1996 Ford Taurus GL review from North America

-Head gasket blew at around 171,000

-Leaked anti freeze fluid along with blown head gasket

-Engine light coming on whenever it felt like it

-brake pads needed replacement

-rust above rear right wheel.

I purchased this car from my grandmother thinking I was getting a deal at $5,000. Holy smokes, I couldn't be more wrong. I hated Ford to begin with, but now I hate them with a passion. Putting a deck in this car is very annoying as it's an oval shaped console that requires a custom console plate to fit one in properly. It's horrible for fuel efficiency, the engine sounds very whiny and isn't a smooth ride at all. When the head gasket blew it leaked anti-freeze like mad, so it wasn't very fun driving home in -25c weather with no heat flowing through the car, but certainly more than enough heat coming from the engine as it was over heating. My mechanic said that had it not been minus 25c outside it would've fried for sure. I wish I had known about the recall for this engine otherwise I would've never paid for it in the first place. The repair/maintenance for this car was easily around 3000$ and only driving it for less than 25,000kms, so not being able to pay for the car itself due to repairs/maintenance I just decided to give it back to my grandma and let her sell it to somebody else. STAY AWAY FROM FORD.