With care, how long will a Taurus last?

I know it's like predicting the weather (or harder!), but how long should I expect a Taurus to last? I'm looking at a VERY clean 1996 Taurus w/181k miles. I'm assuming that surely by now the trans has been replaced. I have NO HISTORY on the car. I think I can get it for $800 or less. Thanks for any and all advice!

ProfKenn

With no maintenance history we have nothing to base an opinion on. Without hands on advantage so we could test drive it, listen to it, see if the exhaust is smoking and get a general feel for it, peek inside the oil cap and other things, it's like buying a pig in a poke, only worse.

"I'm assuming that surely by now the trans has been replaced." Not necessarily because with proper maintenance they can last over 200K miles. Does the tranny fluid have a burnt smell and what color, pinkish or dark brown. Is it dry underneath or leaking oil or coolant? Is the coolant rusty or the right anti-freeze color? How does the engine sound, any rattles, thumps, knocks, whines or groans? How does the tranny shift, smooth or does it jerk? From a stand still you floor it and look in the rear view mirror, do you see any smoke? If you stick your finger up the exaust pipe and wipe the inside does it come out clean or black and slick like burnt oil?

With proper maintenance and care and a responsible, conscientious driver, they should easily go 250K miles or better. If you aren't into buying used cars and your mechanical knowledge is limited pay a good mechanic to check it out thoroughly because it's TEN years old and has a lot of miles on it. I'd also run a CarFax on it and see who owned it and where it's lived.

Is a good question, how long would you expect ANY car to last?

Is a good question, how long would you expect ANY car to last?
Well you have some cars that have half life's of only 65,000 miles with impeccable maintenance, then you have cars reaching 400,000 mile marks, then you have the old detroit steel cars that have clocked a million and at the very end you have commerical diesel engines that don't even start getting broken in until they 100,000-200,000 mile marks which means they will get 4 million or more miles in their life time.

I have seen 2nd and 3rd Gen Vulcan hitting 325,000 but those are one owner cars.

Forgot to tell you. Go by the Ford dealer and ask them to pull up your VIN and look for recalls that have been done or any other info pertinent to vehicle history. If it's a local car then services done by Ford will be in their computer but if it's not local then they won't show service record. If you can find out what town it lived in then the Ford dealer there would have service record PROVIDED it was done by Ford.

on that car make sure the engine craddel mounts are in good shape BEFORE YOU DRIVE IT. i have seen a few rear part of craddles fall due to rotten bushings