New to us car

Do these transmissions just fail all at once? This one drives ok for 207K miles.

It can happen, you'll probably at least be able to drive home though.

My parents had a 1990 Taurus that needed a transmission by 1996/7 and probably under 100k. I don't remember anything catastrophic happening the first time, so it was probably just slipping, but drivable. When the replacement trans went about a year later in late 1997 it was more sudden. My dad took me to go pick my sister up from college about 4-5 hours away. Going there, the car was totally fine. On the way back we hit heavy traffic close to home and the transmission started acting up bad. My dad pulled over and checked the fluid and I remember it looking chunky and metallic. The car was able to limp home barely. The next day my dad tried driving it to the Ford dealer, and it stopped dead in the intersection next to the dealer and got pushed the rest of the way. It was traded in on a 1998 Contour SE that was actually a really good car until it got wrecked. Ironically the Taurus outlived the Contour, I saw it years later around 2006 in a parking lot walking distance from where it died.
 
It can happen, you'll probably at least be able to drive home though.

My parents had a 1990 Taurus that needed a transmission by 1996/7 and probably under 100k. I don't remember anything catastrophic happening the first time, so it was probably just slipping, but drivable. When the replacement trans went about a year later in late 1997 it was more sudden. My dad took me to go pick my sister up from college about 4-5 hours away. Going there, the car was totally fine. On the way back we hit heavy traffic close to home and the transmission started acting up bad. My dad pulled over and checked the fluid and I remember it looking chunky and metallic. The car was able to limp home barely. The next day my dad tried driving it to the Ford dealer, and it stopped dead in the intersection next to the dealer and got pushed the rest of the way. It was traded in on a 1998 Contour SE that was actually a really good car until it got wrecked. Ironically the Taurus outlived the Contour, I saw it years later around 2006 in a parking lot walking distance from where it died.
I had the Contour before the Taurus. That had a the 2.5L Duratec engine which was decent in the Contour which is why I wanted the 3.0L Duratec engine in the Taurus. Back when the Taurus SHO came out, that was 220hp so 200 wasn't too shabby. I'm not sure what other ways the transmission goes, but when mine went, it was the the torque converter, no lockup so it wouldn't go into 4th gear. It was drivable though, just got slightly worse gas mileage. I think you could clear the code, then it would come back after a few restarts as it tries to lockup and then after it fails for a while, it triggered the code. Luckily it went past the 15 year mark where in MA they don't care if you have CEL lights on anymore as long as it passes a safety inspection.
 
Back
Top