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new 3/25/2004, updated 8/22/04
My wife Stephanie McGillivray owns a 1999 Taurus SHO V-8 with 51,000 miles.
On March 19th (5 days ago), after hearing a loud tapping noise from under the
hood, the car engine died.
The local Ford dealer tells us that the cam shaft has broken and bent two
valves. They say they are investigating further to find out whether the pistons
were also damaged.
Our options appear to be A) rebuild the engine; B) Replace with the only used
SHO engine Ford claims to have found available so far with 58,000 miles on it.
Our dealer told us that this problem was very unusual, particularly on a vehicle
with such relatively low miles. Then, our dealer told us that there were no new
SHO engines available for replacement which they admitted was also unusual.
After this happened, we looked on the Internet today and shockingly found out
that there is purportedly a class action suit started against Ford for this
exact problem. We would like to speak with the lawyers involved. How can we
contact them ?
Duncan McGillivray
8/22/04
An update since I contacted you last Spring (Apr '04?) about my cam failure.
One of my camshafts failed at 51K miles. After a 6 week engine rebuild and new
camshaft replacement, at 52K my transmission failed. When it failed I was
parked, but in trying to get the car to work, I narrowly missed smashing into
another car and hitting someone. When I shifted into reverse, it did nothing,
but later when the mechanic shifted it into reverse, it charged forward. The
transmission was rebuilt. 200 miles later, a ball joint was broken and my air
conditioning does not work when it is hottest (100 degrees plus in AZ summers).
Just thought you might want to track these problems, especially since the
transmission seems to be the other expensive thing that fails in the Taurus
SHOs. And that's not all, but the other things could be considered normal or
derivative of these problems.
Stephanie McGillivray