I'm looking at a used Taurus as a first car for one of my sons. Seems to be in decent shape except for a few things I know I can handle. (CV joints, coil pack, plugs and wires.)

Not sure about the transmission. I've never pulled a trans on a FWD beast like this. I'm seeing them online in the "no, that's way too much" range, $1,800 or thereabouts, so it's probably a no-go anyway, but how bad a job is it?

 

I would look at a Honda Civic. By the time a used Taurus needs a transmission, the transmission replacement may cost more than the Blue Book value of the car. And with the older Ford Taurus, who knows what kind of other problems that car has. It could be perfectly fine. Or you could be buying a lot of repairs. There's a reason that people started buying Toyota Camry instead of the Ford Taurus. Camry is a better car.

 

I wouldn't attempt it without a lift.

You need to support the engine with brackets between the shock towers. Remove the trans mount and the engine mounts, and remove the subframe. Then remove the halfshafts and the trans and drop it out the bottom. That is only hitting the high points, there are a lot of small details, too.

A related anecdote: I worked on the Taurus transmission at Ford when the 1991 electronic trans was launched. We had a problem right before Job #1. When we had a fix a batch of transmissions were built with the correction, and each had to be road tested by an expert evaluator. I was one of them.

We put one of the test transmissions in a car and evaluated it, raising the trans temp to at least 230°F during the evaluation. After I evaluated one trans I drove it into the garage where two trans techs were waiting to install the next trans in that car. I don't know the average time to change one of these transmissions, but as I explained above it's a big job. This trans was at least 230°F when they got the car. In 45 minutes I was driving the car out of the garage with the new transmission. I'm willing to bet that is a world record for changing a Taurus transmission.

 

Imagine how that would go, for someone who has never done one before.

 

Yeah, that's pretty much what I expected. I had my boy look them up online, and the first one he found was nearly $1900. That's more than the car is worth. Add in the CV joints it needs, and the misfire, and this is a pile of parts waiting for the junkyard. Too bad, as it's very clean otherwise.

Besides, if it takes Kovalsky 45 minutes on a good day, I figure it's about 45 hours for us!

The clue on this trans is that it smells a bit burnt, looks just a little bit black, and the very nice young lady who is selling it showed me the paperwork from the place that diagnosed the misfire for her. They said it needs to have the trans fluid changed once a month, and they would do it for free. What auto shop is going to make that offer unless they know somehow that they are on the hook for the condition of the transmission? Like maybe, they know they toasted it?

Anyway, thanks all!

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have a feeling that these highlights would be similar procedures to remove/replace transmissions on all FWD cars.

I had a similar experience replacing the head on a Honda. My friend and I spent several hours following directions in a Hayne's manual removing all the stuff around the head before we could actually start removing it. It involved jacking up the car to extend the left front suspension, then raising it at another point. Later, we went to the dealership to buy some parts, and watched a mechanic doing the same thing on a similar model, and he had all the peripheral parts off in about 5 minutes. The head itself took him another 5 minutes. We felt incompetent.

 

Me 45 minutes?!? It would take me 45 days. I'm not a mechanic, and I'm certainly not fast. These were two professional mechanics that only worked on transmissions.

 

 

That's par for the course, with just about anything. Watching a pro do in minutes, what took you so much time & effort, that you were almost willing to give up. Then someone else does it without effort, and you feel defeated.

Ah, Honda are so much fun for weekend wrenchers to play with. Especially when it comes to a buddy, and a 12 pack. So much can be done in your own driveway. My buddy has a Honda which was so tight under the hood, we couldn't even get to the back of the headlights to change the lamps. We tried taking off the wheel, peeling back the wheel well, and still couldn't get our hands in there to unclip and turn the headlamp. We took the bumper cover, grille, and trim off, to unbolt the headlight and slide it forward and off.
I convinced him that we may as well remove both headlights, then replace all the lamps. Since they were halogen, and we don't want to go through the same thing again for the next lamp that burns out. No way he was going to buy LED from Amazon, and wait 3 days for shipping. He is weird about using OEM Honda parts.......so he didn't want whatever from Auto Zone, O'Reilly's, Pep Boys, or Wal*Mart. We drove to Honda, since we had a friend at the parts counter who always gave us his employee discount. Of course, the parts counter guy laughed. Then he told a tech, who also laughed. Then they took us out back to the shop area. They happened to have the same make & model sitting there waiting for a lamp change. A small, petite, female in a tech shirt came over. Her hands, wrist, and arm were so small, that she reached right in behind the headlight, and did it all by feel without looking. Then she laughed at us. Did I mention that all the while, my buddy was carrying the headlight assembly cradled in his arms like a baby?

 

Reminds me of being at the skating rink and having the 5 year olds blasting between my legs!

 

It was not the transmission...
It was the torque converter.
I did it in my garage with a
Engine support from habor
Freight.
And a floor jack, 2 jack stands.
There are a couple of good video s
On you tube....
I hear the groaning LoL !
Also I got a torque converter from
Rock Auto for 140.00
A total pain in the *** , but I did
By myself !
Having more time than Money!
good luck
PS there is a square headed bolt
On top of the transmission.
If you start the car and no trans fluid comes out under pressure it's the converter.