Help me weigh the sensible beater

[Gary Allan]

Okay, my oldest daughter's Taurus has returned to me. She threw in the towel after a winter without a heater core. She got over 4 years out of it (maybe 5 - memory) and about 40k and has upgraded her transportation on her own. Now it's rusted and has many battle scars. It has developed a head gasket leak (combustion side only) ..but it's havoc on the cooling system. We're going to ditch it after the summer and I want (I don't need it) a car for my youngest daughter at college. Not that she needs it there, but the round trips (about 110 miles round trip X2 each time) add up in the mix of things. We'll have 3 cars in any event. When she's home over the breaks, she works and it's nearly impossible to manage without 3 vehicles.

I just came across a very clean 93 Taurus with a 3.8. It's my son's friend's wife's (how many 's can I do here) former daily driver. It lost a water pump and they broke a few bolts in the timing cover upon an attempted R&R. I managed to get the bolts out and replace the water pump. It too has a head gasket leak ...that was, no doubt, caused by the wife driving the aluminum head engine in an overheat condition.

Now the rest of the car is cherry. Ultra clean interior ..power windows ..locks ..trunk release ..etc..etc. The a/c still works ..etc..etc.

If I buy this for salvage (he wants $300) I'm not even going to deal with the heads. I'll get some reman'd heads that are ready to install. The last thing I need is some machine shop (all that I know mostly do performance stuff - so they're living off of nature's way of saying too many people have too much money) doing everything that they see that they can do. Reman heads can be had for about $300 on ebay with free shipping and no core charge.

So, I'll have about $700 into this ..with the hope that there's nothing else wrong. There's no water in the oil ..and you can easily detect the cylinder pressure being pushed into the cooling system when cranking.

Let's hear your opinions. She's going to foot the bill for the parts. I'll be providing the labor.

 

[XS650]

Sounds reasonable. Main concern would be some water sitting in the cylinders long enough to cause a corrosion problem.

 

[c3po]

How many miles are on it, if he wants $300.00 that would be great if it were in perfect running condition which it is not, if it were me I would offer him less since you have to put some money towards reconditioned heads, remember too this is a 15 year old car, how is the suspension, transmission, alternator, powersteering, brakes, and the belts and hoses, if you get remanufactured heads could you have a problem with the head gaskets down the line.I remember when I used to hang around a gas station back in the late 1990's and the old mechanic there loved the Taurus because of all the head gasket and radiator jobs he got, there must be a reason these Taurus had so many problems. It might also be a good idea too see how easy it is to get parts for this car, were the problems with this car a design flaw or inadequate maintenance.

 

[Volvohead]

I have never been a fan of the 3.8 in a Taurus. Too much engine for that car. Too many problems. You can count on a trans rebuild even if it already had one. Transmission guys put their kids through college on 3.8 Tauruses. Don't let the shiny paint and clean interior dupe you.

That the lady drove it into overheat would have me taking a very close look at the lower end as well.

But with a 3.0, that car can outlive cockroaches.

 

[alanu]

The heads will always banana!!! The ends of the cylinder heads always curl up. Even if you never overheat the 3.8L it'll haunt you ever so often due to headgasket issues. Reman heads is nothing but a decked head and a valvejob. What you dont know is if those heads have ever been overheated severely or not. Its not uncommon to find cracked heads with fords worst POS v6.

700 dollars is "now". "Later" the dollars will accumulate and time lost due to down time. A heater core is common for those cars too so make sure when you drain the coolant you put some sort of coolant sealant in that thing.

If the fuel pump is buzzing you should consider dropping the tank to replace it.

Every time I see a taurus coming into my shop I say to myself "now what". I think that car was designed to cause headaches and its younger brother the contour aka Mercury "mistake" is right up fords alley in making money for the company with disregard to the end user.

I'm stating facts and not trying to upset anyone here. I see this stuff all day long and I dont know why people put their hands on a glowing red hot stove element. You will get burned.

 

[2002 Maxima SE]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
Okay, my oldest daughter's Taurus has returned to me. She threw in the towel after a winter without a heater core. She got over 4 years out of it (maybe 5 - memory) and about 40k and has upgraded her transportation on her own. Now it's rusted and has many battle scars. It has developed a head gasket leak (combustion side only) ..but it's havoc on the cooling system. We're going to ditch it after the summer and I want (I don't need it) a car for my youngest daughter at college. Not that she needs it there, but the round trips (about 110 miles round trip X2 each time) add up in the mix of things. We'll have 3 cars in any event. When she's home over the breaks, she works and it's nearly impossible to manage without 3 vehicles.

I just came across a very clean 93 Taurus with a 3.8. It's my son's friend's wife's (how many 's can I do here) former daily driver. It lost a water pump and they broke a few bolts in the timing cover upon an attempted R&R. I managed to get the bolts out and replace the water pump. It too has a head gasket leak ...that was, no doubt, caused by the wife driving the aluminum head engine in an overheat condition.

....

Let's hear your opinions. She's going to foot the bill for the parts. I'll be providing the labor.


The 3.8L was the unreliable engine of that line and later dropped by Ford. I believe it was known for head gasket problems (among other things).

I'd suggest either finding another with the 3.0L or rather than fix the 3.8L, drop in a 3.0L.

*Edit: OK, just read the other responses. Yes, true the transmission does give way at 100k (on the clock). My FIL owned three and gave us one (my dearly departed 1993 Sable). All were reliable cars (86 made it 380k, 92 made it 300k, 93 made it 200k, 97 at 200k), all had the 3.0L, but they all dropped the transmission (except the 97) at 100k or close to it.

Other than that, we had no problems with any of the cars. Regular maintenance is the key.

 

[alanu]

Maintenance will not make one bit of difference to the 3.8L.

Regarding high mileage in any vehicle make is meaningless. The repairs involved to make that mileage is the zinger. A customer of mine just barely made it to 400,000km's on his 92 Toyota corolla with original transmission and engine. The list of repairs is stupidly short: 1 master cylinder, mechanical fuel pump and carb. Miscellaneous components like cap/rotor/wheel cyl are normal wear items.

3.8L fords will bite you and thats just something inevitable.

 

[Gary Allan]

I would have much rather this had been a Vulcan ..but it's not

This chassis has about 170k on it. It was a daily 100+ mpd daily driver (and otherwise full time soccer mom activity). I would think that any inherent defects would have showed themselves by now and been addressed.

I don't think throwing a 3.0 Vulcan will be sensible due to the ancillary mandated accompaniments (accessory placement

..EEC ..etc. and lots of stuff I cannot even imagine).

My web research outside of BITOG seems to have two distinct schools of thought for the propensity of head gasket failure in this/these engine(s). One supports the notion that the OEM head gaskets didn't handle the dissimilar metal expansion rates well ..the other is that the heads warped.

Given that this was a wp failure that triggered the blown head gasket, I'd reason that, although more vulnerable to overheat, that this situation can be managed if you buffer the system well enough.

I recall the problem BMW had with the in line 6. The heads routinely cracked and they had the problem from the Bavaria through the late 70's 5 series (maybe beyond). One dealer fix was an inch and a half thicker radiator (testimony to the glory of Stamford, Conn wealth).

Since this is sitting in my son's garage until some final disposition is arrived at, I think I'll dig into it to the point of removing the heads and seeing what's up. If it looks otherwise in decent shape (cylinder walls ..etc.) then we'll go from there.

 

[02Pilot]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
I recall the problem BMW had with the in line 6. The heads routinely cracked and they had the problem from the Bavaria through the late 70's 5 series (maybe beyond). One dealer fix was an inch and a half thicker radiator (testimony to the glory of Stamford, Conn wealth).


That problem was caused by the use of thermal reactors mounted in the exhaust manifold. The extreme heat of the reactors caused the head cracks. The aluminum head M30 was fine once the switch to catalytic converters was made, or if the owner ripped out the thermal reactors.

 

[Gary Allan]

Ah ..Air Injection Reactors. I remember them well.

 

[Jim 5]

I nice little project for you would be to pick up an alternator reman kit and do this for your daughter. At these miles, it is going to go sooner or later and because of murphy's law, it will happen when your daughter is as far away from dad's shop as possible.

 

[Tommyboy]

I can attest to the wussie (tech term) transmissions in these. My Taurus transmission lasted to 80k miles. At the time I remember that being about the norm. I talked w/ other Taurus owners that had to rebuild their transmissions in under 100k miles. I had the transmission rebuilt for ~$2500and immediatly traded it in... that was stupid. Anyway, you might be better off to pony up ~$1500 and get something potentially more reliable for your daughter to travel a long ways to school.

 

[MrCritical]

No one has posted another good reason not to have a 3.8 Taurus yet.

The fuel mileage sucks.

 

[Gary Allan]

Does it really matter on an under $1000 car??

 

[c3po]

Yes Gary it does, no offense but it looks like there are too many issues with this engine and transmission and it is going to cost you a lot of time and money as well as some headaches, some engines and transmissions are bad even with excellent maintenance and this does not sound like one, I will give you an example both my Dad's 1979 Pontiac Bonneville and my 1983 Chevrolet El Camino have Turbo 350 transmissions, he bought the car in 1984 with 26K, dropped the pan and replaced the trans filter at 81K, then did it again at 160K, now the car has 200K, his motto is if it is not broke don't fix it. I have been more maintenance savy but I think this shows that the Turbo 350 is a good transmission whereas the 1 on the Taurus is not, I doubt all of the people that had problems with there Taurus drove it real hard or did no Maintenance.

 

[ChiTDI]

Originally Posted By: Tommyboy
I can attest to the wussie (tech term) transmissions in these. My Taurus transmission lasted to 80k miles. At the time I remember that being about the norm. I talked w/ other Taurus owners that had to rebuild their transmissions in under 100k miles. I had the transmission rebuilt for ~$2500and immediatly traded it in... that was stupid. Anyway, you might be better off to pony up ~$1500 and get something potentially more reliable for your daughter to travel a long ways to school.


I agree, and would put the word on the street to friends/ family/ senior centers/ credit union loan officers/ and anyone else dealing with cars about your wishes. You may have a plum come your way. Local college bulletin boards are good, too.
With your knowledge of cars, you'll be well served.

 

[alanu]

the 3.8L aluminum is junk. People can preach about this headgasket and that head gasket. The fact is they are sub grade aluminum that banana. Any machinist will tell you that those heads are soft as butter.

For the multi layer type headgaskets you'll have even more issues.

If its not a leaking heater core it'll be the radiator, noisy powersteering pump, leaking rack/pinion, alternator, headgasket, cracked heads, cracked valvebody in transmission, shot wheel bearing, dead fuel pump, leaking oil pan....... need I say more? Yup see this all day long and typically its the older folk that come to me and give me their retirement pension money. I truly feel for these people.

When my daughter starts to drive I will not subject myself or her to unreliable transporation. Even though I'm an auto tech I will not spend precious time fixing a bad foundation. All the perfume in the world will not mask the smell of ford poop. I have nothing against ford. I just hate explaining why they can only afford to eat instant noodles instead of steak. Nickel and dimes adds up quick.

 

[Gary Allan]

Well, aside from all the inherent shortcomings of a used car, I'll say that the main deal here is the weakness in the 3.8 engine. The trans may have already been rebuilt for all I know. My other Taurus it already had been and gave 40k and still is in good shape. Apparently hard parts are the shortcoming in them.

I'm not spending anything on any car. That is, I'm not going to exchange a next to free pig in the poke for a $3k-$5k pig in the poke. I'll never make another car payment and I don't have $5k sitting around gathering dust. I'm not going to use a home equity line of credit to buy anything that doesn't last beyond my lifetime of need. That's just a different form of car payment.

She doesn't require top tier transportation. She's 58 miles away at her college and spends, at most, 1 hour and 30 minutes between there and home. If she needed higher reliability (daily commutes of any duration) it would be for full time employment ..which she doesn't need during college. She'll have a car there for our convenience not hers.

So, we can surely say that there are wiser beaters to buy ..but understand that the selection will be extremely limited with my requirements.

 

[JTK]

Gary IMO, if the body is clean (unusual for a Tauri of that vintage)and everything works, you can't go wrong for $300 + some time, effort and repair cash. I really liked the 3.8L in my 2001 Windstar, but it would have had some intake updates over the 1993.

 

[alanu]

If the car breaks down when a critical exam is imperative to attend the girl will not be smiling. In my eyes having reliable transportation is important regardless of application. IF needed for grocery getting, school, work or pleasure having a reliable form of transporation is high on my priority list.

I'm just a negative autotech that observes empty wallets due to car selection.