21st Jun 2010, 08:57
"Ours never needed any front end work in 325,000 miles."
My friend, I bet your car made all kind of noises once it was past 200,000 miles even if you live in a region were they iron out the roads every month, and you didn't go faster than 40 miles an hour.
You may not have done any repairs but it certainly needed it.
The guy in the original review has caused damage to the suspension. Maybe the construction crew is to blame for not posting "uneven road" warnings and speed limits, but I doubt that. He hit the bump so hard that the ball joint cracked! Then he continued driving with the wheel dragging? How smart is that! Then there are plastic pieces in the suspension. Indeed, the thrust bearing is plastic, some bushings are made of plastic (Polyurethane). But I bet the plastic he saw was the shredded wheel well liner.
Nice try, buster!
21st Jun 2010, 16:52
"My friend, I bet your car made all kind of noises once it was past 200,000 miles even if you live in a region were they iron out the roads every month, and you didn't go faster than 40 miles an hour."
Nope. The car was solid as a rock with nary a noise. It was driven at speeds up to 100mph on rare occasions. It was primarily used as a daily get-to-work car and was driven about 50 miles round trip across the city almost every working day for 17 years. 99% of use was city driving. Very little trips (we had other cars for that).
The secret to keeping cars going is very simple: First, always buy a domestic. They last much longer than any imports because they have much more solid and hefty parts (ever worked on a CIVIC??).
Secondly, proper maintenance is CRUCIAL. Keeping front end parts clean of dirt and grit and properly lubed will keep any domestic going for half a million miles. I know of two Ford Ranger pickups that have just under 500,000 miles on them and have never had any front end work. As a mechanic I see cars (all domestic) all the time that have not even had an alignment in 200,000 miles.
26th Jun 2010, 22:54
I was just cruising around on here reading some reviews, and came across this old review I posted, and after 19 months, it's been commented!
These Taurus's might not be bad cars ALL the time. It seems to be a real gamble so to speak, a real hit or miss. A guy who recently started working with me at my hospital has a 93 with over 300k miles. He's replaced all the front end, and transmission once or twice, and an alternator, and water pump or two, but that's to be expected after 300k miles. No surprise there.
As far as the parts go, I am pretty sure every thing I ever had done to the Taurus I had was done by one of my good friends. He is the brother of my then girlfriend. If he lived closer, I would have him still work on my cars.
In fact he charged me hardly anything on labor, and just charged for parts. He showed me receipts, and a lot of time I would hang out with him in his drive way, and hand him tools, and help him out a little bit with fixing things. Pretty much everything ever done to that car, aside from oil changes, which I eventually started doing myself, were done by him. I would just take him out to eat, and things like that for his time. He had nothing to gain by replacing parts that didn't need to be replaced, as he was not making a profit on it. If he was, it would have been extremely counterproductive on his part.
As for the wheel dragging part, reading it again it looks like I exaggerated. What happened after I hit the bump (going approximately 10 miles per hour) was I heard some noise, and bad vibration. It felt like the wheel was going to fall off. When I parked it,the steering wheel was straight, but the wheels were pointed out. I think I broke a tie rod end, and a ball joint on one side. The parts on the other side, which did not hit the bump were shot anyway, so he replaced them for me. On my Contour I finally had the front end fixed at 185k miles. I recently sold that 10 days ago.
21st Jun 2010, 07:56
"No Ford is going to need this kind of front end work in 200,000 miles, let alone 55,000."
What about all the Ford Windstar's whose front sub-frames rust completely through and snap in half driving down the road? That seems like a pretty serious front-end issue.