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Sousa632's 2001 Duratec Sable LS Premium Wagon

100K views 525 replies 45 participants last post by  ice445 
#1 · (Edited)
01 Sable LS Premium Wagon, Duratec. Auto Climate control, Cloth seats, pleather door inserts, column shift.



I bought the wagon to replace my wife's Saturn wagon cause we needed more space. Space we got! I picked it up for $1400 and have done a bunch of work to it since it was in my driveway in June of 2011. So far I have replaced the battery, coil, plugs/wires, UIM/LIM gaskets, a few vacuum lines, PCV/PCV hoses, front/rear brake pads and rotors, 3rd cat, 2 o2 sensors, rear balljoints(YES...... a wagon DOES have rear balljoints and YES....... they are replacable), the heater blend door motor, and typical routine maintenance items.

This is how she looked when she came home, and what she replaced in the background...







Ripping in the engine to replace the UIM/LIM, plugs wires and coil




It was hot this day....




I took the Tbird Sport rims I had on my Tbird and put them on the wagon with 225 60R16's on them










After that I put the stock rims back on it and started tinting the rear windows. I never completed that yet with winter set in and no garage to do it in.....







Finally setteled on getting rid of the black Tbird rims, and painted them silver and I'm sticking with that. I might sand them back out and go gunmetal in the spring but I'm not quite sure yet. This picture I took down the road from my house just after Hurricane Sandy right by the water. This area was under water during the storm......... we lucked out.









She's been put to work many times






Cant do that with a sedan! ^^



I'm in process of fixing the lovely door panels now -_-. You can see how bad they are here.




Once the weather finally gets above a reasonable temp to go out and work on the car I have front struts, balljoints to do to it. I also have to get a replacement heater bled door motor(warranty item). I'm hoping to have them done soon cause it's driving me nuts having parts here, and not having them on the car where they are needed............ :angry:

She's been a trooper! I used her to drive the family to NC for vacation, as well as dropping the seats and loading it up with stuff to take to the recycling center as well as trips to home depot for doors in my house. A true all purpose vehicle without being a gas guzzeling truck or a van. Can't go wrong with a wagon! With a new set of front tires I wouldn't hesitate to drive this car down to FL(which I might to get away from this damn cold, and visit family). :p I need to get some new pics...... all these are old minus the one from Hurricane Sandy but that's still like 3 months old.
 
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#384 ·
That bites. If a car down here is on the road and insured, windshield damage is fixed with no questions asked, no charge.
 
#385 ·
Sure does suck..... $233 is what it's going to cost to replace it. Hell... my sister had her windshield replaced with comp/collision on their Prius and it still cost them about $150 going through their insurance, just for it to get cracked again 2 months later on the highway.
 
#392 ·
Absolutely. She tried showing me it this morning and aside from swirl marks from a poor cleaning job I'm not seeing it, but then again I'm not driving it either...... Either way I'm working on buying her another car and I'll be taking the wagon over as my DD for work. I need something better on gas but something that has cargo space as well. Yesterday we did an acquisition which required taking all the computer assets. In the future there are going to be more of these happening.
 
#393 ·
Since the last update there's been some more work done. That spot in the new windshield I was able to finally see when I took it to PA. It's definitely a defect in the glass and I need to get them to replace the windshield again. Then of course there was this debacle with it not starting..... http://www.taurusclub.com/forum/82-maintenance-repair/308161-no-start-need-ideas.html. Replaced the $18 CKP and all is well again.


What I have been seeing a lot of lately is when you drive the car on the highway for a little bit, the 1-2 shift neutral drops and free revs. If you let up off of the gas it'll catch with no problem then it won't happen again till another highway speed run. It also would chatter slightly when putting it in drive. I checked the trans fluid and it had air bubbles in it so it was hard to read. I added a touch. My wife has been complaining about it happening more and more so I figured it's time to change the fluid as it was due anyway(has about 40K on it). So today, between the Seattle rainstorms in NJ, I sucked out the old fluid and replaced with Mercon V. I pulled out 7.25 qts, but only put back in 6.5qts till it was full. My guess is that it was overfull and aerating the fluid and after the highway run it was sucking air into the system. After doing the change, the chatter is almost gone already putting it in drive, it shifts a lot smoother, and there's no air bubbles any more. Here's what it looks like....





Top is old fluid, middle is right out of the bottle, the bottom is after taking it for a ride. I'm probably going to run this for a couple hundred miles and do another suck out and refill just to be safe. It was about $38 in fluid so it's not that expensive at all to do again. Cheap insurance. While I was in there I sucked out the PS reservoir and put fresh Mercon V in there as well. Time will tell if this did the trick with the neutral dropping after a highway run.
 
#395 ·
The rattling in the rear has given way to an all out bind/pop, especially when pulling out of my driveway turning the wheel where one side would be higher than the other in the rear. That, and when there's a load in it(kids) it happens every time the suspension cycled. Today was finally a nice enough day to take a look at it where I had nothing else going on. I took the tire off and started tapping around with a mallet. I heard a little noise at the BJ so I disconnected it to see what it looked like. Good thing, it was seized up with rust. This one I've replaced twice before, the last time being with a non-greasable one because that's all that was local.


I could only move the BJ with my BFH and only in one direction so my guess is that it was binding and overworking the rest of the suspension causing the clunk in the rear. Here's what it looks like with the boot off....





My wife has the car out now and so far she said she didn't hear the bind-clunk when coming out of the driveway(neither did I standing there) and she didn't hear any clunking driving to the store which it would have with these lovely NJ roads that we pay astronomical amounts of taxes to not fix.........


I did also notice that the rattling I hear could be coming from the adjustable control arm bushing. I hear that when tapping on it, but nowhere else. I'm going to save that for another day though.
 
#400 ·
It definitely looked that way, and it didn't move at all on that one side.


So after my wife telling me yesterday that the wagon was misfiring, and the cel was flashing I checked the codes. P0305. I pulled the plug and it had a huge gap(they have about 45K on them) I replaced the front plugs, still misfiring....... changed the wire with a known good one that I kept from my old 03..... nada.


Today I grabbed a new coil and figured it would be a 1,2,3 install and I could have gotten the rear plugs finished. Well I was sadly mistaken. I numbered the wires, took them all off, got the 2 hex bolts out of the left side........ and the right side hex bolt stripped. So instead of being able to slide the coil out, put the new one in and go, I had to take the wiper arm, upper and lower cowl off so I could get in there and find a way of getting it out. Luckily enough I was able to get it out, with some flying tools and a LOT of cursing as quietly as I could with a neighbor outside playing catch with his daughter:rolleyes2:. Took WAY too long and I was fighting the mutant mosquitos along with diminishing light. Put it all back together, and took it for a drive to teach it a lesson. Everything is back to normal now and it doesn't vibrate at idle as much as it was. This weekend I plan on finishing the rear plugs.


Now..... time to bandaid my truck enough to get through the next week or 2 at which time it will be gone. I'm going to trade that in and get my wife a new car, then I'm taking the wagon.
 
#401 ·
For the last couple days my wife has been telling me that there was a noise in the front end again. Being that the tropical store moved offshore and all we are getting is wind at this point, I figured I'd take a look at it being that my wife needs the car for a 400+ mile trip for training in a week. Lifted one side at a time in the front and found that the passenger wheel bearing is shot now. I replaced the drivers side already. Ordered the part and will do it at some point over the weekend if the weather cooperates.
 
#402 · (Edited)
It was a pain just like the drivers side, but I replaced the passenger side wheel bearing. What i ended up doing on this side, rather than take off the knuckle and beat it out from behind like the other side, was i took a heavy duty tile chisel and sharpened the tip to make it more like a wedge. Put it where the WB mates to the knuckle and gave ut a bunch of whacks with my 2lb sledge. Moving around the WB, it finally seperated and I was able to whack the hub to get it out. Good thing because I REALLY didn't want to take out that knuckle.

Put it all back together and no more noise. I also had to break out the little green machine to clean a spill on the passenger floor that smelled terrible. Lives another day......
 
#403 · (Edited)
Well now that the wagon is my DD I'm seeing things that I need to fix. The rear springs are soft..... I need to replace them so whenever time/weather permits that's going to get done. Same thing goes for the front struts, they are soft and the mounts are making a spring release noise when turning sometimes. I also have a rim that's bent and slowly leaks air so I'm going to have to replace that in the very near future. It's too damn cold out to do anything now so unless it's an immediate necessity, it's being put on hold. I do need to seriously change the oil though. It runs strong, shifts well and starts every time so I have no doubts of it's reliability now. I've taken it on a trip that I know was a $20 gas trip in the truck that in the wagon I used 1/2 the gas so the savings are going to be big driving this. It's sitting at 1915xx miles right now, with much more to come!
 
#406 ·
Sounds like it has been faithful wagon for you. Some fixin is in order. At ~110K mine ('03 wagon) rear shocks are flat, like no pressure. Front struts flat at 100K, NJ car. Sway arm links, BJ all rotted of boots, but my '01 sold couple years back had all OE and they had good boots. 131K. Had a shop replace the sub frame do to rust where the A/C drips on it. Tec said all the front end parts were good. It did have broken front spring well back few years and I did the springs but not the struts.

Daughter's friend, drove my '03 sedan 153K and then took my grandson for a practice drive for his license. This guy said he loved the way it was so comfortable and drove so nice. He drives 5 year old Subaru SUV. Said it was better than his car.

In my op, wagon has a bit more wind noise and rear tire noise. Small price to pay for hauling capacity. :D On exact same drive same conditions, wagon 1mpg less.

-chart-
 
#407 ·
It's definitely been reliable (minus the crank sensor fiasco) but it's starting to show it's age now. Other than the wheel well rust on the passenger side, there's nothing a JY or some parts can't make better. :) I forgot what it was like to take it to the redline till today. People pissed me off not knowing to merge onto a 65 mph highway. Hammertime! Still does throw you in your seat nicely. Tomorrow, if it gets above freezing unlike the last 5 days, I'm going to go out there and clean it and the new car more thoroughly.
 
#409 ·
Oh it's not going to get washed...... mother nature is going to take care of that tomorrow. It snowed the other day maybe 1" and they threw enough salt down for a damn 2ft snowstorm so it's all going to get kicked back up. The inside is what needs a cleaning on both cars. ;)
 
#410 ·
While everyone was inside playing with their new toys, I went outside and started cleaning out the wagon to make it mine again(plus it was filthy). I vacuumed it out and saw some stains on the carpet under the passenger front seat. I thought it might have been from a kids foot but that was not the case. A quick spray and blot showed it was something in the carpet...

Now...... My wife had an energy drink in the car months ago that ended up exploding in her purse and it was not cleaned properly. That was on the passenger front. There was a nasty smell associated with that which I've been battling since. I went out and bought a Little Green Machine and had at it. Cleaned it up nicely, but the smell came back. I looked at the center seat and it was looking like crap, so I took the whole console out, cleaned it all up and steam cleaned the entire floor in that area. It was disgusting! I then started steam cleaning the whole center seat and it was worse than the floor was. I would have said it was coffee, but it was so dark I'm thinking I found where the energy drink ended up spilling.... I cleaned it all up to where the water was running clear, which seemed to take forever, and I can tell that the smell in the car has already changed. I'm hoping that was the source.

In doing this, I really would like to swap out that useless seat for a center console. It would be even better if I can swap in the full center console and shifter to get rid of the column shifter. I have bigger fish to fry before that(suspension and ABS controller) but maybe once it warms back up that will be in order. I'm still looking to source a decent set of floor mats for it being that I have junk plastic mats and no carpet mats. They are looking terrible so I want to do something soon about that.

I was debating on keeping the truck as a spare car, but after using it yesterday to drive to my sister's house I realize how much money I'm wasting in gas driving that thing. I put $20 in and used about 1/2 of that to drive roughly 40 miles. With that, the insurance and Tags that are due by the end of next month, I think I'm going to just let it go and call it a day. That saves me about $50/month on insurance and about another $100/month in gas........ more than 1/2 the Hyundai car payment.
 
#414 · (Edited)
Yesterday it was 55° so it was nice considering. Last year it was 80 on Christmas day and I was happy as hell walking around in shorts and sandals. :)

Today is 45 so no more cleaning with the LGM. I could definately tell a difference in the smell in the car. It's almost scent neutral so I'm good with that! Plus now I finished cleaning everything so it looks better on the inside.

I checked the oil and it's low so I added some. The gas pedal has also been a little sticky when cold. I need to take the TB off and give the throttle plate a good cleaning. Along with that, I sprayed the door seals with silicone cause the other morning the doors froze shut. We are now staring down the barrel of winter at is coldest so time to get the prep done;) Its also been about 6 months so I did my bi-annual headlight cleaning. They came out pretty good with just a 2 minute hand compounding.

One done



Both done

 
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