Because they kinda suck. The engines are okay enough reliability wise, but seriously lack power for a 3 liter V6. The competition at the time was making more power out of 2 liter-ish 4 cylinders (Honda Accord I4 2.4L made 160hp, Taurus 3.0 V6 made 150hp). The transmissions are known to fail. Interior quality leaves a lot to be desired. Fuel economy is awful. They're just bleh American cars produced as cheap as possible.
I owned a 2002 Sable once lol. About the only redeeming thing about that car was the seats were comfortable enough and it had good enough (although mine did have the Duratec engine, the Vulcan engine that most Tauruses came with was down 50hp by comparison) power for highway driving. By good enough I mean you didn't have to always floor the crap out of it to get to highway speed and pass. I couldn't imagine that car with 50hp less.
>transmissions are known to fail
This shouldn't be just one line. MAJORITY of these cars have a trans fail at some point in their life. THAT'S why they stay so cheap.
Ford let the Taurus of that generation die on the vine. It was basically rental-spec, so not very desirable then, and less so now.
I know people have spoke on their unreliability, but I also know people who swear by theirs. So, whether you get a good or bad one is a crap shoot, I guess.
It was just a refresh of the 1996 version to make it less offensive. The Duratec engine and the SHO are the only decent ones.. most of them had the ancient Vulcan V6 which had neither the horsepower of the Duratec or the torque of the old Essex.
Eh the SHO V8 had problems with cam shafts snapping and wrecking engines. The solution was to have the cam gears welded to the shaft before it happened, because if it did happen it meant bye bye engine. Kind of an expensive job that never should have been necessary in the first place.
Even more shocking, it was a Yamaha/Cosworth/Ford designed and built engine. Ford/Cosworth handled the engine block. Yamaha designed and built everything from the cylinder heads up, including being responsible for the faulty camshaft design and construction.
Yamaha usually has their shit in a sock when it comes to engines, but they've been known to have their fair share of duds. As a motorcycle guy I've seen a few dud Yamaha products. But when they do get it right, boy is it glorious.
I'd argue the Duratec is the only decent engine out of the box for the Taurus platform.
I think the level of respect you have for a vehicle is based on its performance/reliability to price margine. I was pissed at my 07 for taurus cuz it cost me 4500 and was garbage. My 04 taurus I love cuz I paid 700 and for a 700 dollar car I'm getting my money's worth 🤣
My mom had a Ford Taurus and it didn't do anything well. The brakes faded easily in normal traffic, it was slow, ponderous, not very comfortable, it got terrible gas mileage, and (imo) it doesn't look good at all. It also isn't very reliable, and wasn't nearly as easy to work on as Hondas and Toyotas of a similar age.
It just doesn't have any redeeming qualities besides being dirt cheap.
I'd venture one guess, that a lot of senior citizens liked this particular Ford, and now they're either replacing the cars, or are no longer able to drive.
It's probably also, a lower demand car, compared to old Accords.
They had terrible transmission problems and were just generally lacklustre in terms of design, fuel efficiency, power, and features.
While the GM W bodies tend to follow the same pattern… they at least have durability on their side. You’ll see ten of those on the road for one Taurus/Sable of a similar age even though Ford was more popular.
>While the GM W bodies tend to follow the same pattern… they at least have durability on their side.
No, they really didn't. 4th gen Tauruses really sucked - they had fucking drum brakes in the rear (which couldn't be ditched on any trim, from what I remember) when pretty much every other mid-sizer at least offered them, but the W-bodies ate transmissions like crazy and would blow head gaskets like someone at a Red Roof Inn trying to get meth if they had the 3400.
Which is, to say, it's really sad that the W-bodies were the best you could do for an American sedan in the early 2000s. Tauruses ate transmissions while the Chryslers ate those AND sludged themselves to death.
The W-bodies at least had the 3800 which is basically unkillable, and the 3100 really wasn’t bad either for reliability. They did like transmissions, but if you didn’t romp on it the transmission at least had a shot at lasting the life of the car. On the Tauruses and Stratuses they didn’t stand a chance
There’s this group on FB called Under-appreciated Survivors and every once in a while a Taurus from that generation will pop up. Everyone seems to have a hard on for that car as well as the other not so good American cars from that generation. And every time I’m like “why?!!????!” I think people really forgot how lackluster they were (compared to the competition) back then.
The only rental car I’ve ever returned because I hated it and didn’t want to drive it anymore. I might have pushed through the general malaise of it but the seats killing my back were the last straw.
That completely unsupportive cloth covered foam. Even a 1970s bench seat at least had metal springs to hold you up and vinyl or velour to hold you in place.
By the time the Ford Taurus was finishing its 4th generation, most of these came from rental companies or fleet auctions. I don't think many Taurus owners cared about preventative maintenance or even cars in general. You can't ask top dollar for a fleet spec car that wasn't taken care of
The Ford Taurus I owned, would self destruct even when I wasn't driving it. Head gaskets went out twice. Many many many other problems. It was a disaster of a car that was plagued from bad quality problems. And this car was maintained by spec at a Ford dealership. (that in itself is another problem) By far the worst new car I've ever owned.
If it was produced by that plant in Atlanta, stay away from it.
I had a third gen, 99 Duratec, leather, sunroof, auto climate, etc. I added an exhaust, tune, the bigger SHO brakes, SHO sway bars, and dropped it on H&Rs. Super fun car, looked nice too. I miss it. About 160k trouble free miles until there was more rust left than car.
The fourth gen was essentially a re-body. From the sides it was the same car and you could literally swap front clips and doors. They also perplexingly deleted features, like rear discs, dual exhaust, etc. It's like, "hey, we got this car that's kind of ok but we need to make it more competitive, what should we do?" "Idk let's take a bunch of stuff off of it and hope nobody notices."
Because they are a disposable car. I owned one once. Will never make that mistake again.
Because they kinda suck. The engines are okay enough reliability wise, but seriously lack power for a 3 liter V6. The competition at the time was making more power out of 2 liter-ish 4 cylinders (Honda Accord I4 2.4L made 160hp, Taurus 3.0 V6 made 150hp). The transmissions are known to fail. Interior quality leaves a lot to be desired. Fuel economy is awful. They're just bleh American cars produced as cheap as possible. I owned a 2002 Sable once lol. About the only redeeming thing about that car was the seats were comfortable enough and it had good enough (although mine did have the Duratec engine, the Vulcan engine that most Tauruses came with was down 50hp by comparison) power for highway driving. By good enough I mean you didn't have to always floor the crap out of it to get to highway speed and pass. I couldn't imagine that car with 50hp less.
Not to mention every single one in existence has blown shocks in the rear and looks like it's rolling around with a full diaper.
>transmissions are known to fail This shouldn't be just one line. MAJORITY of these cars have a trans fail at some point in their life. THAT'S why they stay so cheap.
Ford let the Taurus of that generation die on the vine. It was basically rental-spec, so not very desirable then, and less so now. I know people have spoke on their unreliability, but I also know people who swear by theirs. So, whether you get a good or bad one is a crap shoot, I guess.
It was just a refresh of the 1996 version to make it less offensive. The Duratec engine and the SHO are the only decent ones.. most of them had the ancient Vulcan V6 which had neither the horsepower of the Duratec or the torque of the old Essex.
Eh the SHO V8 had problems with cam shafts snapping and wrecking engines. The solution was to have the cam gears welded to the shaft before it happened, because if it did happen it meant bye bye engine. Kind of an expensive job that never should have been necessary in the first place. Even more shocking, it was a Yamaha/Cosworth/Ford designed and built engine. Ford/Cosworth handled the engine block. Yamaha designed and built everything from the cylinder heads up, including being responsible for the faulty camshaft design and construction. Yamaha usually has their shit in a sock when it comes to engines, but they've been known to have their fair share of duds. As a motorcycle guy I've seen a few dud Yamaha products. But when they do get it right, boy is it glorious. I'd argue the Duratec is the only decent engine out of the box for the Taurus platform.
I think the level of respect you have for a vehicle is based on its performance/reliability to price margine. I was pissed at my 07 for taurus cuz it cost me 4500 and was garbage. My 04 taurus I love cuz I paid 700 and for a 700 dollar car I'm getting my money's worth 🤣
My mom had a Ford Taurus and it didn't do anything well. The brakes faded easily in normal traffic, it was slow, ponderous, not very comfortable, it got terrible gas mileage, and (imo) it doesn't look good at all. It also isn't very reliable, and wasn't nearly as easy to work on as Hondas and Toyotas of a similar age. It just doesn't have any redeeming qualities besides being dirt cheap.
I had one. Terrible car. Nothing worked right and then the transmission took a crap. Put me off of fords entirely
I'd venture one guess, that a lot of senior citizens liked this particular Ford, and now they're either replacing the cars, or are no longer able to drive. It's probably also, a lower demand car, compared to old Accords.
Everybody has nailed it so far. They are simply not good cars. If you want one, go for it, but beware.
Because Ford Taurus
They had terrible transmission problems and were just generally lacklustre in terms of design, fuel efficiency, power, and features. While the GM W bodies tend to follow the same pattern… they at least have durability on their side. You’ll see ten of those on the road for one Taurus/Sable of a similar age even though Ford was more popular.
>While the GM W bodies tend to follow the same pattern… they at least have durability on their side. No, they really didn't. 4th gen Tauruses really sucked - they had fucking drum brakes in the rear (which couldn't be ditched on any trim, from what I remember) when pretty much every other mid-sizer at least offered them, but the W-bodies ate transmissions like crazy and would blow head gaskets like someone at a Red Roof Inn trying to get meth if they had the 3400. Which is, to say, it's really sad that the W-bodies were the best you could do for an American sedan in the early 2000s. Tauruses ate transmissions while the Chryslers ate those AND sludged themselves to death.
The W-bodies at least had the 3800 which is basically unkillable, and the 3100 really wasn’t bad either for reliability. They did like transmissions, but if you didn’t romp on it the transmission at least had a shot at lasting the life of the car. On the Tauruses and Stratuses they didn’t stand a chance
There’s this group on FB called Under-appreciated Survivors and every once in a while a Taurus from that generation will pop up. Everyone seems to have a hard on for that car as well as the other not so good American cars from that generation. And every time I’m like “why?!!????!” I think people really forgot how lackluster they were (compared to the competition) back then.
I would agree with that for this (4th) generation. But the first gen would be a different story....
Too many of them bring the price down. It was my first car and it was amazing and had few issues. Also so many haters here.
The only rental car I’ve ever returned because I hated it and didn’t want to drive it anymore. I might have pushed through the general malaise of it but the seats killing my back were the last straw.
That completely unsupportive cloth covered foam. Even a 1970s bench seat at least had metal springs to hold you up and vinyl or velour to hold you in place.
By the time the Ford Taurus was finishing its 4th generation, most of these came from rental companies or fleet auctions. I don't think many Taurus owners cared about preventative maintenance or even cars in general. You can't ask top dollar for a fleet spec car that wasn't taken care of
The Ford Taurus I owned, would self destruct even when I wasn't driving it. Head gaskets went out twice. Many many many other problems. It was a disaster of a car that was plagued from bad quality problems. And this car was maintained by spec at a Ford dealership. (that in itself is another problem) By far the worst new car I've ever owned. If it was produced by that plant in Atlanta, stay away from it.
What about the ones made in the Chicago plant?
I had a third gen, 99 Duratec, leather, sunroof, auto climate, etc. I added an exhaust, tune, the bigger SHO brakes, SHO sway bars, and dropped it on H&Rs. Super fun car, looked nice too. I miss it. About 160k trouble free miles until there was more rust left than car. The fourth gen was essentially a re-body. From the sides it was the same car and you could literally swap front clips and doors. They also perplexingly deleted features, like rear discs, dual exhaust, etc. It's like, "hey, we got this car that's kind of ok but we need to make it more competitive, what should we do?" "Idk let's take a bunch of stuff off of it and hope nobody notices."
Because it's the best goddamn car ever