# 2000 Ford Taurus oil system problem **URL:** \ **Category:** Maintenance/Repairs\ **Created:** [May 26, 2008, 1:07pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2000-ford-taurus-oil-system-problem/14468 "2008-05-26T13:07:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jdayer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@jdayer](https://community.cartalk.com/u/jdayer)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2008, 1:07pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2000-ford-taurus-oil-system-problem/14468/1 "2008-05-26T13:07:53Z")
Hi All: I just wanted to let you know about an oil system problem I had on my Ford Taurus and maybe get some feedback. The problem cropped up about a year ago. About 200 miles into a 450 mile round trip drive the oil light on my 2000 3.0 12 valve EFI Taurus SE came on. I called a buddy and he rented a car dolly and towed me home. I do regular oil changes between 3K and 5K. if I can’t do them my wife takes the car into a shop and has it done. I ended up swapping out the engine with a used engine and I haven’t done much since until this weekend when I took the oil pan off the old 3.0. I found a bunch of tiny pieces of some kind of fiber board gasket in the oil pump screen. The largest was about 5/8" long, 1/8" thick and about 3/16" wide. There was also some crud built up in the oil pump screen around the gasket pieces, about what I would expect after 180K even with good oil changes. The pump itself was in spec (I checked it with feeler gages). Most of the gaskets I have seen on the Taurus oil system are rubber so I am not sure where this fiber board gasket could have come from. I understand that sudden oil pressure loss is a fairly common problem with 2K Taurus’s having over 150K miles. Anyone know where the gasket came from? Is this left over from the manufacturing process or is there a gasket breaking down that I missed? I am probably going to rebuild the engine in the future, that could take a year or so with my schedule. I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about this issue or if anyone had seen the same problem on other Taurus’s. Thanks ---
**Author:** ![pleasedodgevan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/51bf81/32.png) [@pleasedodgevan](https://community.cartalk.com/u/pleasedodgevan)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2008, 5:57pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/2000-ford-taurus-oil-system-problem/14468/2 "2008-05-26T17:57:21Z")
A bad guess is that the fiber is from the sprocket teeth of the camshaft sprocket. They were sometimes made of phenolic which could be a fiber, plastic material. You remove the timing cover and you will know if I’m right or not right. Never wrong.