The round looking ones from the late 90s. Seems like almost all of them I see driving around look like they are dragging the back end on the pavement. What's the design issue that let's the suspension collapse like that?
And how are people ok with driving a car around in that condition?
The springs sag and sometimes break- bad parts from the factory I think, or just ones with a short design life.
Yep, broken coil springs. There was a recall, but all the recall does is put a metal guard around the spring so when it breaks it wont cut the tire. I had one break on my 2000 taurus back when. I called ford for springs. They told me they were $16 each. At first I was excited because they were inexpensive, then I realized they reason they were broke was because they were cheap.
Lost a fairly new tire to a broken front spring on our old '99. I think the car had less than 50k on it at the time.
Reminds me of all the sagging early 4 runners.
The old Tempos and Topazes do the same thing.
Moog "cargo coils" are an improvement from stock for these.....the OEM springs were E36 M3 and sagged fairly quickly with stock weights of an unloaded car.
Neglected maintanence
I assumed they were all hoarders and had 500lbs of newspaper in the trunk. Most of the drivers and interiors of those cars fit the bill.
That's it? The coil springs break and the owners don't bother to fix it?
An old Taurus with broken springs must make for miserable transportation.
All 4 springs were E36 M3ty and liked to break, but I think they actually recalled the fronts as they had a propensity to slash the tire. They have such soft suspension losing a coil or two probably doesn't have much effect.
In reply to Datsun1500:
weren't they the most popular car back then?
BlueInGreen44 wrote: That's it? The coil springs break and the owners don't bother to fix it? An old Taurus with broken springs must make for miserable transportation.
I don't think I'm going out on a limb saying most folks driving a 15 year old Taurus can't afford to fix it. 
In reply to fritzsch:
They were cheap to buy, cheap to drive, had four doors, and got you where you were going. Most people shopping for cars don't think the same way GRM'ers do.
The early years of the third gen Taurus weren't bad cars new. Nearly twenty years later, there's really no good examples left here in Ohio.
I drove a Taurus wagon in high school. We kept it in pretty good shape so it wasn't awful.
...until the brake lines rusted out and the jack went through the rusty frame when we tried to fix the brake lines.
On the 2000 that we had, the wife bought it when we started dating in 03. It had like 30,000 miles. I think she paid in the neighbor hood of $10k. We drove it to 160,000, besides the springs and window motors I never did much to it besides maintenance and a few odds and ends. It was very reliable.
Now they seem to all have bad transmissions or head issues, if they haven't rusted away up here.
chandlerGTi wrote: Now they seem to all have bad transmissions or head issues, if they haven't rusted away up here.
Which is really sad. The duratec cars have the engine that will outlive a 7.3 diesel but saddled with a transmission that WILL die at or before 120k miles unless you bump the shift pressures up. My old sable had nearly a 100% increase in shift pressures and its current owner has nearly 400k miles on it now. Original engine and trans. 
Ian F wrote:BlueInGreen44 wrote: That's it? The coil springs break and the owners don't bother to fix it? An old Taurus with broken springs must make for miserable transportation.I don't think I'm going out on a limb saying most folks driving a 15 year old Taurus can't afford to fix it.
Its also a bit more expensive job on a Taurus than some, since they have struts in the rear. Heck, we had an 03 Focus in here last week that needed enough, and was rusty enough that she threw me the keys and registration and bought a used Integra.
The Hoff wrote: I assumed they were all hoarders and had 500lbs of newspaper in the trunk. Most of the drivers and interiors of those cars fit the bill.
I work with a guy who does that to his sable wagon.. carries around a full garage full of tools, including a table saw.. "just in case"... and yes, his car scrapes over bumps
Just did a craigslist search for these. Holy crap are they cheap!
In reply to mtn:
Spec Taurus? 
gearheadmb wrote: In reply to fritzsch: They were cheap to buy, cheap to drive, had four doors, and got you where you were going. Most people shopping for cars don't think the same way GRM'ers do.
This. I had a few of them for that reason. I wanted a cheap car I could just beat the crap out of and not care. It's was great at point A to point B, had an awesome a/c too. One of them I bought for $700 and it had 180k on it from the original owner. Had lots of squeaks, rattles and clanks, but ran like a clock. I ran it to about 195k and sold it on for $600. I did nothing but oil changes. Cheap transportation.
Esoteric Nixon wrote: In reply to mtn: Spec Taurus?
The 24 valve 3L's love boost BTW.....
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