I have a 99 Taurus Se with the Vulcan 3.0. I have a few issues and i’m looking for advice on what it can be or what i can do… First off, engine light is on, so i took it to auto zone and had the code read. P0401, and it states that it may have a block egr passage, bad egr selinoid, bad egr position sensor, or bad egr valve. So i replaced the egr valve and selinoid. I couldn’t replace the sensor cause they gave me the wrong one, but i’ll be taking it back and replacing it with the correct one. So if that sensor isn’t it, and it has a blocked passage how do i clear the passage?
I dunno if this pertains to the situation, but i have noticed something weird when the car is first started and the engine is cold. For one the RPM’s are high at about 3k then come down. This happens randomly. And when you first start it it sounds like it has a small exhaust leak, but then the sound goes away once the car starts warming up. It’s not loud, and when you rev it a little it doesn’t get louder. thats how i know it’s not an actual exhaust leak. Maybe this points to something?
Secondly, a new issue popped up, and it’s a vibration in the front end. Probably these pot hole covered roads, but who knows. it isn’t terrible, but is more noticable at highway speeds.
I know I’m not much help here but talking about the front end vibration, is there steering wheel shake? If so it could be as simple as just the tires out of balance.
whatever the plural form of taurus is, i will never again own one. they really are garbage, especially that vintage. i had a 94, a 99, and my mom owned a 96 or a 97, cant remember exactly. there was constantly something wrong with them when they were 3-7 years old, i seriously doubt they have aged well
I’ve owned a bunch of Domestic cars and i can say they are all junk, but unfortunately it was cheap and fit my family needs at the time. It’s comfortable and roomy, but the problems are starting. I replaced the egr valve, egr selinoid, and have attempted to replace the egr position sensor, but no one has the correct one that fits. i guess mid way through they had a design change so all the replacements sold today are the incorrect ones. which makes no sense to me.
In addition, theres a front end vibration, the door ajar light won’t go off, and it idles high at start up. All issues happened after i bought the car in october 2010…
PM somedude, he is our local Taurus guru. My suggestion would be to sell it on craigslist and but something else. I hate those cars. I’m sure a new trans is somewhere in the cards for you too, since all the transmissions the ever put in those cars were junk.
The vulcan engine is usually one that cannot be killed. Clogged EGR ports are the most common reason for the code and a easy one to fix at minimal cost to you.
The high RPM on startup is fords way of heating the cats up to reduce emissions. The idle will return to normal after 30 sec or so. Let the idle come down some before you drive off or it can cause broken engine mounts from essentially neutral dropping it from 3K every morning. That “exhaust leak” is normal. I don’t know what causes that noise but they all do it. None of the above symptoms are at all related to the EGR issue. You should be seeing 28-31mpg on the highway if your engine and trans are healty and you drive with fuel consumption in mind. The shake is very likely wheel balance, either rotate them to the back or have them balanced and that should get the vibration out of your steering wheel.
So much hate on the taurus but it is a cheap car that is cheap to maintain that can be optioned well. From 96+ they are solid cars as long as you use motorcraft replacement parts. Many of the aftermarket parts are garbage and if you use the cheap autozone suspension parts you will be replacing them again in 6 months to a year. Ask me how I know?
Yeah my roommate has a taurus with 173k and it runs great. The motors really are solid. The cars are easy to work on, cheap to maintain, and pretty comfy, at least compared to a civic they are leaps and bounds more comfy and quiet.
So anyone have a part number for the egr position sensor cause i can’t find it. Like i said there was a design change so now the one that is sold does not work. Everywhere i look online has the wrong ones too.
OK, i have researched for the past 4 hrs and have found out something. The old metal Egr psoition sensor commonly failed, and the only replacement is this new plastic one. WHICH DOES NOT FIT MY CAR AT ALL! I saw on the autozone website there was a note under the part. It stated may need to replace hoses and change pigtail. Well the pigtail is fine and hooked up to the autozone replacement, but the two hoses that connect below cannot connect because there is another hose that is hooked into the manifold there. So if my only option is this plastic crap, how the hell do i install it? theres no kit or any dam information out there that tells me how to install this part! It’s not straight forward and this replacement is mounted on the firewall on other fords not the intake manifold. Can someone please help me this is retarded. Ford blows! If your gonna make shit cars at least make them easy to fix.
get on tauruscarclub.com everything you could ever need to know about a taurus can be found there. they have build a taurus wiki which has a lot of useful information you can find there.