1997 Ford Taurus

Starting off, I had a 1997 Ford Taurus for a few years around 2000. I believe that we picked it up for about 14,000$, while being a bargain, set me up for a whole mess of trouble. At first sight, the Taurus was a fairly-well constructed vehicle. Despite a few issues (including a clunky body and the occasional rough start-up), it got us from place to place fairly effectively. Ours was blue, which is great, I suppose. It was about a year after we brought the cat home that we started to face some serious issues. It started rusting. Fast. Despite our countless attempts to keep the old girl shiny and immaculate at all times, rust soon took hold and dragged my once-beautiful Taurus into a sea of unattractiveness. This, however, was just the beginning of a series of events which would inevitable lead to the demise of the car. Around 2002, the Taurus began acting strangely. It wouldn't start up properly, it was leaving fluid behind, and it even got us stranded more than once. After numerous attempts to diagnose the problem ourselves (My husband and I lacked adequate funds to have the issue diagnosed by a professional), we finally snapped and spent a mess of money finding the vehicle's numerous deadly flaws.

To start off, the battery had been completely fried over the course of six months. A brand new, brand-name battery had been effectively annihilated in half-a-year. Something had clearly gone horribly wrong. After spending a hundred-odd dollars replacing the battery, and almost a thousand more repairing a myriad of apparently poor connections, our Taurus' final days had begun to creep nearer and nearer. Once again, as it turns out, aside from the copious and annoying battery problems which had cost us hundreds of dollars, the transmission had also deteriorated to a point of no return. It was completely shot. The mechanic had told us that the only way to keep the car going would be to replace the transmission; a feat which would accumulate a bill in the thousands. Having no where near enough money to just mosey on down to the dealer and get a new car, we had to pool the necessary funds and spend a few painstaking weeks carless.

At the end of the ordeal, (I'm happy to report), we spent two more problem-free years alongside the car before it was time to drop it and move on. Aside from the clearly mounting cons, the Taurus did, infact, have some nice features. The power windows, large interior and reasonably copious safety features made it a fairly posh ride (well, about as posh as a car from 1997 can get), and we found it to be a reasonably attractive vehicle (at the time, of course). Also, the handling was great, and we found that our car (when not broken down) was the quietest one on the road!

I'm thinking that our terribly problematic Taurus was probably some sort of a fluke, but I'm still inclined to warn about the transmission. Other than reliability, the Taurus was quite nice. I feel as if drivers who don't intend to spend too much time driving might be smart to pick one up (especially since you can get one for fairly cheap, nowadays). Mind you, the whole battery-exploding, transmission popping ordeal has kind of left me a little upset, quite frankly. Long story short: Would I recommend this vehicle: Depends how cheap you can get it. Would I recommend it over all other vehicles: No!