1997 Ford Taurus GL from North America - Comments

Bought with 31,000 and brand new paint job, immaculate interior, looked "showroom new" although 9 years old. Engine was spotless. Within 12 months and 27,000 miles I have

1. replaced the radiator (plastic end caps fatigued) which was a horribly complex job

2. replace the bushings between the frame and the subframe

3. major realignment (tires were running bald on the inside right side)

4. new gasket around the timing chain (major leaking of radiator fluid)

5. multiple flushes of heater core (poor heat in cabin)

6. transmission was leaking, needed new gasket

Thanks to complicated designs, these fairly small tasks cost me $4,000 in total including parts; had they hit all at once I'd have chucked the car.

My wife's recent car, a 1991 Taurus, was purchased 5 years ago with 100,000 and now up to 160,000 with $0 on repairs except brake pads. This is why I bought a '97. Next used car, I'm checking the internet carefully for shared experiences. Everything is hard to reach and many labor hours to fix, and fix it I must.

The Taurus also seems to ride much rougher than my Chevy Lumina of the same year and approx mileage. Stereo is proprietary and very expensive and complicated to replace with a CD player, so I passed on that.

Personally I like the look of this era Taurus.

I posted this a few days ago and forgot to add... I also had to replace the speed sensor on the transmission. I don't mind that a 10 year old sensor went bad, but it was the extraordinary shop hours to get to the sensor that bother me. Bad design. Why didn't some Ford engineer figure out a way to put replaceable parts in the clear? This would have made it a $60 job instead of $300.