2000 - 03 Taurus/Sable what to look out for?

Looking to buy a couple for work.

What do i need to beware of?

Where do they hide rust?

What fails that is expensive?

Thanks

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Transmission. They are a ticking time bomb unless they've has religious fluid changes, and even that might not be enough.

Other than that, they are cheap, boring, safe, and practical.

The mirrors will fling rainwater directly into your face/chest if the window is cracked even the slightest amount. Ruined a few good dress shirts that way when I had one as a loaner.

They rust out in the rear wheel arches, from what I see.

Seats are back-achingly terrible.

Duratec V6 is okay, I guess.

It's not made by GM, that's a plus.

My wife's 01 Taurus hasn't been too expensive to repair, but it's on it's third fuel pump in less than 120,000 miles (to be fair, the second was a used ebay find). It also eats front brake rotors like they're candy.

I can also second the rust in the wheel arches thing. The fuel pump issue may be confined to the 01 model year, as the part used that year is unique.

3.0 OHV's will run nearly forever. 3.8's will eat HG's and coolant. Transmissions are hit or miss. If it hasn't been serviced ever before 60k, just go ahead and rebuild it with all the updates. Incredibly boring appliance that gets mid 20's and likes to rust in the rear wheels and rockers.`

We run a lot of miles, up to 60K a year, figure they were rental specials and should be able to take a lot of miles driven normally.

Under the radar is good, comfort and mileage matter

60k a year??

Also Maxima >>> Taurus, right?

I personally do that every year, my drivers can do similar if they want to work.

I have had to replace all 4 springs on my wife's 2000 Sable.

yeah I was just going to say that, I know several sable/taurus owners that have had to replace at least one coil spring within 100k. Apparently they are prone to breaking.

Rust in rockers. Big rear seat. dated a girl that drove on once...

pres589 wrote: Also Maxima >>> Taurus, right?

Probably. If you are talking about price, definitely. Taurii are decent cars that depreciate like rocks, which makes them a pretty good value as a used car. But they are strictly appliances to get you from A to B.

Also, they never put the 3.8 in this generation, only the Vulcan and Duratec. Duratec has more power, Vulcan will last longer, though I know plenty of people that put a bunch of miles on Duratecs, too.

Yeah, I guess I'd need $6k to get a Maxima in similar condition to a $3k Sable. I just can't get behind the idea of purchasing a Taurus/Sable and I want to think the Maxima will be better made / last longer.

Tom_Spangler wrote: Transmission. They are a ticking time bomb unless they've has religious fluid changes, and even that might not be enough. Other than that, they are cheap, boring, safe, and practical.

The solution to the transmission problem is to up the shift pressures on the ax4n......I bought a '99 duratec sable in 2005, had 71k on it then......all I did to it was get an SCT tuner and have shoforum's resident Gen 3 tuning wizard write some tunes for it. Once flashed, I upped the pressures on the 1-2 and 2-3 shifts. I beat the heck out of that car for 3 years and 50k miles, countless drag passes that ended up deep in the mid-15's, and sold it with 127k on it in 2008. The current owners have put over 100k on it since, still original engine and transmission.

People swear up and down that the OHV vulcan is the better engine, they're wrong. The OHV suffers more issues than the duratec does. I see more blown head gasket OHV's in yards than I see Duratecs with blown transmissions. Also note, most duratec equipped cars in the junkyards will still run

Rust issues, the taurus/sable of this generation will typically rust in the rear wheel wells and the very back bottom of the rear doors, my former '99 is suffering this fate presently(it makes me somewhat sad)

My advice, steer clear of the 2000MY as they have the E36 M3tier 10.9" front brakes(the rest have the 11.6") unless you want to run 15" wheels and snow tires... and a few other oddball things.

A co-worker had one that died after 270,000 miles. So that's a positive.

On the negative side, my mechanic says he will not change a transmission in one.

trucke wrote: On the negative side, my mechanic says he will not change a transmission in one.

Why? It's only three hrs from broken to fixed..

In reply to trucke:

I don't like doing them, but they're really easy if you have a lift.......send the trans down with the front subframe

Buddy of mine had to have head gaskets done on his Sable...not sure which motor it had. I've always been under the impression that they were piles of poo, but that is not from first hand experience.

In reply to sethmeister4:

Normal ones are absolutely horrible to drive.......duratec ones are soso but still horrible, the sho's actually feel better, but the drivetrain in the old ones only somewhat makes up for the fact its still a taurus.

Mind you, the new ones with S80 volvo underpinnings shouldn't be considered under this....lol

Noisy power steering pumps.

Also the OHV v6 motor is prone to head gaskets because its basically a RWD motor just shoved transversely ( so I have been told) so they tend to develop hot spots on the rear cylinder head since its crammed back there and they lack the airflow over them as they would in a longitudinal set up.

Also radios of that ford era are hit or miss.

Ranger50 wrote:

trucke wrote: On the negative side, my mechanic says he will not change a transmission in one.

Why? It's only three cans of gas and a lit match from broken to fixed..

FTFY.

In reply to Bobzilla:

No bob, thats gm......you don't have to supply anything with fords, ferraris, lamborghinis, audi's and VW's to get that result.

My father has had a couple of Tauruses of this gen (00-07) and 1 of the previous gen (a '97, I think) and ALL "crapped" their transmissions. On the '97, it started out as sticking in 1st and progressed to "hanging" between 1st and 2nd for random short bursts. VERY dicey when you are accelerating from a stop in heavy traffic. It's possible the problems on all of these cars would have been alleviated with better/more frequent servicing.

All my father's Tauruses had the Vulcan engine....and he never had much in the way of problems (that I know of). By the way, the 3 liter Vulcan engine was designed for the Taurus when it first went into production, and wasn't used in a RWD vehicle until it went into Aerostars and Rangers...5 years after the Taurus first hit showrooms.

My father lives in NE Pa, and has never experienced a rust through on his cars, and he isn't a stickler for waxing/polishing. The '97 had some surface rust on the rear wheelwells, but it came from a used car dealership in NY state. He also never had a broken spring in any of these cars.

For driving? They are decent, for a now 10 year old design. The seats aren't really shaped all that well for long distances, they are tolerable.

If I were going to buy one of these, I'd find a nice Duratec-engined upper trim model (for the bucket seats that SOME of them had). Be advised, ABS came standard on a Sable by '02 but was still optional on Tauruses...and few have/had them. Wagons have 4 wheel discs, sedans have rear drums...depending on the trim level.

fidelity101 wrote: Noisy power steering pumps.

I always thought there was something wrong when a Ford power steering pump didn't make noise? You mean thats not engineered in from the factory?!

I still love the vulcans. If I didn't rear end a minivan a few years back, I would still be rocking a 99 taurus.