1989 Ford Taurus SHO 3.0 DOHC from North America
Summary:
Would not buy another if my life depended on it
Faults:
Clutch went out at a stop light.
At the same stop light the shifter cables broke, so it's stuck in neutral.
Main valve cover gaskets blew at 107000 miles.
Replaced the starter.
When replacing the radio, the dash lights went out.
Seats wear after time.
General Comments:
This car is an utter piece of crap. Yamaha did a good job on the engine. But Ford as they always do, put in a transmission that couldn't handle the torque. The tranny job to fix would have cost 1200 dollars, not including labor, you have to drop the whole front end in order to get the tranny out.
Valve gaskets would have cost around 200 dollars.
Every 60,000 miles you have to do a tune-up that costs around 800 dollars not including labor.
Has a very bad oversteer problem.
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? No
Review Date: 12th January, 2002
30th Jan 2004, 08:31
For one, the radio/dash light thing had to be something done to the car third party, NOT something that just "happened" because you replaced the radio. Second of all, any tune-up done that costs 800 bucks is a hoax, or you just have wrong information there. A tune up can cost 200 bucks AT BEST, and if you do one yourself on one of these fine autos, it'll cost around 50. I don't know where you have received your information, but you might want to double check that before you go posting it on the web. As another side note, most of these cars (Tauruses or any other used car) bought used are BEATEN to death. People abuse cars... I have been a college campus mechanic for two years, and some of the things I have seen shock me! I have to rebuild the whole top end of a Firebird because a guy let it overheat... does that mean that Firebirds are all inherently bad? No. And as a last comment, ALL seats wear after time. I haven't seen a car 10 years old YET that doesn't have some seat wear. Your comments should be viewed by others with a grain of salt. Tauruses are overall wonderful cars, and the positive reviews far outweigh the legitimate negative ones.