David, As one who has live hand-to-mouth most of his life I can appreciate your circumstances. Being close to the wall financially can distort one’s common sense when it comes to making decisions like this. Some people have driven cars like yours well in excess of 200K miles, while others haven’t been so lucky; it depends a lot on what type of miles they were (highway vs. stop & go) and the maintenance the car received, or didn’t receive. The fact of the matter is that your car seems to be approaching the end of its useful life. If you put a pile of money into the engine it’s almost guaranteed that something major will puke about a week after you have it done. Guys like me can continue to drive beaters like this because we work for ourselves at about 10 cents an hour fixing them. I’d probably get a couple of my buddies over here on a weekend, a case of beer, and a used engine and have about $500 in the whole deal. Here’s what I’d do in your case: Give a trustworthy OLDER (experienced) mechanic a few bucks to correctly diagnose the thing. Eliminate all the obvious things, like an improper PCV valve, etc. Unless a cylinder leakage test has been performed the guy does NOT know what’s wrong with it! If the valve guides are badly worn, installation of new stem seals will only be a temporary fix. Knurling the guides, putting in new stem seals, and grinding the valves (“top overhaul”) would only cause more oil to blow by the piston rings, and thin your wallet considerably. So don’t bother with any major repairs. If you have to put STP or 90 weight gear lube or whatever in it to reduce the oil consumption, do it. Just wear comfortable walking shoes so you can get home when it breaks down. Keep pouring oil through it until it dies, which it will in the not too distant future. Start looking for something else used while you still have some time left. Buy something that you don’t have to remortgage the house for to fix. This means something with AS LITTLE “HIGH TECHNOLOGY” in it AS POSSIBLE. Find something that they made millions of, that has an IRON block, IRON head(s), pushrods, and two valves per cylinder. Go ahead and laugh; everything I’ve ever had that was RELIABLE was strictly LOW TECH. They’re easy to get parts for and easy to fix. Laugh again, but I recommend Detroit Iron; parts are available everywhere. Then, learn to do all the basic maintenance yourself. That way you’ll know it was done and when, and you’ll save a few bucks besides. Although it’s a “V” engine, it’s still easy to work on and they made MILLIONS of them; I’m talking about the GM 3800 V6. There are all kinds of cars that were built with them. They thrive on neglect; I’ve seen almost totally neglected and abused 3800’s blow right past 200K miles. They get better gas mileage than a lot of 4-bangers do. Find one made within the last 10 years; they’ve got the improvements in them. Take it home and change the trans oil and filter as well as oil and filter on the engine. Enjoy some fairly trouble free miles. Junk the Taurus.
Good avdice actually. Our previous posts dealt with what it would take to actually keep the Taurus on the road. In the overall scheme of things, a Detroit beater with a basically sound engine and transmission and no power accessories, will run a long time. I drove a 1948 Chev stovebolt 6 with “power nothing” for 4 years in college; then my youger brother drove it another 2 years till he graduated. Not bad for a $125 car. Towards the end we carried a case of “reconstituted” oil in the trunk and kept topping it up.