CarComplaints.com Notes: Most people need a car that shifts gears & coil springs that don't shred tires. The Taurus fails in that respect.
The 2003 Ford Taurus has major issues with the transmission failing. Typically the 2003 Taurus transmission failure costs $2,000 to fix by about 90k-100k miles. Not good.
Adding insult to injury, the 1999-2003 Taurus also has a huge problem with coil springs breaking which can puncture or even shred tires while driving.
The US government spent THREE YEARS (2008-2011) investigating the 2002-2003 Taurus coil springs. Although Taurus/Sable from earlier years were recalled, ultimately the NHTSA did not force a recall. They determined that because there had been no deaths & very few bad crashes & injuries, the broken coil springs defect was no big deal & not a safety defect. Tell that to all the owners who had close calls...
1.7
hardly worth mentioning
Crashes / Fires:
0 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
95,667 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
The 2003 Ford Taurus while stopped at a light or applying brakes will surge and lunge forward. Very dangerous, because it surges with people walking in front of it and cars in front of the car. The car then feels like it is hit from the rear end and smells like it is about to catch on fire. Very scary situation, my children are very scared and we already have an evacuation plan if the car catches on fire. It is defintely not safe. A similar problem has been addressed with the 2006 Ford freestyle. It also goes dead while backing up. Even when brakes are applied to the floor, it surges and moves forward. The enginge jerking is a very hard jolt. We hope this will be addressed.
I was on my way home on 08/05/2008 and the car would not throttle down. When I came to a stoplight the car was jerking forward and trying to accelerate. Had I not slammed on the brakes and set the emergency brake the car would have rear-ended a car in front of me. I was able to get the car to the side of the road and put it in neutral at which time the engine began to "redline" in rpms until I shut it down. Upon inspection of the engine, it appeared that the accelerator cable simply "fell off".
Dealership is unable to give the consumer an appointment to perform air filter paper/fire recall 04V105000 repairs because they don't know when the parts will be available.
- Valparaiso, IN, USA
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- Satsuma, AL, USA