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Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable Sedans Pre-2008
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The squeek/squeal usually comes from the pads. Ususally from the back of the pad vibrating aganist the mountings at slow speed.
There is adhesive that cane be applied to usually or sometimes stop this. It will probably cost about in labor what a brake job (without turning the rotors) would cost because the pads have to be pulled, adhesive put on the backing, and replaced.
On some brakes, there are also anti-rattle or anti-squeek clips on the pads. These might not have been reinstalled on your last brake job and are causing the noise.
A thought - if it isn't much of a noise ignore it.
I once put 'full metallic' drums brake linings on a 1972 Duster. The last 30 feet coming to a stop, these things just screamed. People on the sidewalk would look at the car, sometimes appearing to be about to cover their ears. I just drove it. The brakes were great!
And also, after getting my tires rotated by the local station (who i used to trust because they said they tightened the lugs by hand and even wanted me to come back after a couple hundred miles and have them retightened) the wobble and vibration in my steering wheel of my 99 SHO is almost unbearable where as before it was almost hardly a trace. DO YOU THINK THESE PUNKS USED AN AIR GUN ON MY LUG NUTS?????
Looks like I'll be needing a brake job to get rid of that squeak and wobbling front and only 27k miles. This sucks. My brother in law didnt b put brakes on his 97 SHO until 80k and only had his rotors turned once before that.
%^$%^**%&))_&%^$%^ MECHANICS!!!!
Number one is that there is less of a chance that someone will not tighten the lug nuts with hand tools if the tires are not taken off as often.
Number two is that I feel that tires take a "set" on the corner that they are installed on (especially radials). If the tires were properly mounted and balanced when new, then they do best for their entire tread life on the same corner of the car. I used to rotate tires (tried both same-side rotation and cross-side rotation, but invariably this introduced some other problem - vibration, sidewall "wrinkles", etc.). So now, I just leave well enough alone. With front wheel drive, I end up replacing the front tires when they wear out while the rears still have plenty of tread on them. I buy the same tires again as replacements for the front and then replace all 4 tires when the fronts wear out again. More expensive? Yes, in terms of tire cost it is. But in terms of satisfaction with the ride and handling of my car as well as fewer expenses related to solving tire-related problems, perhaps not. I have never been dissatisfied because of some spurious vibration or mysterious "pulling", so the cost is worth it to me. I get about 2 years out of each set of front tires and 4 years out of the rears. At $100 apiece, that's $600 over 4 years, or about 27 cents a day for driving satisfaction. I'm worth it! :-)
Two words of caution if you follow this approach:
1 - I usually loosen and retighten all of the lug nuts once or twice a year so that they don't "freeze up" on the lugs.
2 - When I do have the car serviced and I know the wheels will be coming off, I mark the tires with chalk so I know where they came from (RF, RR, LF, LR) in case they put them back in the wrong place (if they do, I make them fix it). Then, when I get the car home, I loosen all of the lug nuts and retighten them with a torque wrench just to be sure (oh, and wash off the chalk too!). A few extra minutes of my time, but it pays dividends in peace of mind.
Once again: no warped rotors and no tire related vibrations, shimmies or pulls. What's that worth?
Yes I am MN too.
30,000 dollars for a wagon the size of the Focus wagon. A fully loaded Sable wagon, which is larger I might add, is less than $25,000!!! Any way you slice it the Taurus/sable twins are great cars at unbeatable prices. The only cars that can really compete are the base Passats, which are just as good. Lets stop worrying about resale values and care for and agppreciate the cars we have!!!!!!!! Long live king Taurus!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In our disposable society people are always looking to the "next" purchase. We kept our 89 Taurus wagon till we replaced it with my wife's new 2001 Taurus SEL.
To my mind buying a car based on selling it in 2 years is a very silly notion.
FDIII
The old saying "a car loses $1000 when you drive it off the lot" is outdated. Now, a car loses $2000 or more!!
A Taurus at least doesn't lose as much $$ as a Lincoln or Caddy. Those lose $10-115K the 1st year.
I noticed the same problem, but mine is like
the signal switch won't stay if the steering
wheel is at the opposite direction (eg. you
want to keep the switch at 'LEFT' while you want
to turn 'RIGHT'). It happens to my Taurus because
I need to make a sharp left turn right after
I move out my garage, which is a sharp right
turn. Most of the time it's okay to me.
P.S. I can give you info about the CD changer if you are interested. I added an aftermarket (Kenwood) unit to mine and it works great.
Then, make several hard stops from 60+ to 0
Finally, spray some cold water on your very hot rotors.
I bet you will have severely warped rotors in no time 8^)
TB
The used car market is set by demand. Like other people have said on the board - either buy new and hold em for ten years or buy one year old and enjoy the savings.
I bought a former rental car. Have had it for 3.5 years and have no complaints. Solid car at a good price. Is it perfect? Nope, but I can live with it very easily thank you.
-mad
I'm looking into a wagon when my 93 Escort Wagon dies. That may take awhile.
I'm pretty religous when it comes to maintenance, so I'm hoping my Taurus ages well!
Our company uses a lot Ford Taurus/Dodge Intrepid as company cars, and everyone of the Taurus owners that I spoke to said to leave the trans alone and not get the trans tuneup that Ford suggested. BTW, all of those owners had trans troubles (don't need to be rocket scientist to figure that one out). I've been getting my trans tuned up at about every 30,000 miles (trans fluid drained thru the catalytic converter, not with the filter replacement) and have not had one single problem. Not one. Ford states those maintenance requirements for a reason. To maintain the vehicle.
People who complain about lousy Ford transmissions (98 and later, no comment / experience about earlier) are not following the recommended maintenace schedule. My only major complaint is the "General" tires they put on the car when I purchased it off the lot. After they were worn, went to my mechanic who put on Bridgestones, car drove much smoother (not that it didn't drive smooth to begin with). Rotate often, and get the 4wheel thrust alignment every 10 to 15,000 miles and good to go.
-mad
I know a mechanic at a Ford Dealership. He says the samething as ma0865. The tranny filters clog up when the fluid isn't drained. My mechanic says you should change the tranny filter at 90k. Nothing in the owner's manual, which leaves a lot to be desired anyways.
Don't understand why people will pay good money for a car and not maintain em. Then they complain when it breaks. What do they expect?
They want to cut the number of cars sold to fleets to try to rasie the resale values,
I just bought a '01 Taurus SEL about two months ago. Now I have some scratches on my right front bumper. I am wondering if any Taurus owners have ever repair their paint chips/scratches by themselves using Ultra Touch Prep, etc., mentioned in the Manual page 217. Mine is with Silver Frost exterior. The major two defects are each about 1/4 the size of a penny. There are also 3 thin shallow linear scratches. Or do you just go to dealer's body shop to make them up? I really appreciate your answers because it's a relatively new car and I hope it can be as pretty as possible.
Let's face it, Ford and GM have lost a whole generation of new car buyers to imports due to decisions made in the 80s and 90s.The had a period of lousy quality. People don't perceive them to be as good as Hondas and Toyotas.Thus the imports fetch a lot more at trade in. You also pay more for the import. I think the Taurus is a great buy. A lot of import owners think their junk. Don't think that'll change for a while.
I agree with everything you said. Althought I have never bought an extended warranty for a car. Actually the only extended warranty I've ever bought is for this computer.
I have a 93 Escort Wagon that I bought new with 141k. Still in great shape and run strong. I know someone with a 94 Escort Wagon with 227k. So these new cars can go mucho miles when driven properly and maintained.
I bought my car from my company with 8800 miles on it, and it came with warped rotors for no extra charge. I doubt lug nuts had anything to do with the rotors at that mileage. Since the problem is so common, it's obviously a design or material problem. I had a 82 Accord with a really really bad rotor problem. The dealer ground them every 3k miles under warranty until they were too thin, then the same on the second set. I bought a set of slotted aftermarket rotors from a Honda performance shop and never had to grind them again.
Regarding the question about touch up paint, get the paint number off your door jam sticker and go to the dealer for touch up paint. Then dab it on it very lightly. I've never had much luck making touch up look good, it always seems like the paint is too thick, but what else can you do. I'm not going to pay a body shop to fix every scratch. I bought some paint from the dealer a few weeks ago when I brought the car in to have them "not confirm" the problem (as usual) but haven't gone after the scratches yet.
What really bothered me was the missing lug wreck. I went to rotate the tires and found out I didn't have a wreck. I went a little ballistic on the salesman. There is no excuse for a car not having one. Develop a check list and make sure the darn thing is there; ditto for the owners manual.
And no 'key'.
I never noticed them on the car as I was checking it out.
But, I quickly found out locking lug nuts are no problem. Any local tire shop (and all the thieves that steal wheels and/or tires) have a special 'socket'. It's just a socket with no 'hex' pattern, it's just smooth inside, and somewhat tapered. You just tap this over the locking nut, which is round of course, put your half inch breaker bar in the socket and the locking nut comes right off. Took the tire shop about 2 minutes to do all 4.
Anyone know where the engine computer is on these cars (or the keyless entry code)?
Does anyone have same problem or know what causes this problem? On the owner manuel stating that there should not be a problem if the CHECK ENGINE light turns off by itself later.
I also feel pretty good about buying an American auto now in these times, reliability is way up from prior decades, and our economy could use it!!! And one of my old friends I was in the Army with works for Ford.
God bless all the family and friends of all the victims in the WTC and in Washignton....remember your neiborhood Police officer and Firefighter and EMT-Paramedics, they may not show it all the time but they all have hearts of gold
-mad
Besides the financing, did you save money on the selling price of the car?
Are you required to put up a down payment to get the zero percent interest?
Too bad the Taurus loses so much value.
A 2-3 year old Taurus in good condition is only worth $8-9,000 as a trade in and if you plan on keeping it past the 36 month warranty, it is a good idea to get the Ford warranty that costs about $2K for 6 year/100K miles if you get the zero deductible option.
$500 below invoice at 0% sounds tempting as long as you have no concerns about reselling it and losing most if the value in just a few years.
Heavily loaded with leather and moonroof, the Taurus SEL stickers around $25K and invoices around $23K. If you want to get rid of it in 3 years, you would be very lucky to trade it into a dealer for $10K. That is a lot of depreciation plus the sales tax.
Oh I paid about 21,300, it is heavily loaded with the exception of side air bags, traction control, Mach stereo, and passenger power seat. I might be missing a few others but it has everything I need.