Subject: My Ford bs! Date: 6/2/2003 In the spring of 1999, I foolishly purchased a 96 Taurus SHO. It was a dealer vehicle with 22K miles on the clock. It ran great for two months and then all hell broke out. It was minor repairs at first but they soon grew into vastly more expensive repairs. In the fall of 2000 (one and a half years after purchase) the tranny failed at 80K miles. That set me back $2400. Was it possible that anything worse can happen? You betcha! On 9/11/2001, the engine failed at 100K miles due to a known design flaw by Ford. The engine was replaced yet it never ran like it used to. Fast forward to a few days ago (May 29, 03). The tranny is on its way out again. My fears were confirmed by my mechanic. Bad enough I had to replace the first tranny, now I am going on my third in this vehicle! This is absolutely and positively insane! Ford is sorry for the problem yet they can't do a thing even though they sold me this crap. It is too bad that I am being treated the way that I am. There are a few Ford vehicles out that I would love to have but after the way I am currently being treated, I will never take the chance again. There is nothing like a automobile company that will not stand behind their product. Look at Dodge with its 7yr/70K mile warranty. That tells me two things: They stand behind their product no matter what and they also feel it will last.
Followup:
By the way, the dealership that did the second tranny installation was the "Rt 23 Auto Mall" in Butler, NJ. The job they did was piss poor. My mechanic asked if monkies did the installation because it was so improperly done. They messed up the linkage, the tranny mount, etc.., The one thing that made me laugh was that everytime I spoke to someone in their service dept, I always received a diferent story when it came to the warranty. Please, don't ever go to that dealership or you will be screwed blue! In all honesty, I feel like taking this bad tranny and knocking on the door of William Ford Jr and shoving it right up his ass!