Auto.com: Taurus SHO problems

[Ryan]

You think WE have problems, check this out:

http://www.auto.com/industry/taurus24_20021024.htm

Man...40,000 miles and a dead engine. Nice for the engine to die right after the 36,000 mile warranty.

I always thought the Yahmaha engine was "golden"

[athomas]

Was that 96-99 version built by Yamaha?? I know for certain that the 89-95 lower half was built by Yamaha, but in 96 they converted to a small V8. I personally owned a 91.5 SHO Plus. And never once did I have a problem with that thing. For a 3.0 with dual overhead cams that thing was a screamer. It was a mid-high 14 second car stock.

[TurboSE]

mymom has a 98 sho its fast and it has no problems as long as you don't beat on the poor thing

[VTECSiGAH8R]

Actually the "golden" Yamaha engine was the 3.0L and 3.2L V6 DOHC. Like everyone says, those babies can scream, and on my mom's car it was the ONLY part of the car that held together. She would pull on stock 5.0s all day with it.

Anyway, I never liked the idea of the Yamaha V8 DOHC on the turd-mobile looking Taurus (96+) cuz it seemed too small of a displacement to be a stable V8. Basically, they took up the extra space needed to cram in 2 more cylinders and 8 more valves, which were each reduced in size to an unstable size IMO. I don't think V8's should be any less than maybe .5L per cylinder (or 4.0L) for best stability, so 3.4's always seemed like bad news to me, especially since those things only had like 15 more hp, but with a broader torque curve.

[BransAm]

Jeeezzzz I'm glad i didn't buy that 97 sho i feel in love with last year.

[jbh1130]

I actually traded in a 97 Taurus GL to be my GAGT. I never had tranny problems, but my friend had a 96 GL...had to replace the tranny 3 times within a couple years.

My taurus took a beating...but around 110,000 miles it began to have lots of problems...so I traded it in for a brand new 2001 grandam gt1...:thumbs:

I had the taurus a few feet in the air (entire car couple feet in air), numerous stereo system upgrades, I beat the S*** out of that car! Boy was it fun to! :boogie:

[Mike3800]

SHO's are another car I personally like that are POS's so I can't buy one.

I'd love to have a fast sedan with a 5-speed manual or the nice sound of a V8 that's affordable. But those things are POS's faaaaaaaaaar worse than ANY GA. Seriously about a 3 months after I first got my GAGT, I saw someone in an automatic pre 96 SHO.... behind me 100% of the time... (leaving out the racing part of the story) and by the third light his engine/trans was in smoke, and it had temp tags on it meaning he just bought it. I really felt bad for the person, he was ****ed too!!

[Mike3800]

WOW... they really need to do a MASSIVE recall... that's complete BS!!