Taurus transmission problems

Need some advice on what might be wrong. The car is an '05 Taurus, 3.0 OHV, 117k miles and belongs to my girlfriend. She had been driving around town for about 20 minutes when she stopped at a red light. When the light turned green, she pushed the gas and the car took off normally. After about 25 feet, the car began to act like she had accidentally shifted into neutral--the revs climbed to about 5k (as if there was no load on the engine) and the car stopped accelerating. She coasted through the intersection and called me.

What I know:

-The car will not engage any forward gear or reverse. The shifter moves normally and takes the normal amount of effort to move.

-Park is still park, neutral is still neutral.

-No CEL's or dash lights.

-Not making any noises I can hear, nor did she hear anything when it let go

-I changed the fluid and filter about 7k miles ago, the fluid in there looked good with no big chunks.

-Pushing a Taurus an eighth of a mile to where you can legally park it sucks ass.

Any thoughts? I know these cars are hard on transmissions, and 117k seems to be about due. However, the fact that it all the gears went out at once seems to me that it might be something else...shifter, or control module, or something.

My father has owned 3 or 4 of these Tauruses (3 liter OHV) and the transmission eventually goes on all of them. The older ones "seemed" to get a few more miles out of them than the newer ones did....I'm only guessing it has something to do with the electronics. Yeah, my Dad's/really my Mom's '02 or '03 needed the transmission rebuilt at less than 65,000 miles. If friends of my folks didn't have a Ford dealership, and my Mom hadn't a lifelong aversion to Chevy's (after a lemon in '58) the first Taurus would have been the last.

Your best/cheapest bet is to replace the current transmission with a CERTIFIED low mileage unit....that's what my folks did on their '98. Then they sold it. BTW, their '02/'03 has over 125,000 miles on it, so who knows when it will go again, or if the rebuild managed to "improve" the manufacturing quality?

I don't know if you want to go this deep into the situation, but TransGo appear to know all about your problem and how to fix it. (No affiliation, just passing it on. They seem to have a GR-type attitude, though.)

Im going to give you an actual nuts and bolts answer and say that the pump shaft snapped.

On those transmissions the pump is not the first thing in the bellhousing, it is actually at the END of the case, and there is a shaft about as thick as your pinkie that goes from the torque converter to the pump that drives it. They are prone to breaking.

Then you have no pressure, so nothing engages, and every range except park feels like neutral.

And the repair for this is easy...

Buy a Camry

I kill me!

Yup, pump shaft is broken.

Yes, I have one on my desk at work. I use it to threaten users when they do stupid E36 M3.

Taurus transmissions will always be their achilles heel... Even if you buy one from a salvage yard, it's just going to fail again.

Samurai07SS wrote: Taurus transmissions will always be their achilles heel... Even if you buy one from a salvage yard, it's just going to fail again.

Nothing I don't know there. Of a half dozen or so people I know well who've driven Tauri, they've all shat their transmissions at some point. GF was given this car before we started dating. Looks like we're getting an estimate on Monday...hopefully it's more than what's economical given the car's value, so we can start looking for something else.

oh, it will be

I used to fix these things, so i know

It's attached to a Taurus, I think that's the problem. (Says the guy who misses his SHO)

IVe got a friend who's doing an SHO v8 swap into an '03 taurus (+turbos) and in the process of researching this i discovered that some 5spd swaps have been done in that body style..

So, if you want to turn it from dead commuter into unique oddball commuter, you can always go with a 5spd swap for the same money as fixing the auto

GF is more comfortable with an auto, and since her parents bought the car, they want a "professional" working on it. Meh.

The shop we took it to says that the torque converter went bad, but that the transmission itself is still good (although they say there is a lot of crap in the pan and are recommending a rebuild anyway). I know the pan and fluid looked fine when I changed the fluid and filter 7000 miles ago. They say $700 for a converter, and $1900 for a rebuild. Sound about right?

Yeh that sounds like reasonable full retail cost.

The labor to r&r the transmission is ~$400, the torque converter cost +100% markup is ~$200, and the 10 qts of fluid + consumables and tax makes up the rest.