1988 Ford Taurus review from North America

Before I got the car, I think somebody hot wired it and stole it, because there's a lot of wires hanging from the bottom of the dashboard.

The black thing that rides along the bottom of the doors on both sides, well the one on the drivers side it was falling off from the rear, and it started dragging so I just ripped that one off.

Backup lights stopped working at about 220k miles, and cost $5 to fix.

Water pump blew. This happened at 215k miles. The car sat for a whole year, then I found out a new water pump cost only $30, so I fixed it and it was easy too.

At about 225k miles, the transmission was slipping in 3rd gear, but I learned to deal with it. I only driven on mostly side roads, and rarely on main roads and never been on the highway. Anyway the transmission never even blew. Also the battery died too, and a new one was $65.

This was my first car, and I hardly had any knowledge of cars. I did not know how important it was to check the oil, it was running with no oil and it blew. I was still able to drive it, but it was very slow, very loud, and very shaky. This happened at about 240k, it lasted until I drove it home on my last day of school in my senior year.

I miss that car. I would still have it if I had taken better care of it.

I was not pleased that it did not handle well in bad weather; it was not a sports car. Other than that, it was a wonderful car. It was fun to drive and easy to fix.

After that car I had 1994 Mercury Sable until a year ago when a truck backed into it very fast and that was totaled. Now I have a 1995 Ford Taurus. Soon I will be getting a newer one. I'm a huge fan of the Sable/Taurus.

They are great cars, and the 3.0 V6 is powerful like a V8.