYI pretty hard) $175.

Both of these problems went out at 160,000 miles... I don't know if the pump was bad, but the power steering went out and it was leaking from the rack, so I replaced the whole system.

A new starter and plug wires... (should've done myself)

I must confess we don't take care of the car very well at all... I drive it real hard, rare oil changes, never any check ups or tune ups..

General Comments:

Car was previously owned as a company vehicle for nation wide.

I find it fun to drive.. it's very quick off the get go, but if you floor it, it takes a little too long for the transmission to shift for my liking.

Interior is high quality and the car is great.

Good car... great car considering how bad I treat the thing. :)