review ford taurus sho review of ford taurus sho by gene kim background last week i bought a ford taurus sho moving up from driving a toyota celica st and a oldsmobile cutlass i have been interested in buying a sho for about five months and have been combing the classifieds in denver and chicago every week i bought a remarkably clean maroon red sho with k miles on it for as far as i can tell this is about under blue book and i still have another miles before the extended service plan runs out as one should with any pre shos i made sure that the car was already refit with the upgraded clutch and pressure plate as well as having been recalled for upgraded rotors and seatbelt attachments however my sho does not have the newer rod shifter i understand i can get this for from any ford service center in addition the car received the full tune up at k miles receiving new platinum plugs and valve adjustment for a car with k miles on it the car was virtually immaculate the clearcoat paint job was devoid of any large chips or dents although the front air dam molding was covered with lots of small scratches not surprising since most of the miles were spent on the highway having driven a smaller two door coupe for so long i was a bit concerned about whether i could get used to driving a larger car to my surprise the size of the car doesn t bother me at all it seems just as nimble as my celica no comparisons with my oldsmobile visibility from the driver s seat is excellent helped mostly by of the small the quarter windows aft of the back seat door windows and in front of the c pillar and rear window parallel parking is a bit more difficult but other than that i love the size in fact i m starting to appreciate the large trunk as i pack up for a hour drive to washington dc for the summer more on the ride later in this review engine as with anyone even slightly interested in shos i was very interested in the valve l yamaha shogun engine i was not disappointed base performance of the engine under rpms is good you can even do reasonable launches from second gear although i don t make a practice of this the engine revs smoothly and eagerly tooling around town does not require many shifts this is good since the shifter is definitely one of the weakest points of the car more on this later while the performance of the engine under rpms may be unremarkable it undergoes a jekyll hyde transformation once you hit higher revs at rpms a butterfly valve opens and you can literally hear and feel the geometry of the engine changing as twelve more valves open up the engine soars to its rpm redline and you are treated to in my opinion the sweetest sounding v around the engine inexplicably sounds overjoyed to be at rpm i ve noticed that when i drive around town i constantly watch the tach to see how far below rpm i am to go from rpm to you may have to punch the accelerator while torque is more than adequate it doesn t come fully online until those other valves are used transmission when car and driver first reviewed the car in they marvelled at how ford had put such a wimpy clutch and balky shifter into the car i remember driving a friend s parent s sho in and remember thinking about whether i had the leg strength to drive the car in traffic the clutch was that stiff that was back then the entire clutch assembly on my sho has been replaced under a ford recall in the clutch on the sho feels no stiffer than the one on my toyota celica in fact the friction point seems a bit larger and more forgiving when playing with the shifter with the car parked the shifter felt very reasonable the and gates were where you d expect it to be and the shifting action was smooth on the road it s much the same but you have to shift slowly make no mistake it s a clumsy shifter when hurrying shifts like when i was initially trying to impress friends i consistently miss the shift often grope clumsily for the shift and sometimes even muff the shift i find this pretty amazing in a car like this it also took me several days to realize that you get the smoothest shifts when you take your time seems obvious but compared to my toyota and my friend s honda this seems atrocious and clumsy someone on rec autos noted that crxs should blow shos off the line because of the incredibly clumsy shifter i now shift much more sedately and the shifter seems more reasonable when you play within these bounds the shifter works smoothly with no surprises i don t know whether the rod shifter upgrade would help at all along these same lines i initially had trouble shifting gears smoothly again slowing down the shifts and taking more care to match revs when letting out the clutch helped immensely this took several days for me to get the hang of i think some of my problems were because i ve never had a car with enough power to balk at bad shifts in higher gears occasionally i have trouble shifting into reverse the shifter refuses to enter the gate and i often grind the synchros trying to get it into gear i ll be watching this carefully in the next couple of months a quirk when i upshift and the engine drops back to rpm i hear a whirring and then a grinding noise coming from the the engine compartment not terribly loud but the passenger can definitely hear it i asked about it when i was looking at the car as do all my passengers apparently this is a definitely a sho sound and is the gearbox apparently called gear rollover replies to my queries on rec autos are at the end of this review exterior as i mentioned before i am astounded by how well the body of this sho has stood up paint chipping on the front bumper and grille are virtually non existent looking at how older tauri sometimes don t age so gracefully i wonder what the guys at ford did differently to the sho bodies the body in my opinion is extremely attractive with matching color body moldings than the stock tauri for some odd reason the sho seems different enough from vanilla tauri to get stares at stoplights of course this could be my overactive imagination shos get fog lights a more open grille a completely monochromatic exterior and a deeper ground skirt in the back with sho stenciled in relief i ve seen a couple shos whose owners have colored these in with florescent colors or in black yuck i don t think the car is flashy i like it that way i feel almost anonymous with all those tauri out there but different and distinctive enough to those of us who care interior the interior is what really makes me feel like i don t deserve the car the seats are grey leather the steering wheel and shifter are covered with black leather and the entire instrument panel is done in a black grey metallic scheme the instrumentation is stock taurus except for the mph speedo and rpm tach you get a center console with two cupholders a large compartment under the radio great for a cd player an armrest that contains yet another compartment three appropriately sized coin holders for tollways i think and a compartment for holding cassette tapes there s map holders in the doors and an oddly small glove compartment i spilled a whole can of coke in the cupholder and was delighted to find that the entire rubber holder can be removed and washed in a sink hey i m really impressed with the ergonomics and thoughtfulness that went into its design and it s a before the interior was upgraded the backseat is bigger than any car i ve had why do they need so much space no smart ass comments please the driver and passenger seat have lumbar and side bolsters from what i hear it s not uncommon for the side bolsters to show wear mine is no exception the left side bolster on the driver s has cracked and i m not convinced the right bolster is inflating all the way a big surprise for me i forgot that shos don t have a normal hand parking brake instead they have the regular parking brake that you press with your left foot too bad again i m getting used to it but it seems a bit anachronistic to me ride the suspension is nice and stiff too stiff it s stiffer than any car i ve had a friend s new toyota celica st seems tauter and is still able to soak up bumps better the sho seems stiffer with less ability to soak up bumps driving over railroad tracks is a noisy and jarring affair on the other hand taking turns feels wonderful because the body is so rigid and doesn t flex at all i listened for that before i bought the car on the highway the ride is great when i drove the car from chicago back to purdue i had trouble keeping under mph let alone from trying to see what mph really feels like it s a relatively quiet ride but the sunroof rattles i ve tried to find out what exactly makes all the noise up there but it seems to be the window that rests on the rails no easy way to get rid of it i think over the past three days i ve oscillated between thinking the suspension is wonderful and perfect and thinking that the ride is way too rough not for me mind you but i wonder whether i would advise my dad to buy one for himself but i ve discovered as with the shifter if you take your time with shifts you ll have no reason to complain let me explain the ride is worst when turning and applying lots of power to the wheels i feel the wheels scrabbling for traction and torque steer making the car skitter left and right after i understood this i avoid the limits of traction and i m a happy camper again it s not body rigidity but the composure of the car as if matching the suspension the steering feel is quite heavy my first impression of driving my sho was how hard you had to turn the wheel at highway speeds it tracks straight as an arrow but when driving around a parking lot the high effort steering didn t seem so useful however it s reasonable but it doesn t communicate the road to the driver as well as a ford probe gt imho it s much better than the steering on my celica st i wonder how bad this car is during winter miscellaneous notes gripes the rattles from the sunroof is intermittent some days it rattles loudly other days i look up wondering where all the noise went activating the sunroof is sometimes very noisy loud squealing as it retracts on its rails i wonder if there is a quick fix for this again other days it completely disappears function of humidity once i made the connection between the sometimes awful feeling suspension and torque steer i ve never complained about ride i wish the seats had more support under the thighs also i wish the side bolsters would close more tightly i hear that tires for this car can get really expensive i currently have goodyear gt s that cost the previous owner for four i used to hate the ford stereo systems whose idea was it to use a volume paddle now to my amazement i don t really mind and sometimes think it s an okay idea pretty ridiculous though getting up to rpm sometimes seems to be a chore but this is no big deal there is more than enough torque down low i often goof up the shifting when driving with friends it took me a couple of days before i could really shift smoothly from nd to rd gear hard to believe isn t it my car has almost miles on it my parents noted that it is almost impossible to find a low mileage sho astute observation imho i wonder how long i can make my sho last i just bought a book titled drive it forever for tips in this department the goofy parking brake pedal still throws me for a loop i once parked the car in gear and then accidentally let out the clutch after i started it the car jolted forward and bounced off the car in front of me no paint damage at all but starting the car is a whole new ritual for me with that fangled pedal also i began to wonder how strong that brake really is today i backed out of parking spot today and started to drive away before i noticed the glowing brake light oops the driver s power window creaks when closed all the way the same thing happens in my parents mercury sable oddly all the other windows work smoothly likes i m liking the interior amenities more and more each day the cupholders are great i didn t expect to use the keyless entry buttons so much but it really is handy you can lock all the doors by pressing the and buttons together neat and you can never lock yourself out of the car i really feel like i don t deserve this car i really can t believe that i could afford it i got this car ten years ahead of schedule i love this car so much that i ve been telling my parents to look into buying one i love this car so much that i wrote this k file i meant to write a couple of lines and ended up with this if there were a j d powers survey for used car owners i would have an opportunity to express my incredible satisfaction of owning this car i don t like thinking about getting another car but at this point in time i m sure i d buy another sho for under you can t beat it next time with an airbag and abs though insurance wise this car is also a big win i pay the same premiums as on my toyota celica despite that it has nearly twice the horsepower other odds and ends much to my amazement there is no sho mailing list anywhere maybe because the sho registry publication has filled this void i haven t joined yet but i ve noticed that queries about shos still appear on rec autos about once a month owners of shos are always quick to respond and are very vocal fans of the cars maybe some of the most vocal on rec autos i ve put together the responses to my questions about the cars as well as other posts with useful information on these cars i ll be posting this in the form of a faq soon if anyone is interested in starting a mailing list please speak up i don t know if i have the resources here at purdue to start one but maybe someone out there does gene kim genek mentor cc purdue edu
