I'm looking at buying a new or newer used Taurus in the Chicago area over the weekend, a low-miles off-lease car. Ideally I want a car with leather interior, sunroof, and the 24-valve engine, but I'm curious: what options would current Taurus owners have gotten if they could re-do their purchase? What troublemaker would you drop from the options list? Emanuel
I have a 2002 Ford Taurus SEL 24V Leather + moon roof.
The best thing about this car is that it can seat 6. 3 in the front and 3 in the back.
One quirk about the moon roof is that if you try closing it at 90 mph it will not seal properly. Air will rush around it for a very long time until you can open and reclose at a much slower speed.
That's another thing about the car is with it's long wheelbase, V6
200hp and biger than normal wheels (for a mid size sedan) it's easy to go too fast in this car since there is almost zero road noise and the car is just as happy at 100 mph on the straightaway country interstates, as it is at 55 mph or a typical highway.Leather interior is wonderful if you don't mind slipping around a little bit at first until you get used to it. On extended trips it can be a problem. All you need are seat covers to fix that. Plus leather burns the skin if you live near the equator and it also feels colder to the touch if you have freezing winters.
Before the car leaves the lot, make sure that they fill up the gas tank for you. The dealers should do that upon your request.
The cars service manual says to rotate AND change the motor oil every
5,000 miles. I don't listen to this, I just change the oil every 3,000 miles. It's cheap insurance on your engine plus you will get the best gas mileage. If you follow the 3,000 mile deadline religiously your engine should last for a very long time.What's wierd is that GMC puts "Oil lights" on all of their cars now. You don't have to watch the mileage anymore between oil changes as there is an oil sensor that turns on as soon as it senses how dirty the motor oil is. There is some kind of sensor in the oil pan the lets the cars computer know when it's time to be changed. It probably gives you a decent 500 mile warning in advance in case it turns on while you're on a cross country trip from NYC to Seattle. GM even won many awards for that change-oil-light piece of technology. It's said that they have saved more oil than what can ever be found in Alaska. So how do you like them apples?
Ask a GM owner who has had to pay for a motor how they like this light. Here is the problem. The light is fine, it is a novel idea. It is not a sensor in the oil pan however it is an algorithm in the computer that senses miles driven , engine load / speed / idle / temp etc to come up with an avergae life for the oil. That is the GOOD news. The bad news is (and I have seen this on severl cadillacs) NO ONE CHECKS THEIR OIL!!! Case in point , the driving conditions of a particular driver may stretch the "change" interval to 8000 miles. Well contrary to many customers belief , modern engines do use oil. They run high pressure at higher RPM's than ever before, its a fact of life. It is not uncommon for a car to use 1 quart in 5000 miles, thats no big deal, but by the time the car gets to 7000 m iles its burned more and the progression increases because as the 5 quart capacity is drained to say 3 1/2 quarts there is less cooling etc. so now it uses oil faster......so at 9000 miles it could be down 2-3 quarts. this is fine if we read the owners manual and check oil and every fill up but this is unheard of in todays world. We preach the check your oil at our dealership and still have customers come in way low on oil . Jaguar dows not use a light in their cars but has 10,000 mile intervals, we see the same problem , by 8-9000 they are way low on oil. Just food for thought.
Brad
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