Up until this point in my car history my wife and I were the proud owners of two cars, one for her (generally) and one for me. We did tend to swap cars periodically (especially when the one she was driving was out of gas), but our fleet was exactly the number of cars we needed. Until 2004, that is, when an opportunity to expand our fleet presented itself.
Not long after I purchased the Maxima from last week’s installment, I was scheduled to attend a technical conference as part of my day job that dealt with advanced transportation technologies and alternative fuels. For a time in the late 1990s and early 2000s, this conference was a major draw for industry and government representatives to learn about the latest automotive technologies and how to incorporate them into regular fleet operations. For the 2004 edition of the conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the organizers decided to hold a mini government auction of some GSA-owned alternative fuel vehicles, including a set of Ford Taurus flexible fuel ethanol vehicles. As it was in Florida, my wife took some time off work to accompany me to this conference.
The conference organizers had sent out a list of the vehicles in the planned auction with their year, make, model, and overall mileage, but no other details (no photos, no condition descriptions, not even model designations). That list got me thinking – it would be nice to have an extra car in case we needed it (to lend to a visiting family member, or to drive if one of our regular daily drivers was being repaired, etc.). Because the conference attracted a relatively limited number of people relative to a regular GSA auction, I figured I might be able to snag myself a bargain. Those following this COAL series may remember the saga of my first Taurus and may be wondering why on earth I would consider another one. I was taking a gamble that whatever problems my 1996 GL might have had were fixed by the time these 2000s were made.
When I got to the conference the auction cars were all set up in the trade show hall. These particular Tauruses were 2000 model SEs that were a bit nicer than the basic fleet specials that companies bought by the hundreds. Ford had equipped this generation with more conventional styling on the basic 1996-1999 platform, eliminating the oval rear window, headlights/taillights, and interior panels. The foldout console/center seat combination was replaced by a more conventional console with cupholders. The SE model was reasonably well equipped with keyless entry, aluminum wheels, power windows and locks, and a cassette stereo (no CD), which was a nice surprise as I’d expected to find the base-model Taurus (steel wheels, basic AM/FM radio, no other options) in this fleet application. The cars came with the basic 3-liter 2-valve V6 powertrain making around 150 hp, so power was adequate but not stellar.
One car in particular in the display was interesting to me. It was a green Taurus GL with 17,226 miles on it (the lowest of the bunch) and seemed to be in really good condition for a four-year-old government fleet vehicle. The car had been assigned to the Department of Energy’s Savannah River site in South Carolina, so it hadn’t been exposed to any harsh winters, and was inland of the ocean so it hadn’t been exposed to salt air. The undercarriage was very clean as was the interior. The exterior had a few bumps and scratches that one would expect from a fleet vehicle but was pretty good overall. And that was the extent of what I could learn about the car before the auction – as it was in a large trade show area of a convention center, driving it or even starting it up was impossible. But I signed up to bid anyway – can’t hurt to try, right?
Much to my surprise, the auction didn’t draw that many attendees from the conference so when the auctioneer came around to this Taurus I was the only bidder. My opening (and winning) bid was $5250, as I recall, which was probably two-thirds of what the car would have been worth on the retail used car market. I’d not brought any checkbook, but luckily the auction company took credit cards. We already had money saved up, so we were able to pay off the card when the bill came due, but it still maxed out that card. (It gave me the bragging rights to say “I bought a car on a credit card” though.)
So, I am now the proud owner of a low-mileage Ford Taurus that I’ve never driven or even heard run (and probably really didn’t need to have), and I am more than a thousand miles away from my home in Maryland. This is when I realized that the car was sold to me “as-is, where-is.” I had no idea where to get a temporary registration, and I wouldn’t have had time to arrange for shipping even if I knew at the time how to do that. The auction company said that I should be OK with just driving the car home as long as I had the paperwork from them to show I owned it. As I am not the kind of person who is comfortable breaking or bending rules, this wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. Remember too that I’d never driven the car and I wasn’t an expert in used car inspections, so I had no idea if the car would even make it back to Maryland – I figured since it was low-mileage and not that old, that wasn’t a huge gamble, but a gamble nonetheless. This was not exactly the kind of adventure I wanted to have.
My wife and I were experts for long car trips, having made 6-7 trips each year between Maryland and Akron. On this trip, though, the 6 hours and 325 miles we were used to traveling to Akron only got us barely out of Florida, and we still had five states and 7-8 hours to go before home. As I’d never driven to Florida before, it never occurred to me how long that state is…
We set off from Fort Lauderdale the next day before the sun came up in an effort to get home as quickly as possible, driving sensibly and blending into traffic (which was actually pretty easy in a low-powered fleet Taurus). As I recall, we stopped about a mile from the convention center to get gas as a local police car drove into the gas station, which made me more than a bit anxious. Needless to say, this was a pretty stressful trip for me. The biggest “oh no” moment came somewhere in North Carolina where a state trooper merged onto I-95 right behind us and stayed in our lane for a number of miles. Apparently our temporary window-mounted paperwork gambit worked, as he exited the highway after a couple of exits without paying any attention to us. Even though we had no problems either with the lack of plates or the mechanicals of the car, I was unbelievably relieved when we pulled into the driveway 14 hours later.
A state inspection disclosed that the car was in really good health, needing only a fuel system cleanout to eliminate a check engine light issue and a parking brake adjustment to pass muster. This car, despite having the same 3-liter V6/4-speed automatic powertrain as my ’96, exhibited none of the transmission woes of that much-hated car from my past. On the cosmetic side, a few hours in the garage cleaning and polishing the car brought back the paint to near-new condition (as the photo shows, the paint was in really good shape).
I found the third car to be really handy. I tended to use it for trips to places where I knew parking would be a problem (like downtown Baltimore, for instance) and for snowy days, thus protecting my newer cars from dings and dents (which I was super-touchy about at the time). Instead of my standard front-end mask, I just invested in a hood-mounted wind deflector to ward off the major dents.
The car was perfectly acceptable to drive and was quite reliable during the 18 months and 5,000 miles I had it, with the only major problem being a dead battery. Luckily for me, the dead battery occurred in my driveway so the car never left me stranded. The only other problem I recall was with the HVAC system’s fan knob – the fan was controlled by a D-shaped pin in the dash, and the barrel of the fan knob developed a crack that meant that the fan knob would no longer fit and would sometimes fall out. A search on eBay and a couple of bucks fixed that problem. Otherwise, the car provided reliable transportation when I wanted it and left me with virtually no recollection of the car’s driving experience, good or bad, unlike the first Taurus.
About a year and a half after I purchased the car, my wife’s oldest sister was in the market for an inexpensive new family car to replace her ancient Ford Escort. The Taurus was a perfect candidate for her to carry her two daughters around, so we made a deal and the car was hers. She used that Taurus for almost a decade afterward, selling it on just a couple of years ago. Not bad for an impulse decision in Florida. This car did, however, put me on the path to having more cars than I needed, as we will see in a number of upcoming COAL entries.
” the car provided reliable transportation when I wanted it and left me with virtually no recollection of the car’s driving experience, good or bad”
That’s kind of what you’d expect from a Taurus. I actually LIKE the sister model Mercury Sable of that vintage.
My experience with these Taurus was with end of production fleet models (my school district had a small fleet of 2005-2007 models.) They were equipped like your car except all in fleet white. Whenever I see a Taurus of that vintage in white I expect to see the district logo on the doors.
They were completely adequate for the job they were being asked to do. I found them comfortable (manual adjustable lumbar was nice) and the power/acceleration reminded me of my 307 V8 Cutlass Supreme. The district found them to be largely trouble free except for poor paint adhesion.
A neat story about an accidental purchase. I was not a fan of the ovoid Taurus, as I had access to one as one of the “company cars” at a job. There were a lot of things about it that rubbed me the wrong way. I had the use of a re-styled Mercury Sable in about 2000-2001, a car which I really liked. I liked the interior and exterior re-styling and the relative power from the Vulcan V6. But, at the time, my wife decided we didn’t need a car.
A buddy’s daughter bought a regular 2001 Taurus back in 2010 or so. It was a pretty well used car at that point, somewhere over 120K miles IIRC. We spent the summer helping her fix it up and it looked pretty decent after we got it re-shot a blue similar to the color used the Michigan State Police, of all things.
She drove it around for a few years and it really didn’t giver her any issues that I can recall. Based on that experience, I wouldn’t be hesitant to recommend one as cheap wheels to someone. But around here, they’re all succumbing to the tinworm and they’re becoming less and less common on roads even now.
These were terrific cars for fleet duty. Interestingly, while I’ve driven scads of these, especially the 2000 models, I’ve never seen a console/cup holder like the one pictured.
The ones I drove were all flex-fuel powered like this one. Fill it up with E-85 and fuel mileage sank like a rock in a pond. One particular ’98 got like 12 or 13 mpg on E-85.
Overall these were reliable work horses, reliable to the point I bought a 2001 Taurus SES upon our having our daughter. That car was a first-class turd.
During my fleet manager days I bought quite a few former GSA vehicles. Those can make for an interesting purchase, but of all the ones I’ve been around during that time and after, only one ever had any issues. So I would not hesitate on buying a late model GSA vehicle for personal use. Plus, I got some screaming deals on them, just like you did.
That console was offered as an option in the 1997-2002 Ford Taurus. The same console was offered in two generations of the Taurus/Sable.
Here is my COAL for my 2006 Taurus which shows a better picture of the console
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/coal-2006-ford-taurus-temporarily-tolerable-transport/
I actually swapped it into my 2006 Taurus. My Taurus came with the folding console/middle seat. I unbolted it and removed it and added the center console . It bolted right up with no issue
Thanks for explaining the console. The line in the article and the picture caught me, too. I had a good bit if experience with these later in the model run – i worked in rental cars starting in 2006 – so I drove scads of 06-07s of various trims, and saw nothing but either full length consoles with floor shifters or the fold-out seat/console with the column shifters. Odd that they offered the half-step. I don’t see the point, as it disallows bench seating/6 passenger configuration while retaining the column shifter, but I guess its a nice option for owners to swap in later on as you have.
That console actually allowed the owner to have more space.
It allowed me to have a place to put things like sunglasses, GPS, iPOD and other things in it. The original folding seat/console was useless for me as I could not store anything in there and I had no need for a middle seat. The glove box on these cars was a joke(even with the manual removed there still was no room)
This console also gave a cup holder to the back seat passengers(the folding seat did not)
Plus there was a front cup holder that allowed for a cup with a handle.
I toyed with buying a console for a Taurus with a floor shifter, with the shifter not in the console, it was the perfect spot for a tissue box, but I wound up buying this one instead for the car.
I always thought these cars looked decent enough, certainly an improvement over the rolling egg that was it’s predecessor. But then I drove not one, but two.
Teamed with the Vulcan this trans is the least fun you can have with a drivetrain this side of the 21st century. This engine hates anything that isn’t idling and the transmission’s only goal is to get to 4th gear as soon as possible without stalling. So in rushed driving this dynamic duo struggles to give you any of that furious 150hp, all the while making the Vulcan cry out in pain for actually having to rev past 3k.
Combine that with a shit ride, wallowy handling, marshmallow steering, interior panels that randomly pop out, and random mechanical problems over the years and you get a car that feels more like a 1990 model than a 2000(s) car.
I know they’re fairly reliable and economical to run, and I can respect that, but the rest of this car is shameful when it’s competitors were world-class cars like the Accord and Camry.
My mom had a 2002 Taurus SES that used the fold out cup holder, what a PITA that thing was! The only problems she had was a dead rear passenger dock lock solenoid and a dead radio which was an awakening for me trying to fix it just to find out it was 2 separate units, one in the dash and the other in the trunk! Oh and there was also the defective A/C solenoid that left us without A/C on a trip from Maine to PA on a 95 degree day in the middle of summer. Flashbacks to the old days of riding around with the windows down on the freeway. It wasn’t until we got there that we figured out we could just switch the solenoid with one of the others under the hood.
I only know these from a distance, but they were everywhere. Only recently have they started to get thin.
I have become really spoiled by a 3rd car. After an early dalliance with up to 3 play cars (that ended due to the time and money soaked up by a young family) we only got back to 3 once teens started driving. Having one that you can press into service on short notice is a nice thing.
This was a very attractive color on that car, and actually I find the whole car attractive (visually), a great example of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
I drove a rental version once from San Francisco to Portland and on that trip came away disappointed at the way it handled curves (it didn’t) but hammering down an interstate or around town it was surely good at what it did.
Anyway, kudos to joining the more (functioning) cars than drivers club, it is, as others have stated, very liberating and can be a source of much fun, albeit at some additional expense.
This car sort of combines the features of 2 Tauruses that my father owned: a dark green 98 SE, and a medium green 02 LX. But unlike the car in this story, BOTH of my father’s Tauruses would eventually develop transmission problems.
Oddly(?), I seem to remember that the 02 Taurus had that “convertible” front seat armrest…did Ford revert to that design or was the car in this story a fleet spec?
I always thought the Taurus was an okay car, inside and out, but I wouldn’t buy one today. If nothing else I’d rather have a Sable, the 1st generation model.
Nice job capturing the essence of this generation Taurus.
Back in 2007, we got one from my Aunt. It was a 2004, with a mere 11K miles at the time. It was equipped similarly to yours, an SE with the 3.0 Vulcan, alloy wheels and drum brakes in the rear. It was a step up from our somewhat tired, 1992 Camry with 200k miles.
It was, well…., an appliance. It did nothing spectacularly, but served us well for 8 years and about 80K miles.
My current employer has several, current-generation Tauri in the fleet. They seem to be holding up well and are decent highway cars. They’re also an order of magnitude more refined than the 2004.
My wife and I have a history of vanilla, appliance cars….a couple Volvo 240’s, two Camry’s, the Taurus and now, we’re on a second Highlander. My experience with fun, sporty machines is largely vicarious.
This is probably the only time someone has called the Taurus a “step up” from the 1992 Camry.
Just kidding, I know it was a fresher, cleaner car but feature for feature that Camry had it all over the ’96 and ’00.
Like that color, looks good in that green. Don’t recall seeing that color. There are still a lot of these on the ground, probably fourth owners by now and really earning their keep doing hard labor in their waning years. Cars here end up rode hard and put up wet.
My 87 year old momma is still rolling in her 2000 Taurus she bought new. An SES with the 205 pony Duratec. It’s perky.
Classic little old lady car, has 26,000 miles or so on it. Lives a pampered life in the garage, she polishes on it regularly. Only one mechanical failure, a fuel pump.
We had an 05 Sable GS. Ran it for 150,000 miles without issue. The 3.0 returned 28 mpg and the car was comfortable. We gave it to my wifes nephew who was going through a bad period and he ran it for a few more years. Good car.
I have to say that I find that a great looking car, in the green and with the later rear window profile. You told a bit of leap of faith buying the way you did but good to hear it worked out for that many years.
Was it flexible fuel and if so how did that work out?
Yes, it was FFV (the conference was one that dealt with alternative fuels and advanced transportation technologies, which is why they were selling this particular car). I used E85 in the car sometimes, and the car performed just fine on the fuel. Because of the difference in energy content in the fuel, the fuel economy (MPG) was lower on ethanol, but since the car was only an occasional driver that wasn’t a big issue.
How time flies … its been over 30 years now since my first and last time behind the wheel of a Taurus. The domestic manufacturers tend to get criticized for abandoning well-known brand names (except maybe Mustang and Corvette), compared to the Japanese loyalty to Accord, Corolla, Civic etc. but despite the brief hiatus with the 500 (FiveHundred?) the Taurus name has lasted longer than most “classic” sedan names like Galaxy. By the way, our family is now experimenting with having just one car shared by my wife and me, but that may come to an end. If I ever do a COAL there might be a new entry soon, though it won’t be a Taurus.
Not a big fan of green cars but this color does look pretty good on this car.
Sitting here I just did the tally and the last 8 cars/trucks I have purchased have been ex govt vehicles purchased at auction, and used a credit card for 2.2 of them. The .2 is because the college town where the auction took place still has $5 & $20 bills in their cash machines. So between my wife and my 3 accounts and my son’s account we drained a number of machines and still didn’t have enough cash. So some of it had to go on the credit card and pay their additional fee on that.
The others were simple enough. Call the bank to tell them the several thousand dollar charge that was about to happen was legit, called the state and they processed the card. Went and picked up the vehicle, went home, transferred the funds to pay down the credit card, woke up the next day and did it again for another vehicle. Yes I bought 2 vehicles in on-line auctions ending at the same time Sat night, while out to dinner for the Mother In Law’s birthday. What can I say it was an auction that ended on a Sat night so there weren’t many bidders and I took both home for much less than similar vehicles were typically going for.
I would have used the credit card for the most recent purchase however the state changed auction providers and govdeals.com require all payments to be made through them and no credit cards for purchases over $5k. That meant it took a while to actually get the car. Won it Fri night, can’t wire funds on the weekend and the surplus stores are open T-S instead of M-F. So we didn’t bring it home until Tue. If they were still doing publicsurplus.com I would have payed for it with a credit card Sat morning.
Interestingly the 2000 Taurus SE FFV that we had was not a ex-govt car. We picked it up as the wife’s extra vehicle when gas prices skyrocketed to $4/gal. It was hard to justify her using a SUV that she normally got 14mpg with as her daily driver. Since it already had a bunch of scratches and a few dings it was also the car to take when we might be street parking down town ect. All in all it was a good car, however the single MPG that it beat a Panther by meant my wife was soon driving a Grand Marquis while the Taurus ended up as my son’s first car. He drove it for a year but then one cold winter day it wouldn’t start. Faced with the price of new batteries and the fact if it was kept it would need new tires and brakes in the next year, we sold it for peanuts to a person we knew in need, who would only be driving it a couple of thousand miles per year.
I did put varying amounts of E85 in it when I was where I could find it. I confirmed that indeed the best thing is to use about 50% E85 and 50% regular (E10). With that you get much of the increase in power w/o a loss in fuel economy. Of course this was the last of the FFVs that had a physical fuel composition sensor so that was easier to do than with the modern vehicles that have a virtual FCS.
This car was an FFV and I did use E85 in it as we had a couple of stations nearby (a lot of federal fleets in the MD/DC area as you might expect). It was hard for me to see much difference in power on E85 as the car went from moderately underpowered to just underpowered. Unlike in the Midwest where E85 was very competitively priced even with the difference in fuel economy, the fuel was pretty expensive around here as it had to come by train tanker from the Midwest, making the price per gallon at or higher than gasoline.
I rode in a rented one of these. Almost nothing stood out, good or bad. It was unremarkable in an almost Toyota like way. Although the Duratec V-6 was much smoother and quieter than the 4 cyl Malibu I rented a few months prior.
You don’t see green cars too often, so I like that green Taurus. Nice interior, too. However, I would never mess with the E85, even though the car is designed to run on it.
I had a 2006 that was documented in my COAL
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/coal-2006-ford-taurus-temporarily-tolerable-transport/
It was a decent driving car for daily driving to work. My folks have had their 2003 Sable wagon since new. This has been trouble free except for a strange shifting issue(it would bang into 2nd and 3rd gear) which I fixed by buying a new VSS (Vehicle Speed Sensor) for $50 and 10 minutes install for me (It is exterior to the trans). When a VSS goes bad in these cars it does not make the speedo inoperable, it just causes the trans to slip because the computer does not know what speed the car is going.
I switched out my middle front seat/center console for this same center console. It was offered in the 97-99 3rd gen and 00-02 4th gen Taurus models. It bolts right up to the same bolts the middle seat uses.
Never seen that console setup.
I’ve had a 2001 Taurus SE with Vulcan, bought used, with a column shift and an armrest/cup holder that if flipped turned front seat into a bench seat. I’ve had it for five years, no heat, changed: heater core, thermostat, radiator, tires, leaking steering rack, camshaft synchronizer. Drove it for 58,000 km. Fuel economy sucked.
Got tired of having no heat, no power for a terrible fuel mileage, but it was a comfortable cruiser. Sold it and got an off lease 2011 Lincoln MkZephyr Hybrid fully loaded. Ride not as smooth (17″ here vs. 16″ on the Bull), but love the gas milage as well as all the options. Also miss a huge trunk with a big trunk lid and a foldable rear seat.
My mother used to own a 2002 Ford Taurus SES w/leather and console shift automatic, she paid $600 for it in March of 2013 and it had approximately 160,000 miles on it by then, other than a bunch of dents it was a good running car, unfortunately it was starting to wear out sometime around early 2016 and it didn’t have much power on the highway and oddly she sold it for $800 last September.
Great story about how you got the car… quite an impulse buy!
Around the same time, I had helped a friend of mine drive a recently-purchased used car from Florida up to Philadelphia, and I remember thinking the Florida temporary registration that it had looked rather fake. I also was worried about police questioning it out of state. Although that was better than temporary registrations in South Carolina — there weren’t any. Instead, cars received a plastic license plate that said (in bright colors) “TAG APPLIED FOR.” That’s it — no number or registration or anything. I really hate to drive out of state with one of those.
And I’m wondering — given the low number of bids — if this was the last time that GSA attempted to auction off cars at a trade conference?
Driving even a short distance without a plate can get you into serious trouble here in Austria. The thought of people in the US getting away with this on a regular basis and on an INTERSTATE trips is to me mind boggling.
Yes, it is amazing that this can be done at all. It wasn’t anything I would have ordinarily done, but I was a bit stuck and it was the best solution. Nowadays, I’d be able to use my smartphone and Google Maps to find a tag and title place to scare up a transport tag and not have to worry about it.
Yes, the conference kept going for several more years but there weren’t any more auctions. It was a nice idea, but the conference attracted people from around the country who weren’t necessarily in the mood to drive back home in a used car.
I’ve always lived in states (MD and OH) that provided cardboard temporary tags with actual registration numbers, so the idea of the “Tag Applied For” (I’ve definitely seen those) was amazing to me. At one point recently, Maryland went from preprinted tags to ones that were generated within the Maryland registration website at the dealer, and the dealer simply printed a piece of paper with the tag number and expiration date. That didn’t last long – I suspect it was because the paper plates were even less durable than the cardboard ones.
Just purchased an 01 SES Wagon for my daughter. Third owner, 125000 miles. First 75k by a 70+ year old. Next 50k by a 65 yo couple. Giant binder of receipts. Only thing it has needed so far is the blend motor. Easy fix, $25 at rockauto. I’ll probably drain and fill tranny in spring, maybe add auxiliary cooler or filter.
Provided my daughter doesn’t destroy another car by then.
Great article on the 2000 Ford Taurus SE!
Throughout the 2000s, I traveled in company-car Ford Tauruses, and these were universally great fleet cars, very comfortable and dependable. Aside from one engine failure, I don’t think I ever had a major mechanical issue with any of them. Get in and go, basically, and certainly one of Ford’s best-ever car platforms, IMO. The rest of the motordom eventually caught up with the Taurus; yet in the beginning, it was a class-leading car. An image of my 2000 Taurus SE company-car window sticker is attached.
Our company (large computer/instrumentation company based in Palo Alto, California) bought many thousand fleet cars each year—usually >10k—and the company basically became a California FoMoCo dealer in its own right, leasing back to the various sales and marketing entities and regions across the country and worldwide. Eventually, around 1997 or so, the company provided a new Taurus every year—rather than every two years—as this was the least-expensive way to maintain these cars in a fleet. We would accumulate 50-70k miles per year, typically, and if wanted, the car could be purchased at wholesale at the end of the year.
Great car!
Sounds a lot like HP. As a Digital-to-Compaq-to-HP employee, I drove many different Ford Tauruses over a 23 year employment run in the NYC metropolitan area with occasional interruptions due to different management decisions to cut, and then restore, employee company car plans.
One 1992 model had seats so uncomfortable I dreaded any trip of more than one hour. A subsequent 1996 oval obsessed and fish faced 1996 model was no beauty, but was much more comfortable. All were reliable, but then again, all were mostly only 1 or 2 years old.
For a while the company car plan was rumored to be a modest profit center for HP because they got more for them as one year old used and well maintained models than they actually cost when new. Not sure of the math on this, but that was the scuttlebutt.
The best of the bunch I had was a 2003 Wagon that was very good in deep snow and was in my opinion a perfect all around vehicle. I almost bought it at year end but I already had two cars for one driver. The 2004 sedan that replaced the 2003 wagon was de-contented and had rear drum brakes; I almost crashed it on the drive back from the dealer because it took much longer to stop than the all disks wagon. I quickly got used to it.
I personally owned a 1990 Sable wagon (same as a Taurus) and discovered that post warranty reliability left a lot to be desired, especially with the transmission, A/C, and power steering. But 1990 was a long time ago and things probably got better with time. Perhaps.
Taurus Generation 4 (2000-2005), some were made after that only for fleets, always had rear drums on the sedan. Blame decontenting.
Any car with some mileage on it will need some work. I know Ford’s transmissions were iffy then for the larger FWD cars but mine has been quite reliable (1990 Taurus wagon with the Vulcan 150HP engine). Had the tranny rebuilt at 190,000 miles just two years ago. I have replaced a lot of stuff, but nothing is designed to last forever. To me it’s just maintenance and far less expensive than replacing it. The car does everything I want it to, from local hauling to cross-continent touring. It’s a genuine wagon, too, not an SUV. I am not getting rid of it for some new thing I know nothing about.
I agree about the HVAC control knobs; the author noted the knobshaft would crack. Dunno why Ford used thinner shaft walls on the Taurus knobs; mine broke regularly. Solved that by using a set from a 1993 Aerostar…much sturdier and still working fine after fourteen years. I just had to scrape the white paint off the green light lens so the instrument panel lighting would show through them, same as the original Taurus knobs.
riplaut,
You’re right! Hewlett-Packard Company! I also found that the FWD 3.0L Taurus performed very well in snow, too, during the few times we had snow in North Carolina. I did travel a great deal into Asheville, NC, and I got caught in several heavy storms with the Ford doing a fine job of plowing through the heaviest of it with little effort.
I think the HP fleet system was a well-managed profit center, and HP worked out a lease-back plan that was effective for the company. The cars were ordered through a dealership in Palo Alto (thus HP actually became a “dealer” of sorts) and then leased vehicles back to the various sales regions and delivered through local Ford dealers. By the late 1990s, the system worked well with new cars delivered each fall. This annual replacement primarily saved the company money on replacement tires, etc., and the buy-back program put forth by Ford was generous to the company since HP bought such large quantities of cars each year!
We bought our daughter a used ’03 SES to take to college. She drove the car for 5 uneventful years, then I took it over as my daily driver when she bought her first new car. The Taurus wasn’t worth much in trade, but had been very reliable, and my Grand Marquis was getting up there in miles (well over 200K). I drove it two years, then gave it back to the same daughter for her husband to use as a commuter. Car’s still being driven daily- A/C still blows cold, heater hot, all the power accessories still work. Best three grand I’ve ever spent!
My current ride, 1500 dollars. Note the fold out cup holder, broken fan knob, oval radio and lack of heat. The dash pad is peeling and the transmission slips sometimes…