3rd May 2003, 14:31

I have a 97 Ford Taurus and have had the brakes worked on several times. They still squeak. I'm no mechanic (retired schoolteacher) but seems to me brakes are a weak point in this automobile. Transmission went out last year: big money then. Another retired friend also has a 97 Ford Taurus and the transmission went out on her car too. On the other hand, my sister has a dinged up old Escort that just keeps on going. Our mechanic says that the Escort has fewer maintenance problems than the Taurus in his experience. The Taurus is a comfortable ride, but I won't buy another one.

11th May 2003, 17:04

The brake issues are interesting. My 2001 Ford Taurus SES has been in and out of the shop. At 16,000 miles I had the rotors replaced due to warping from a bad caliper. 9,000 miles later the same vibration in the steering wheel and they told me nothing was causing this except hard braking. My wife drives the car around town with the kids and is an extremely easy driver in regard to hard braking. Long and short, they blamed it on a booster cable so the job would be covered under warranty. I guess they felt bad about all the Saturday's I spend with them when I'm dropping my car off for more repairs.

21st Jun 2004, 17:12

I bought a 1999 Ford Taurus SE in September 199. At this time it has 62,000 miles on it, a large percentage of those miles are highway miles. I really like this car, with one exception. The brakes. For the past 3 years I have had to completely replace all 4 rotors, and of course the brake pads, even though there was very little wear on them, but they were worn unevenly due to being warped. Last June I also had a caliper replaced. There is no way possible that this is due to "hard braking". I am a professional driver, and have never had this problem before. I am also the only one who drives this car, and it is maintained religiously. I find it to be an extremely annoying glitch in an otherwise great car. I really wish Ford would come out with a fix for this, but I imagine it would be a very expensive admission. I was willing to accept it as just a problem with my vehicle, but it is interesting to find out that others have the same problem.

30th Jun 2004, 20:20

We thought we'd update to a newer car from the clunkers we had previously that were excellent dependable cars, but on the shabby appearance side. We checked around and the 99 Taurus was a great match for size and cost for us to purchase in 2001. It had 35K miles then and a 3-month warranty left. Before the warranty was over the tranny was shifting hard from 1st to 2nd or delaying. The dealer did a great job of servicing us with a rental and all. Taking the tranny all apart and putting it all back together again, finding no problem. I drove and showed the mechanic exactly what was happening and he said he understood, but didn’t know what to do about it. Ford said to forget calling them about this problem again because it was called an inherent problem. We immediately bought a warranty at $800 for 100K-mile life cycle on the web to protect us. We were beginning to think we were going to have a lemon problem.

Our thinking was right. The car has 65K and we’ve replaced the power steering pump, rack and pinion steering, and right front wheel bearing assembly. The warranty has paid for itself.

Currently the warranty has gone out. Remember the original inherent problem. Thank God we have the Ford e-mail for backup because the dealership didn’t put in writing that we would have an extended warranty on the tranny if we did have a problem. We will probably have to check out the warranty service we bought for ourselves to try to get this repaired.

When it is finally fixed we will still own a 6K lemon. Maybe getting a newer car is not the answer…I think I will go back to older Chevy’s that are rated better than Fords. We loved the Tauras, but we can’t afford the problems because of the safety aspect of something happening while we have our elderly folks with us coming and going all the time.

Ford …you have done us all wrong. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Didn’t you call the Taurus a world car? What? Didn’t you figure out how to do the quality metric conversions?

Books will give you knowledge, but common sense and the golden rule will get you return customers.

My common sense…says I can’t afford your product at any price.

13th Sep 2004, 15:58

I bought a 1999 Ford Taurus SE in 3/2001. The mileage was approx. 18500 miles. Since that time I've had the following repairs;

1. Airbag component replaced (4/2001)

2. Power steering pump replaced (9/2001)

3. Rack and pinion replaced. (10/2001)

4. Heater coil replaced. (1/2002)

5. Heater coil replaced. (11/2002)

6. Heater coil replaced. (6/2003)

Now my car has a problem and the mechanics at the dealership can't decide what the problem is or how to fix it. When driving at 60 mph on the freeway the car will die. Luckily we have been able to coast off of the freeway. After sitting for approx 1 hour the car starts up again. On warm days the car won't start after it has been driven for even 30 minutes. If it again sits for about 1 hour, it will then start up.

I wrote to William Ford, but they just offered me the chance to buy another Ford at a very small discount. Needless to say, I did not take them up on their offer. I was born and raised in Dearborn, Mich--Henry Ford's hometown. This will be the LAST Ford car I ever purchase.