1998 Ford Taurus from North America - Comments

Radiator rusted through without warning.

Cracked Block at 105885 Miles!

I went to test drive this car because it was going to be my first car. It was my grandmothers car in which she has owned since it came from the factory. My grandfather made sure my grandmother changed the oil and radiator fluid on time, and therefore this car never was driven hard or missed a tune up. Seems like the perfect buy! Well, not really. As I was driving this car home I noticed that the temp gauge began to rise, luckily I was close to an AutoZone and parked it to see what was wrong. As soon as I opened the hood, plooms of smoke began to rise from what I had believed to be the crank case. I looked in the radiator fluid resevoir thinking extra fluid would be in there since the engine was so hot. There was absolutely no fluid in there or the radiator, just high pressure gases escaped when I opened the cap. I bought some pre-mixed anti-freeze radiator fluid and added it to the radiator, problem solved! Yeah Right! As soon as I backed out I saw a huge rusty liquid spot on the ground. I knew that the radiatore had rusted through so I attempted to get home on the gallon or so of radiator fluid leaking from the car. I left a trail all the way home with this piece of junk. As I got home the car began to overheat again so again, I popped the hood to find more smoke. GREAT! So I put a hose into the radiator fluid resevoir and ran water through to see where the leak was coming from. I turned the car on and found a huge stream of water shooting from the engine block. I didn't even drive the car over 25 miles and the engine was now gone and dead. To all of those who may want to buy a Ford Taurus: DO NOT BUY A FORD TAURUS!!! I was lucky and my grandmother did not make me pay her, but she is now stuck with a car that is useless. Due to this experience, I will never buy a Ford.

Just a quick note: you need to be very careful removing radiator caps when the engine is hot as the system is under pressure, and when the pressure is relieved you will flash the coolant to steam and risk getting severely scalded.

You will crack the engine block on any car by running it without water (if you have any sort of leak in the radiator you'll lose all the coolant in a couple of minutes).

Another quick note: radiators are made of aluminum, copper and plastic. There is nothing to "rust" through, though they can develop leaks.

Unfortunately for your grandmother, she let someone drive her car who did not pay attention to the temperature gauge and kept driving until the engine overheated enough to crack the block. That does not mean all Tauruses are bad cars. It could have happened with any kind of car.

I had a Honda Civic that blew the radiator in the middle of BUTT NOWHERE and shortly after blew the head gasket and cracked the block. It has 88,000 miles. But, nobody seems to call a Civic a bad car. Point is, if you drive a car with no coolant, it will blow up/break/catch fire, whatever. It just so happened that you ended up with this problem in a Taurus.

Any kind of car could develop a coolant leak for a variety of simple reasons (bad water pump, rotten radiator or heater hose, etc.). Things can go wrong at any time with no warning on any car, regardless of how reliable it has been. When the temperature gauge is buried and you continue to drive it, you have only yourself to blame for ruining the engine.

Sorry, but you just made a poor decision in trying to drive it 25 miles on a gallon of fluid when you knew it was leaking. You should have had a Mountain Dew and sat in the shade waiting for the car to cool down, so you could assess where the leak was, and whether you were qualified to address it or would need to call a tow truck. You'll know better next time.

Well guys, I found out that the hoses split apart, which is what caused the problem. But again the Taurus came with more problems. Next thing that messed up was the turn signals. They stopped working entirely. Then the interior lights stopped working, then the throttle got stuck open, and I had to reach down and pull the gas pedal back up to idle position. Then the side bolster on the drivers seat caved in. FORD TAURUS' SUCK MAJOR ASS.

I've driven Taurus for 20 years, 3 cars. My '89 went to 120,000 miles, but it lost its oil pan, and I had to have an engine overhaul. The '98 is at 98000 miles, and I've lost the heater coil. $500 bucks to fix, because the whole dash has to be taken out to fix it. Labor loss. What else is going to go wrong? Should I kill my finances once and for all and buy a new car? Or, fix the heat, and wait for the next $500-$1000 replacement? Aged 65 almost, with fixed income!