2001 Ford Taurus SE Wagon from North America - Comments

Brakes - replaced rear at 47000.

Heater blower/fan motor - mechanic showed me the Ford circular (not a recall) on water damage causing fan motor failure (shorting out). Fix requires a Ford manufactured shield to divert rain from fan motor. Apparently only 2001 model is affected. Fairly expensive (>$300) to repair.

Recall for potential front spring failure (I experienced no problem)

2001 incentive was free leather seats - nice, but slightly impractical for a "utility" car (dogs, kids, etc)

Traction control and ABS handle New England weather.

Decent gas mileage and performance.

Lots of wind noise over 80 mph.

Poor resale value - buy one to keep forever.

I bought a new Taurus in 2001. Every year I had to bring my car in because of mold smells in the vent system. The dealer would spray a disinfectant/perfume solution into the system each spring. My wife and youngest child have mold allergies and every time we brought the car in, they would tell us that all they could do is blow that solution into the system because the systems in new cars are built too air tight nowadays. Then in 2004 the motor blower went out. The dealer told us that it went out because of condensation dripping on the blower motor. We ended up paying around $400 for a new blower motor and sheild, but later got most of it back after about 6 months of arguing with the dealer and Ford Motor Co. To this day we still have moldy smells starting in the spring, nothing really has changed. It seems to be deeper in the system than Ford wants to go (Too much money to tear that deep into the system). We never saw the Technical Bulletin until now. Thank you for letting me vent on this issue. Anthony Campbell--sllyptty4@msn.com.

I knew A woman Who had Herself a 1996 taurus SHO she took excellent care of it and it didn't give her a single issue it still runs extrmely well and she doesn't have to take it in outside of routine checks could it be the difference in the models?