2013 Ford Taurus dies when put into gear

Maintenance/Repairs
1

Looking at buying a project 2013 Ford Taurus that dies when put into gear,either forward or reverse. 173K miles
The car is two hours away. The owner says wifey came out from work one day and the car was doing this and drove fine to work that day.

He has had a local wrench look at it. They said they think,is catylitic converters are plugged. The CEL is on of course, but he never got a printout of what the trouble codes are,& he does not mess with cars at all.
The car will only start if throttle is depressed about half throttle as well.
She did have the fuel pump regulator relay switch located behind the rear passnger seat ,thinking this may have been the problem,which is a known problem on this year of Taurus.

TIA

2

Sounds to me like the torque converter clutch is stuck on. Or the TB is a mess. It’s not the cat.

The real Q is why would you buy a “project” Taurus with so little info.

Have them get the codes or don’t bother. And … well, just don’t bother.

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3

My 1st thought was the TCC is locked up also, but then you wrote this…

A TCC locked up (fully engaged) wouldn’t affect it stating, only putting it in gear.. If the TCC is locked up then it will die immediately once put in gear, almost the same as coming to a stop and forgetting to depress the clutch pedal on a manual transmission (stick shift)…

You need to have the codes pulled to have a good idea of what is wrong… So if you go look at it, take a scanner with you… Be prepared to replace the transmission but hope it is nothing more than the MAF sensor acting up, you can unplug the MAF to see of it will run in gear…

Yes it could be a simple MAF sensor… as well as it could be some other things…

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4

When I see the term project vehicle I think of a classic or at least some kind of collector vehicle. 2013 Taurus is not one of those especially 2 hours away.

Wonder what the asking price for this thing is.

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5

I wonder how much they are PAYING to haul this car away! :rofl:

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6

+1
Just 1/2 mile from my home, there is a house that was formerly occupied by a guy who had 4 Volvo “project” cars, dating back to the '70s & '80s. He never got any of them running, and when he died, the new owner had to have them all hauled away.

But, because trees had also grown around his collection of “project” vehicles, it turned-out that there was also a Chevy van from the '80s in back of the Volvos. First, the new owner had to bring in a tree surgeon to cut down the trees, and then she was able to have the van hauled away.

7

Many people fix cars and search by price. I’m driving a low priced car that was 100mi from my home.

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8

Just as long as you don’t bite off more than you can chew and also don’t try to buy projects which require more tools, skills, time and money than you have

I’m inclined to think this 2013 Taurus may belong in that category, as far as op’s concerned

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