Serious Design Flaw??

[mclarida]

OK. I understand now! The transmission in the Ford Taurus SHO is not "Built to Last" as we all would have thought. It just seems that when one pays upward of $27,000.00 for a car(early 90's dollars) that it might need to last for more than 90000 miles. From my experience(93 emerald mocha auto-shifting woes) that this is more than an isolated problem. The engine that is pushing the car is not some 500 horse monster. It is a v6..period. Does anyone out there have any information on the number of failed SHO automatic transmissions are out there-on this forum? What is the percentage? Again, Ford has turned a blind eye on a growing product problem that just seems to be part of owning their brand of cars. Who is the actual manufacturer of the axod? Is it Borg crap Warner? Out of all the cars that I have owned and worked on I can honestly say that Fords have needed the most attention. I owned a Subaru before this car and drove 125 miles a day for almost 2 years(nothing broke and I never had a lick of porblems). Please convince me that I am just wrong and help me patch my bleeding wounds caused by owning this blessed car!_M

 

[Russsho]

Nope, the ATXs are prone to problems. Search the site, there's several threads about it. Don't feel bad, the MTXs are from Mazda, and they've got their own issues.

 

[wood_e]

Don't like it? Get rid of it. Complaining about a car that "isn't built to last" is stupid. ALL cars have a life to them. If a car manufacturer made a car that was perfect why would anyone buy something else? They'd go out of business.

 

[mclarida]

Don't like it? Get rid of it. Complaining about a car that "isn't built to last" is stupid. ALL cars have a life to them. If a car manufacturer made a car that was perfect why would anyone buy something else? They'd go out of business.

Perfection is not the "desire". I am just observing that this major part of the car which keeps it moving is doomed...period. Am I comparing apples and oranges when I see foreign cars going 150-200 thousand without problems(my father in law has a 94 Nissan maxima with 345 thousand miles on it. No rebuilds-no smoke-has been using straight 30 weight oil since 45 thousand). so you can see my reason for wanting my car to stand up the competition. And, I am not blind to the fact that cars have a limited life. It is a machine and parts wear out-no problem. However, I also realize that testing is done on the cars in every stage of the design process. Paint failure-door lock failure-window failure-transmission failure etc--you get the picture. All of the car companies know a lot of the flaws of the system before they sell it(acceptable parameters) Yes-I like my SHO..It makes me feel great that I can pick up this powerful machine for almost nothing. It seems to be a great car. It just has a bad transmission-M

 

[shoebilly]

Any fwd model automatic from Ford in the early all the way to 2000 year model have inheirent weaknesses. Unless you're willing to shell out the $3000 (give or take) for a competently rebuilt or replaced unit. then the car is worthless. Its a judgement call.

 

[shoebilly]

Any fwd model automatic from Ford in the early 90's all the way to 2000 year model have inheirent weaknesses. Unless you're willing to shell out the $3000 (give or take) for a competently rebuilt or replaced unit. then the car is worthless. Its a judgement call.

You boast about the 94' nissan being so good, well... you're right! G.M. laid off 30,000 employees yesterday. Who's next!

 

[LOUDSHO92]

Well the motor can go around 300k with porper maintance as well as the MTX so long as they well maintained.

The 93 ATX is prone to the most problems, it was corrected in 94-95 and you can get the 94-95 computer to help. Again proper maintance will help here with fluid changes every now and then. You can add some upgrades like a shift kit or another trans cooler to help.

Some of the ATXs can last a while like 160k+ or less then 100k. It does depend on the year and maintance.

So yes Ford did step up and take care of the problem 10yrs ago. Some use that to fix their SHOs. I doubt Ford will do anything now since it was 10yrs ago.

 

[mclarida]

Computer replacement? I have heard of such a fix. Any links or info will help-
M

 

[Shoaz]

The EEC, upgrade your EEC-IV (the engine computer) to a D4U1. IIRC it's a drop-in replacement.

 

[Rockledge]

Drive by any transmission shop and you will see all makes and models of vehicles awaiting some kind of tranny surgery. It's never just been a "Ford" problem. That being said, the AXODE was certainly never designed with the SHO in mind, and the early version(s) are rightfully considered weak, even for a regular Taurus.

 

[SHO#7]

We are pretty equal here. I see lots of Chrysler products, a close second would be Ford, and third would be GM. We get alot of Mazda because of the CD4E ( Ford Transmission ) and Mitsubishi would most likely be 4th.

If you change you fluid often. 10k intervals, you will increase the life of your transmission. I do not care what kind you have. The thing may still break at 100k or 90k. But I would be willing to bet, that without the maintence, it would have broke at 60 or 70k.

Mike

 

[jaded93atx]

I have 150,000 miles on my original 93 ATX and no 94 upgrade. I think alot of people get carried away and beat the crap out of their atx's and are surprised when they fail. This is confirmed by many posts stating things like "it used to chirp into second" or I used to " be able to smoke them up through third" and usually followed by "now I have no second gear" or "help now my trannys slipping". If you beat on a high mileage or any car for that matter you should expect to shell out money for the repairs that your abuse is going to cause. Another thing I see a lot of folks doing is to continue to drive their atx's with failing vss and tss sensors creating hard shifts and wandering gears...that also takes its toll pretty quickly.
If people want a "streetlight racer" then an 3000+ lbs. FWD auto is not appropiate, the atx is more of a gentleman's car, its made for the highway, it rides smoother and is less rigid than the MTX for such obvious reasons and I doubt if it was intended or stress tested for teenagers to do burnouts and holeshots in. I would almost put money on the bet that most of these failed ATX's also have wornout sfbs and control arms/balljoints from the stress of abuse to further prove me correct in my theory.

 

[DHMag]

the original TH350 transmission in my 84K mile 1979 Malibu grenaded its guts all over the highway, did i complain ? Nope.

automatic transmissions do require greater care than they are given, regardless of specified maintainance.

 

[SHO Continental]

what are you talking about 90K? I carry a stash of ATXs and replace it when I change my oil... those crazy things explode like the 4th of july..


oh wait no.. I'm still on my original at 170K

 

[Denny]

They're 13 to 11 year old cars...that's a pretty long time to last. Nothing will last forever.

 

[Jason Bowles]

ok. Let me give you an example of something good about the SHO. I have 259K miles on my SHO and it's still the original ATX. It comes from a family that didn't hot rod the car but used the power when we most needed it. Like when a punk kid goes flying by in a WRX on the freeway!!!! No but really the car is serviced ritually at 5k - 10k on the tranny fluid, and oil every 3k (side note my family has never done a 60k on this car and other than a half inch of oil in the plug wells this thing runs perfect - SENSORS ASIDE!!!!). SO there is hope for your car mclardia.

But rather than complain about your car RUN THE CODES and for GOD sakes dont let just any mechanic tell you your tranny is bad. I took my car to Cottmans and they said my cars tranny had 3k miles left and it will for sure die. I had a shifting problem (VSS) I would have never known that affected the tranny until I joined this forum.

Although I now share your same problem as you posted in my thread that I just submitted. I am sure to figure out the problem this weekend I will most assuredly fill you in.

Fellow SHO OWNER

 

[crom]

Another thing I see a lot of folks doing is to continue to drive their atx's with failing vss and tss sensors creating hard shifts and wandering gears...that also takes its toll pretty quickly..

I just bought a 1994 SHO. Love the car. When the transmission is cold it will not shift into "Drive". It will stay in first gear unless manually shifted put into second. Then if it shifts to "Drive" it is like putting the car into Neutral. When the car warms up enough it shift fine for normal driving. Sometime down sifts are a little rough.

When my car warmed up. If I put the pedal to the floor my car shifts at 3K. Manually is the only way it will shift in the higher RPM's.

Will the VSS and TSS be the culprit.

Thanks.

 

[jae]

My SHO has about 220K miles on it. It just had its transmission rebuilt 1.5 years ago, the only major problem it had. and after transmission was rebuilt it sat in storage, so it was probably at ~218K miles when it had transmission rebuilt.