1998 Ford Taurus SE Wagon from North America - Comments

Transmission downshifts sometimes pretty rough from 2nd to 1st gears when decelerating.

Engine has been solid as a rock, along with the bolt-on components.

Had 2 wheel alignments done on this car, the last to replace tie-rod ends and ball joints.

Several intermittent electrical problems have happened since I owned the car:

Mysterious problem (which is being looked at now) where the car is warmed up and in park, but the engine accelerates as high as 4,000RPM!!!

Interior door lights will come on and stay on after closing door, and the doors stay unlocked. When I press the power lock, it locks the door, BUT immediately unlocks all the doors, like I pressed the unlock button!

Had the multi-function switch (turn signal/wiper/hi-beam) replaced due to a problem that would make the headlights not work half of the time.

This car is very comfortable to ride in, great for cargo area, but the 3.0 V6 feels a little sluggish.

The car looks great in the colors I got (dark red with gray cloth interior.) and the 4-wheel disk brakes seem to stop the car very well.

The electrical problems with this car are uncalled for, especially for a car that should compete with the best of the mid-size vehicles.

My dealer seems more intent on selling services than fixing real problems...

Overall, I like the car-- I just wish Ford could figure out a way to make a reliable version of the Taurus.

I went to website to look for various problems I am having and see now although I don't have a taurus wagon I do have a taurus and last night I went out came home turned car off and came in house 20 min later the fron thead lights were on and nobody turned them on my husband and I went outside to try and turn them off pulled fuses and took it for a ride came back and front headlights would not turn off finally we tried taking out fuses to light and nothing we lastly resorted to disconnecting battery which finally turned them off...also that excelleration problem after car is warm I have that problem as well plus I have also noticed light coming on that says check brakes I took it to brake shop and there is nothing wrong with my brakes I assume its part of electrical problem which I hope to have diagnosed monday am...

I am updating this article-- I fixed the mysterious idle acceleration problem by removing the cable to the Throttle Position Sensor (at the top of the engine) and I intended to replace the TPS, BUT did not have the correct tool to remove it. When I put the cable back in place, the problem went AWAY!!! how 'bout that-- just a "bad connection". This has been about a year now and no bad idle acceleration issues...

I have a 98 Ford Taurus Wagon, it has been a great car with minimal problems up to the 100,000 mile mark. My wife told me that it started running hot and the coolant was going away to parts unknown.

She was dumping a gallon a week of antifreeze into it. I checked for cracks, pressure test and everything checked OK. There were no drips, hose problems and right away I figured it was the head gasket. Sure enough the head Gasket blew and the engine is destroyed. I'm currently in the market for a rebuilt because I still owe $4000 on it.

I checked the Internet and there are many complaints about the head gaskets blowing on the 3.8 liter engines... Just wanted everyone to be careful about it.

The interior light staying on and when locking the lock comes back up: I used WD40 on each door closing mechanism and it solved it.

I wrote this article originally, and since I wrote this, I've had to replace the plastic coolant resevoir again, and replace the brake pads, but only after having changed them one year ago (!!!) I now have 98,000 miles on the wagon.

Another distrubing issue is when I took this car on a 400-mile one way road trip and somewhere in the middle of the drive, the speedometer went totally haywire, bouncing around soooo bad I had no idea how fast I was going (I was on the interstate doing around 70MPH, I believe.) like from 25-90 MPH and drove okay like this until I slowed down (about 40MPH) and the tranny started to shift very abruptly in either direction-- I thought for sure this was the end of the wagon's tranny. I got to within a couple miles of returning to my house, and I couldn't believe it-- the freggin' car started acting NORMAL again!!! This was 4 months ago and I've never seen any behaviour like this from my car again... I'm chalking this event up as a loose wire somewhere.

I tried the WD-40 trick on my door hinges and it fixed it right away, AND my front hood would not pop-up when I pull the hinge release. The cable is still intact, so I sprayed some WD-40 on the hinge release and it fixed that too!!!

The car still looks new, the paint job is still shiny and bright, but I still have 8 payments left on it to pay it off and I'll definitely keep it-- I've sunk soooo much money to fixing it, and the residual value isn't very much at all soooo I'll just buy a new car sometime soon and drive this one until the wheels all fall off (hehehehe)

In regards to the '98 Taurus "mysterious" problem, I am having that same problem, as well as it won't shift down from 3500 rpms once I hit 2nd gear around 20 miles p/h, I have to put it in neutral- really quick, then back to drive. the shifting problem only occurs when the engine's cold or the first drive of the day. Did you have any luck with finding out the problem? I have brought it to ford 2x and my reg mechanic 3x... no luck here... thanks, if have any info. please let me know...