Image: IMCDB.com, a still from an episode of the X-Files. That could be Mulder behind the wheel.
By 1999, my trusty CRX was getting long in the tooth. It was beginning to blow lots of oil through the tailpipe, to the point where whenever I got on the gas I left blue haze in my wake. The A/C was inoperable, and it began to overheat in traffic, which made it unusable in the city (which was where I lived at the time). I had a ’78 Scout that started up and ran whenever I asked it to, but was really only meant as a semi-occasional driver and not a full-time commuter (14mpg and a 4-speed stick in Beltway traffic kind of sucks). Something had to give.
By chance, my mother was shopping for a new vehicle, and we came up with a plan. She was planning on trading in her Taurus for a new Subaru, but knew I was looking for a used car, and graciously offered it to me. The Ford had been the perfect car for her at the time, and built for her demographic: Big enough to feel safe, with four doors to carry the people she never drove, but small enough that it didn’t scare her to pilot around the parking lots of Putnam County. She was looking for something that worked better in winter weather, and an Outback wagon was aimed squarely at the Taurus’ core snow-belt market.
Image: Starfire-auto.com. I looked for examples of the Ford gray, but I think they’re all so bland that nobody ever took a picture of one.
What she had was an LX model with a 3.0L V6, which was a nice upgrade from my thrifty 1.3L 4-banger. This was the second generation, the one that sold like hotcakes before they redesigned it with the fishbowl windows. As the midrange model, it came with electric windows and locks. It had a bench seat (technically a split 60/40 with armrests, but a bench seat). It was a dull shade of gray with a gray interior, which made it invisible to the naked eye. Sadly, it was also a column-shift automatic.
This was the last vehicle sourced from the family repossession business she would own, and also the last repo I would own as well. As the economy shifted in the second half of the 90’s, a lot of large leasing operations took their repossession in-house and my father’s business suffered as a result. He wound things down in the second half of the decade, and was out of the business entirely by the turn of the century.
Image: Starfire-auto.com. What’s the point of the bench seat? Were they planning on making all of these police cruisers?
I sold the CRX and took delivery of the Taurus, driving it home from upstate New York in the fall. Over the next four years, it served me (and my future wife) well, if not anonymously. Even though it was almost double the curb weight of the Honda, it moved quickly when I got on the gas. It was a decent highway cruiser, but lacked any kind of lumbar support for drives over 2 hours in length. How its target audience of baby boomers found those seats comfortable still baffles me. The interior fittings were typical of that era: the plastics were cheap and dull, but at least they didn’t powderize into dust like those of the previous decades.
HULK SMASH BIG WINDOW BUTTONS.
Ford’s idiot-sized buttons were laughably larger than the Honda controls I was used to. They looked like Fisher-Price toys. Even though it was a 4-door, I found that it was surprisingly less accommodating than the CRX’s hatchback for things like bikes, oversized furniture, or drywall. The rear doors opened just enough to squeeze a person inside but not enough to fit anything else. Having a trunk was nice, even though there was no passthrough. (How was Detroit not offering a passthrough in 1993? I feel like most of its Japanese peers I’d moved around the repo lot had this as a standard feature).
Image: Barnfinds. Imagine this car, stuffed with art students, blasting the Dead Kennedys.
Another of my roommates in college inherited his father’s 1989 Oldsmobile 98, a far superior car in terms of quality, handling, comfort, and options. For a domestic sedan it had undeniable style and presence, in a country club sort of way, even as we used it to bomb around the Baltimore underground party scene with eight people stuffed in the back seat. At that time we christened it the Gray Ghost. The Ford, in contrast, was so unremarkable as to be invisible. It was as exciting as oatmeal. I named it the Tortoise.
Image: Starfire-auto.com
The year I bought the Tortoise, I’d been laid off from my job, so I set about finding a new one and keeping busy: I rehabbed the bathroom in my rowhome, which required several loads of drywall. I picked up an inexpensive crossbar roof rack from Craigslist and became skilled at driving sheets of plywood home (slowly) strapped to the roof. Then I heard about a warehouse close by in my neighborhood that was being knocked down. I stopped over and asked if I could reclaim some of the brick they were hauling away, and they let me take as much as I wanted. (Why I didn’t use the Scout for this, I still can’t recall, but I suspect it was when the steel of the cargo bed was disintegrating).
This was my backyard, before and after. The Tortoise hauled all of the brick on the left side. The rest I had delivered.
I pulled the spare out and made several trips from the demo site to the alley behind my house loaded down with bricks. With these bricks I built a garden patio and increased the resale value of my house. This saved me a lot of money on raw materials but blew out both of the rear shocks, so the rear of the car handled like Uncle Buck’s Mercury. I never replaced them. My future fianceé and I mixed and laid all the bricks ourselves, and I put the deck in myself. (This past year I drove the alley of my old house to find the new owners had leveled my patio, ripped out the deck, and were using the backyard as a parking pad).
Image: Supermotors.net. Damn you, Vulcan, and your flawed cooling system!
I had few problems with it in the first few years, but as it reached the 4-year-mark, expensive things started breaking down. It began to have overheating issues, something I thought I’d sold off with the CRX, that manifested the exact same way: Sitting in traffic, the temp gauge would begin to creep upward, then suddenly zoom into the redline. My mechanic looked things over but found nothing wrong with the cooling system; even after flushing, refilling, and leaving the car running by itself for an hour, he couldn’t replicate the issue. This seemed to be an issue with the Vulcan V6.
I continued to have inconsistent, nagging problems with overheating, negating use of the A/C, and then the transmission began failing. It would suddenly slip out of gear completely, usually as I was turning at speed, which got tricky when I was on the Beltway. Or, it just plain refused to shift upwards out of second, leaving me screaming at 5,000RPM in the slow lane trying to make it to the next offramp. No amount of transmission fluid would help, and because we were financing as much of our upcoming wedding by ourselves as we could, I had zero dollars for a mechanic.
Image: Starfire-auto.com
The last straw came as I was driving to pick up the catering for our rehearsal dinner. At this point the Scout was out of commission–the exhaust was missing behind the headers, so it was a moving noise violation–and the Tortoise was my main transport. Our caterer was situated at the 12 o’clock position above Baltimore while my house sat at the 7 o’clock position–about 12 miles’ distance on the Beltway. I made it up there OK, and with delicious barbecue for 30 loaded in the trunk, I started back to the house but got bogged down in afternoon traffic. The temp gauge started climbing. Alarmed, I nudged the car along until I hit the redline. Pulling over to the shoulder to let the engine cool down for a half an hour, I continued down the road–for a half a mile. Meanwhile, there were hundreds of other preparations I needed to be making at the house. Drive, heat, sit. This on-again, off-again voyage continued for three more hours until I was able to get it home, where I parked it, unloaded it, and probably kicked it a couple of times.
After we returned from our honeymoon, I spied a For Sale sign on a Jeep Cherokee in our neighborhood, and gave the owner a call. Once that deal was done, I called up and donated the Tortoise to our local NPR station for a tax writeoff. I was mad, though, because the tow company came and got it before I could pull my $50 roof racks off.
I’m fortunate to have driven a lot of different cars. One I never liked was any iteration of the Taurus. I’ve never driven one I’ve liked. My wife’s 2003 was a total POS. It tracked so poorly that I took it for a wheel alignment. It wasn’t out, and the tech said, “Well, a Taurus doesn’t handle like an Acura.”
My Taurus experience ended at a paltry 85,000 km with an engine that was soon going to explode.
I have 2…a 88 MT-5 and a 94 GL. I like em. The 94 Interior is more creaky sounding than the tighter 88 door panels. They do their job. And they were cheap, which is the #1 priority on my list. I’ve had the 88 since 04 and the 94 since ’15. I bought the 94 from a friend who’s had it since 99 so I know it’s complete history since then. He also sold me the 88, but he had bought it that day from someone else.
My parents never had this model, but they did have 2-3 of the “jelly bean” models that followed.
While not exactly a defense of these cars, I would like to point out that the Taurus had a nicer interior than that found in the Celebrity. Both the Ford and the Chevy had bench front seats, if I remember correctly. I would guess there were at least two reasons why: each saw that their competition had that “feature”, and also because it kept customers in mind of the bigger cars that many of them traded in for a Taurus or Celebrity. (Bucket seats were perhaps seen as belonging in compact sedans?)
In 1989 my Honda Civic sedan did not have a pass through or a fold down rear seat. It was one of those features that the Civic would receive in 1990 as part of the mid model “facelift”. I wonder how this better idea was viewed in Detroit.? Another feature for a compact sedan?
The picture of the grey interior is the reason why I found these cars so dreary….unrelenting/depressing grey. Thankfully, other colors, like blue and red were still available.
I think even in grey on grey I would rather own one of these than a Celebrity. BTW, I agree with your assessment of the seats and rear door access, but at over 6 feet tall than may have been a given.
A differnt perspective:
I owned an first generation, ’87 Mercury Sable GS, purchased from my parents at a bargain basement price. (The Buick dealer has insulted my Father with their trade in offer. Dad had loudly proclaimed that he would “burn it down to the ground in the Buick parking lot” before he would accept their lowball insult offer. Cooler heads prevailed once they got home.)
It served me well for the 105K miles that Mom & Dad and I piled up on this car, much of it road trips to Branson, Gattlinburg & Tampa . It was a fine highway cruiser, quietly running at post-speed limit speeds all day.
The Sable had a much more “upscale” interior than a Taurus, with several tasteful different shades of coloring and thin, angled pinstripes on the seats and door panels.
I never noticed the water temperature gauge issue mentioned by IdiotKing.
The front seats, with the power adjustments, fit me well for my extended road trips. MUCH more comfortable than the S-10 truck I had before.
The automatic transmission transaxle was swapped out by the dealer, as part of a factory recall. I did notice that the new unit would stay in each gear longer than the first one, giving improved merging power performance.
My only complaint was that the factory air conditioning took longer to defeat the heat & humidity of New Orleans than I thought it should.
I sold it to a “laying-in-wait” co-worker looking for an inexpensive, clean, reliable car for his daughter to drive to/from LSU. He didn’t even dicker one penny on my asking price!
Judging by some of his comments; I wonder if the author of this thread had made up his mind, before even purchasing this car, to dislike it?
I’ve driven a 2005 Taurus numerous times, which I think was the last generation on this platform, and it’s just generally unpleasant to drive. I’ll cut it some slack because it’s nearing the 200k mark and it hasn’t exactly been babied but even the core elements of the cars are just awful.
The Vulcan is a relic that howls at anything resembling acceleration, the transmission refuses to downshift unless you kick it in the ass (which just makes the Vulcan howl even louder), if you attempt anything resembling an aggressive corner the car immediately falls into a safety net of understeer, and you really can’t drive it aggressively because the steering is something I would expect from Buick.
Despite all this, the ride isn’t even that great. My 1991 Civic rode better, which in the Taurus’ defense was benchmark in suspension tuning, but going from the Civic to the Taurus felt like driving an SUV. The ride is floaty and numb but anything bigger than a small crack sends rumble through the frame and into your seat. The side-to-side motion are weirdly stiff too, despite the floaty suspension.
All in all it’s not the worst car I’ve ever driven, but it’s just depressing to drive. I lean towards Ford and I can’t defend these turds.
This particular car sounds like a really mixed bag.
I’ve driven about fifty or so examples of the second generation Taurus, all in fleet use during the time I drove them and many were accumulating a lot of miles in motor pool use – not the most graceful way to age. Of all the ones I drove, there were only two problems ever; one had a bad wheel bearing at 58,000 miles and one later assigned to me shifted very harshly from first to second even after a transaxle replacement. All had the 3.0 and none to my knowledge ever had overheating issues.
These were also the best handling Taurus of the first go-around. In 1996 I had drivers training due to my job. Not the typical sort of class, I was put in a 1995 Taurus and told to navigate the test track belonging to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Simulating every type of terrain found in the state, I had to maintain 55 mph in some profoundly sharp curves. The Taurus found its groove and stayed put with surprisingly little protest. That particular car did go through a set of front tires every month.
You are correct about the seat comfort and entry into the rear seat (but this Taurus is far from unique in that regard). For long trips the front seats did get uncomfortable.
Overall these were generally good cars but there’s always an ugly cookie in every batch. Given how seldom I see these it’s obvious they didn’t age as well as GM A-body of the same time period.
One thing to keep in mind is that most vehicles in large fleets get regular maintenance, and in many cases on a more frequent basis that the mfg recommends. Meanwhile this car was a repo and if some one isn’t able to make the payments it would not be surprising to find that they failed to keep up on regular maintenance.
Indeed. We bought cars in those times knowing they were beat on, and hard. Many of the vehicles we repossessed looked like they’d been used to herd cattle in a hailstorm, and the running gear was always tired. My COALs of this era are more a testament to the durability of those cars than anything else, I suppose, but some fared better than others.
After Dad divorced Mom in 1981 (IIRC, I was a freshman at uni), she would go through exactly four vehicles before passing unexpectedly of a heart attack in 2010 – she never remarried. The first was a ‘71 Pontiac Catalina (400/2bbl/auto/4-door/appliance white), given to us by my Grandmother (a year or two pre-divorce). She got it in the divorce settlement, but quickly replaced it with a use Citation (4-door, forget the rest of the specs). Dad had always done our vehicle repairs, and with him out of the picture, I got called on for some of this work, at least when I went home on weekends. She developed a close relationship with a local shop, that seemed to treat her right and had what I thought were fair prices.
It eventually got shop recommended she get something more reliable (they were getting as tired of working on it as we were), so a 2nd-gen Taurus spec’ed similarly to yours (buckets, not bench) replaced it. It, too would end up spending an inordinate amount of time in the shop (looking at you, Vulcan), but it was a Toyota by comparison to the Citation. The shop she had been using closed, and the folks she used after that weren’t as sensitive to her situation… but they, too, eventually recommended the Taurus be replaced, possibly due to blown head gaskets…
It got replaced by a Nissan (Maxima? Whatever their smaller car was at the time). Was still driving it when she passed, and as Executor, with agreement from my brothers, we gave it to one of my brothers as they needed a car to replace their Grand Caravan that was on its last legs. His son (my nephew) is still driving the Nissan to this day.
My father had one of these, which he preferred to the 90 Accord that he wrecked. I guess you are either comfortable in a Honda or comfortable in a Taurus. Although Dad was one of the second group I was one of the first.
I drove a couple of these and never found them very satisfying. They weren’t really more agile than a Panther with decent suspension and seemed more crude. I guess these fell into that middle ground where I could never get happy. I like big soft cars and I like little tight cars. Each one does something well. These in the middle are too much compromise for me and aren’t great at anything.
The close up of the power window buttons jogged my memory of the dumbest design feature of any car that I have ever driven. The high side of the button lowers the window and the low side of the button raises the window. Just the opposite of what it should have been to lower the windows by feel. DUH!
The buttons were designed so the raised portion would raise the window. I don’t know why you thought it worked differently.
The car that I used to drive was as I described above. Maybe the lineworker that installed them drank his lunch.
My memories of these cars:
• For a long while, it seemed like this was what you got if you rented a car and didn’t insist otherwise. Usually a white one.
• They all seemed to make a weird noise immediately after startup. Sort of a “Dyoof! DyoofDyoofDyoof! Dyoof!” or “Glub! GlubGlubGlub! Glub!” type of sound, not very loud but discernible. Never did figure out what it is, but my guess at the time was something to do with fuel return or evporative emission control.
• The headlamps sucked very badly, as was typical of Fords at that time. Sloppy, cheap, nasty, and starved by underspecified wiring.
• When I worked at the wrecking yard, these cars were involved with one variety of Telephone Reverse Bingo we used to play: Pick up the phone, caller says “I have a [year] [Taurus, Sable]”, and we’d interrupt “Sorry, we don’t have a good V6 engine or automatic transaxle for you”. Seemed like at least 90% of the time that ended the phone call (“Okeh, thanks »sigh«”).
Interesting write-up. We had a ’92 Taurus, light blue, much like some of the photos. Don’t have many photos of our car, but like many of the cars we’ve bought, I did keep the sales brochure (fun to look back at, most cars look nice in the sales literature).
Our Taurus was our last car before our mini-van years, and ours was actually a very good family car. It was affordable, had plenty of room and easy access for kids and car seats, and ours was very reliable. It’s 3.0 V6 wasn’t exciting, but got the job done. Nothing much more than routine maintenance and wear-out item replacement in roughly 140,000 miles. The paint still looked nice and there was no rust when we traded it near the end of 2002 for a Mercury Villager minivan, another unexciting but good family vehicle. No regrets for either, sometimes unexciting and reliable are exactly what’s needed.
I had three of this vintage in the late 90’s. And also a 88 Aerostar with the vulcan 3.0. The first was a pretty beat 92 that I bought for my ex-wife after she had totaled two cars in about 6 months time (one of which was the Aerostar). I wasn’t looking for something nice 🙂 It didn’t last long. The second was a 93 SHO. That engine was more than adequate in power, the lumbar AND side bolsters in the leather seat takes care of the seat comfort issue, and the JBL sound system made up for a lot of sins. Bought with 100k and a new trannie. Put 80K worth of commute miles on her, when the trannie started to check out again. “She” wasn’t perfect, but we had a good time. I miss her.
I had an ’87 Taurus wagon when it was 9-10 yrs old. A lot of rust competed with the what was left of the original light blue paint. It also had a light blue cloth interior and those split bench seats you deride. They were so comfy esp. with the armrest! It was also the last car I owned with a column-shift auto, every car since then has been a floor shift with buckets. The car had high mileage but ran like a top and never let me down. Sadly I traded that Tarurus for an ’87 VW Jetta that was rust-free and seemed like a good proposition. Bad Deal! That VW was nothing but trouble.
Wish I’d have spent the money having the body on that Taurus wagon fixed and kept it until the 2000s. I miss it.
Oops! forgot to mention that your remodeled back yard looked great with the brickwork and nice fencing. Nice work! Too bad it was later torn up and replaced with a parking pad. Some people just don’t appreciate nice things.
The Olds 98 you pictured is actually an 88, distinguishable from the faster, more sloped C pillar. Yes, that’s right, the C pillar on the 98 managed to be even more vertical than the one on the 88.
Peak Taurus was in 1991, the last of the first-generation models (if you count the ’92 as a new generation; some don’t). The ’92 was cheapened everywhere you looked. Cheaper upholstery. No more woodgrain trim accents. Rear headrests axed. Rear storage compartments on deck and seat back pockets removed. Smaller gas tank. Cornering lights dropped after ’92. Separate inside door pulls removed in favor of cutouts in armrests. That expensive but effective Insta-Clear windshield option dropped. And a bunch of other things I can’t remember. New one felt like a huge downgrade when compared to a ’91
I remember thinking the ’92 was a significant downgrade from the ’91 not only in fixtures, fittings, and equipment but also in appearance.
(…and of course one of the first cheapenings Ford did was to delete the amber rear turn signals after the first year or two of production…)
…and now having said that, I wonder what market these were for. Somewhere outside North America, obviously. Japan, perhaps?
These second gen tauruses have all but vanished around here recently. So far this year I believe I’ve only seen 2 of them.
My folks had a 1993 Taurus GL wagon. It was bought new in 1993 and lasted until 2009 when it was traded in. It was a tough car. It got beat on by me and my brothers learning to drive.
Couple of things. The cooling problem was most likely caused by a faulty fan control box. The electric fan was bullet proof but the control box in the early ones (92-93) suffered from overheating and/or vibrations. The control box was directly under that plastic panel that listed the engine info on the front of the car above the radiator mounted on a bracket.
as the box was near the radiator and around the area of the exhaust manifold, the box would get heat soaked. Plus the fact that it was mounted on the front of the engine compartment meant that it suffered vibrations from the road and slamming the hood.
Ford revised this and all was good to go. My folks one had that issue and once Ford replaced it under warranty, the thing never had issues again.
The transmission issue was most likely due to a partially dying Vehicle Speed Sensor (VSS). This caused the on board computer all sorts of fits. A partially dying VSS would not screw with the speedometer but would cause the computer to not know what gear it was in and would lead to things like erratic shifting, staying in one gear or the slipping first to second shift/ bang shift issue.
My folks 2003 Sable had this issue. I replaced the VSS/OSS sensor (10 minute job) and it was all fine and dandy.
I found the seats to be comfy for long drives and as far as I know, my folks had no issues with them. There was a drivers side lumbar option for the 92-95 Taurus
I can understand your frustration about seeing your handy brickwork destroyed by a later owner. However I am sure that it was thanks to Baltimore City’s inability to solve parking issues and the fight to find parking spaces on the street. (I think you had to move your car once every 3 days or it would get ticketed) that the nice brickwork was removed to park the owner’s car.
I seriously do not understand how you could have stayed sane living in the city. It was such a pain in the ass to go through it when I was working there and it still is a pain in the ass now. I had to take my dad to Hopkins for a procedure and it was such a pain tying to get there. I am quite glad I live in Columbia
Hey Leon–
Where were you when I had this car? I’d probably still be driving it if I knew what you did.
RE Baltimore City: I loved living in the city, until I didn’t. My neighborhood (Canton) was vibrant, relatively safe, and within walking distance of everything I needed. It was parking, taxes, and schools that drove me out. I sound like a hick when I say it now, but after 15 years of being out, I’d never move back.
Those reverse self-Guillotine window buttons! For obvious reasons now illegal.
My Mother also gave me a Taurus, a 1988 she gave me in 1997. Despite having less than 30k miles it was nothing but trouble. Could never keep the A/C working, several starter replacements until finally the rear end gave out in 2000.
I am confused – how does the rear end give out in a front wheel drive car? Perhaps the back bumper fell off? 🙂
The things I remember vividly about these cars growing up in the 1990’s and early 00’s
1) The transaxles were utter rubbish and all 3 Ford dealers in my town and the next were replacing them left and right
2) The 3.8 Essex V6 was a pure head gasket eating weak bottom end lemon
3) When they got above 40K miles there squeaked and rattled like mad
4) The headlights quickly yellowed and sucked really bad
5) Electrical problems were quite common
6) Our local Cole muffler shop carried Taurus/Sables springs in stock by the ton
7) Early years had major overheating issues
8) The 1992 versions were a big downgrade from the 1991’s
9) They rode and handled pretty good for the time
10) My local junk yards were always fresh out of 3.8’s and 4 speed transaxles for the 1992-1999 cars. Had plenty of Vulcans however
I have a soft spot for Gen I and Gen II Tauruses, having owned two and still own the first one I bought in 1997 (a 1990 Gen I-B version with the retro 1963 Galaxie dash). Their supposed overheating problem is entirely caused by lack of routine maintenance; the Vulcan block is cast iron and will start to slough off rust if the coolant isn’t changed on a regular basis – a situation uniquely common to USA owners. Worse yet, the corrosive liquid left in the engine by lazy owners completely destroys the vanes on the water pump. Easy replacement, unless you don’t know how to do it!
Want your car to last? MAINTAIN THE DAMNED THING. I’ve had no problems, once I owned the wagon about six years and fixed all the crap the previous owners never did. This car is a delight. Roomy, plenty of cargo room, great handling (I went through the front- and rear-end suspensions when the car hit 25 years old) and it’s more mine than that of any previous owner.
I’m approaching 200K miles with nothing more on the horizon than routine maintenance, which I do myself. The money I’ve saved doing my own work paid for the transmission rebuild at 170K miles. I’m thankful I have the Vulcan instead of the Essex – but, either way, properly maintained these cars would last.