[Smith1000]

I used to have a 91 Taurus that always seemed to down-shift rough, for instance, after turning a corner and slowing a bit. It was always abrupt when the transmission down kicked. I think that was kind of normal for the Taurus. I never liked the way it shifted. I always tried to work the gas so that it was smoother. My transmission never went out, although I heard many others talk about buying 1 or 2 transmissions for the same car. From what I recall, the early signs of it going out, were slippage as they were pulling up to a red light, or stopping for some reason. One gal told me that if you get it in to the shop when it first starts doing it, it is cheaper to repair then if you wait until it completely goes out. I put 162,000 on the Taurus I had. The transmission always worked fine, but I changed the fluid and filter about every 20,000 miles because I heard of others with bad transmissions. In addition, I always dumped in a bottle of Slick 50 transmission fluid treatment because they talked about it on Car Talk. Maybe that helped, I don't know. The guy who bought it 2 years ago is still going in it...no transmission problems so far.