Might buy '98 Taurus

Right now I have a '95 Sonoma pickup, the one in my avatar. I have the chance to trade my truck for my cousin's '98 taurus. It has 90,000 miles v6 with some nice konig wheels with low pros. Before I became too interested I just wanted to check with you guys to see if you would recomend buying a Taurus and what problems I will have to check for or might possibly have later? Thanks for any help.

There are a few things that are fairly common issues. The biggest is probably transmission concerns. Since you know the current owner, you can find out what type of maintenance the car has had. If you ask when the transmission service was performed and he responds, "Hunh?" you may want to consider keeping your Sonoma.

There are also problems with door pin switches and transmission range sensors, but both of these issues can be easily remedied for very little money.

Of course it's always wise to inspect the front end to make sure the suspension and steering components are in good shape.

Basically what it will come down to is, like with any car, if the vehicle was properly maintained and driven in a reasonable fashion, it will likely last for a long time.

You may want to search this forum for keywords such as "common" or "typical" to see if there are other posts about common problems with a similar vintage Taurus ('96-'99 model years).

-Rod