[FORD RACING TAURUS]

My husband and I test drove a 98 Taurus with the duratec engine. Beautiful car with only 65,000 miles on it and he wants at least $6,000 for it. Has all the goodies. Only thing is when you put it in reverse it has a slow response. Is this a bad sign? We really like the car and might buy it but really don't want to spend another $2,000 for a rebuilt tranny. Does anybody have any info about this?

Thanks for responses.

 

[Twilight]

How long are we talking about? Mine takes about a second or so to go into reverse.

$6000 for a 98? Sounds like they're trying to take you there. My 99 Sable had 86k on it, I paid around US$7000 for it, 2 years ago...

 

[FORD RACING TAURUS]

We had to give it some gas to go into reverse which took about 5 seconds. Our taurus has no problem going into reverse (within a second). It was kind of strange to see part of the dash had been tooken apart and not put together all the way,too. The car lot owner didn't know what was done to it. But it had alot of get up and go!

 

[deniz]

unless the fluid is very low, yes, that is a very bad sign. Unless you plan on replacing that transmission, I would not buy that car.
In fact, when inspecting a trade-in, one of the checks dealerships perform is to do just that-shift the car from park or neutral to D or R and note the lag until the tranny engages. If that takes more than a second or so it is a bad sign. Taurus trannies are known to engage somewhat slower than others (which is really a problem when trying to rock the car out of mud or snow), but if it takes THAT long and you actually have to 'give it some gas' to get it to engage, there's something wrong.

 

[cincyses]

Gen 4 vulcans (2002) with 55K are going for around $7500 in the Cincinnati area (at dealerships, not private party) so I'm not convinced that that is a very good deal either....