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...
1.9
hardly worth mentioning
Crashes / Fires:
0 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
82,590 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.
Son was backing car down driveway and heard a noise and felt front end sag. He got out and noticed that the drivers front tire was flat. Tire was a year old and cut on inside of sidewall. Took tire off and had it replaced at my cost. When trying to put it back on the car I noticed the broken spring. This is what caused the tire to blow. Very sharp edge on spring facing tire. Glad it did not happen at highway speeds or in tight area so as to avoid injury or accident. Very inconvenient and an obvious metal fatigue issue. Rust not noticeable. Bought this car used from a dealer and I wish they had corrected this ongoing problem before selling the car again. Looks like I will have to look at other manufacturers as this is the second major expense on a Ford for problems they knew about but did nothing to correct or to help compensate customers for their expense or inconvenience..
Front drivers side spring broke & punctured tire. I am a single mother of three boys (9,5 & 6months) and had drove home on the highway going 65mph with all my boys in the car. I parked my car at home & went out later to retrieve some paperwork from my vehicle only to find out I had a flat tire. When the tire was removed to see what was wrong with it & hopefully just having the tire repaired, that is when we noticed that the spring had broke while the car was parked & punctured the tire. As you can imagine I was in shock, but was thankful that it had not happened while driving on the highway at 65mph shredding my tire & possibly causing a fatal accident. I have since researched on the internet only to find out that this has been an ongoing problem with a number of complaints that has been investigated and has still had no recall ! is it a matter of a certain number of deaths to occur before something is done ? it is a blessing that this has not happened yet & you would think that Ford would want to keep in mind the safety of the people who buy their cars, by having a recall on the defective springs before someone is killed. There is no warning when this happens & I feel that it is unacceptable for Ford to play with the lives of the people who buy their vehicles. I can tell you that this is a great financial set back for me & my 3 children & will think twice before ever buying a Ford vehicle again knowing that the outcome could have been unforgivable. You can replace a defective part, but you cannot replace a life......!
Drivers side front coil spring in the strut broke and slashed the adjacent tire. This was noticed when the car was beginning to be backed out of a parking spot. We had to replace both strut assemblies for safety sake, replace the damaged tire as well. We opted to replace the other three tires due to wear. Also, the garage recommended we replace the ball joints and LH side tie rod end. The front end was aligned as well. Total cost $1871. I am outraged that there is a recall for 1999 thru 2001 Taurus cars but nothing covering up to and including 2003's. I also think it is ridiculous that the cutoff to repair this problem occurs when a car exceeds 100000 miles. This is a known design defect and all Ford Taurus cars should have been recalled and repaired. My daughter was lucky this failure occurred in a parking lot and not when going 65mph! severe injury and death could have been the result and other people may have been involved! I implore NHTSA to force Ford to engage in a retroactive recall for all affected Taurus cars. It is inexcusable to have a design defect of this magnitude on the public highways. I can understand a broken spring can occur, but the complaints clearly show that the spring then slashes the tire, causing an immediate blowout and potential loss of control of the vehicle.
- Fort Loramie, OH, USA
Search CarComplaints.com for these popular complaint phrases...
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Rosemount, MN, USA