The 2010 Ford Taurus gives you many of the high-technology pieces of a full-size $75,000 European or Japanese luxury sedan for half the price. For about $40,000, you can drive a big, comfortable highway cruiser with active cruise control, blind spot detection, rear cross traffic alert, butt-massinging seats, the excellent Sync Bluetooth and music control system, and free Mayday calling. What you don’t get is BMW-crisp handling on back roads, or Lexus-perfect fit and finish in the cockpit. In a week driving the Taurus, I found it poised on long trips and got mileage in the upper 20s.
The 2010 Ford Taurus is a slab-sided, high shouldered vehicle with a fussy front grille measuring 203 inches long (the photo above is about the best angle possible), a bit longer even than a Cadillac Escalade. This is the sixth generation, the previous one being the short-lived 2008-09 model called the Ford Five Hundred (the name was based on Ford's sales expectations). This is a vastly better car than the Five Hundred in every way except that the back seat is now slightly less spacious, since the roof was lowered two inches and the rear seat was also lowered two inches.
High Tech, Moderate Prices
Much of the technology Ford has developed or licensed this decade is on the Ford Taurus. Some you can’t see, such as high-strength steel for better crash protection and even more effective sound insulation. Here are other key pieces of technology:
Adaptive cruise control with collision alert. This $1,195 option developed in conjunction with Delphi paces the car ahead of you, speeding and slowing as it does, but never exceeding a pre-set speed. There are only two downsides compared to ACC on other cars costing $2,000-$2,800: Some not all high-priced ACC cars use two radars, one for low speeds and short range, that lets the car go all the way to zero and then back up to speed. The Ford active cruise control stops at 20 mph (Ford earlier said 35 mph, but I found it works down into the teens). Also, the ACC active and radar lock indicators are small and buried in an instrument panel that is hard to read in daylight. If a car ahead decelerates faster than ACC probably can handle, a 14-LED panel flashes a collision alert, which translates to meant that you usually can avoid a collision by braking hard.
Blind spot detection. Ford calls it Blind Spot Information System (BLIS) with Cross Traffic Alert. As with other systems, if a car comes up in your blind spot, an indicator flashes in the outside mirror, more vigorously if your turn signal is on (suggesting you're about to change lanes). CTA uses the same sensors to look for oncoming traffic when you're backing out of a parking lot; a loud alert sounds if it sense cross traffic. Ford BLIS offered no audible alert (their being annoying but hard to ignore) or a steering wheel shaker (not annoying to most people, equally hard to ignore). It's only part of a package where it adds an estimated $400-$500 in cost.
Fillerless gas cap. A self-sealing flap inside the filler neck (that is pushed aside by the gas nozzle) and a rubber gasket around the filler door eliminate the need for a screw-off gas cap. This sounds minor. It is. Until you drive away and leave (left) the gas cap on the roof, or failed to secure tightly. Without a fully sealed gas cap, the check engine light comes on and the car runs poor.
Navigation. Ford’s $1,995 navigation system sourced from Xanavi includes voice input (of course), traffic information, weather, sports scores, ski conditions, gas prices, and movie listings. The navigation part works quite well, with one exception: The system is slow to update, so if there are quick turns one after the other, the display doesn’t keep up. Before the first turn, memorize the next one as well. If you don’t order navigation, Sync provides a rudimentary navigation feature of just text prompts and voice commands: better than nothing when you don’t know where you’re headed. The display does a good job integrating multiple bits of information on one screen (map, audio settings, entertainment information) though the Xanavi systems on Nissan and Infiniti do it better still. And some views gave you the music source and satellite channel but not the name of the song being played. There’s a nice split screen view that gives you most a map, plus smaller screens for audio and climate control.
Multi-contour active motion seats. One of the options packages provides ventilated as well as heated front seats, which is a blessing on warm days (no matter how good the air conditioning), and I’ve also found it an effective tool to help your overall comfort and alertness on long drives. More exciting is the active seat feature, which you don’t see on many cars outside the high-end luxury category. Ford calls it Multi-Contour Seats with Active Motion and charges just $595; BMW has a similar feature, driver side only, on its awesome BMW 750Li. It massages your thighs while you drive, which eliminates the frozen butt syndrome when you drive too long without stretching.
Ford Sync. It's standard on the two upper models, Limited and SHO, and includes an evolving list of Sync features: handsfree Bluetooth phone calling, USB access to iPods and other music devices, voice control (which continues to improve), and now 911 Assist, which calls for help (no monthly charge) in a crash if your Bluetooth phone is connected and survives the accident. As I've used more Sync cars and as Ford has improved Sync, the continuous speech commands work quite well. Say, "Play Artist Kings of Leon," and Sync knows what to do.
My Key. My Key lets you program a key given to teens to restrict the top speed, limit the radio volume, and set speed-warming chimes. It also limits access to the radio until after seat belts are buckled.
Not every Ford innovation is on the 2010 Taurus. Of particularly interest to urban dwellers is Active Park Assist, which lets you drive slowly down a city street. Press a button on the console and the car sense for and alerts you when it passes a space big enough to get into. You pull up ahead of the spot, put the car in reverse, put your foot on the gas, and the sensors and Ford’s electric power steering do the rest. It debuts on the Lincoln MKT and MKS.
Driving Impressions vs. a $110,000 BMW
The week before I drove the Ford Taurus, I drove a BMW 750Li that was chock full of options, cost a bit over $110,000, and is probably the world’s best car, certainly the best when it comes to having the most technology. Ford comes up short in three areas: handling on twisty country roads, the quality of the instrument panel and switchgear, and the seats. Nobody’s going to knock off BMW on ride comfort with a $30,000 car, especially on back roads, and when you stepped on the throttle, the BMW leaped forward, supremely poised, while the Ford lurched ever so slightly sideways at first, owing to so much power on the front as well as rear wheels. (On a front-drive car, this is called torque steer, and I felt a bit of it even on this all-wheel-drive model that appears biased toward power up front.) Ford’s instrument panel suffers from reflections, poor contrast between needles and backgrounds, and the steering wheel buttons (the same on every Ford and Lincoln) are same-size chiclets you can’t tell apart. These are things that don’t cost a lot of money to fix. The Ford seats without the massage feature on long trips felt passable but never awe-inspiring; the best asset of the seats is that they’ll fit virtually all American backsides no matter how large.
Cruising the highway, the 265-hp V6 engine and six-speed transmission provided plenty of power without stepping up to the turbocharged 365-hp Ecoboost-engined Ford Taurus that raises the price by $4,000, or $6,000 vs. the costliest front-drive Taurus Limited. The center stack LCD display was competent except some of the text was small and poorly contrasted (orange on blue) and this was no match for BMW’s 10.4-inch display. But then the Taurus had paddle shifters; this BMW didn’t. BMW’s back seat room was only slightly better. BMW’s rear sunshade option provides shades in each rear door plus the back window; Ford still offers a rear sunshade. Also, no surprise, it was a lot more fun getting in the BMW each day, where the Taurus was one more nice, new car with no rattles and clear carpet mats. One is transportation, the other shows you’ve arrived even before you get there.
Both provide Sirius satellite radio. Ford’s came free; BMW’s was $595. I could not, for the life of me, notice better sound coming from the BMW satellite radio chipset and decoder. I bet you couldn’t, either. Both use Nuance algorithms for voice control. With Ford Sync, you can speak commands in sentences; BMW gets that (called one-shot destination entry) beginning with 2010 models, as does Mercedes-Benz, which decided to offer it only in Europe.
There’s no way the average buyer would have these two cars, Taurus and 750Li, in the same consideration set. But still: Ford especially among American automakers is bringing down the cost of technology that buyers want for comfort, entertainment, and safety.
Ford’s Web Site: Your Kid Could Do Better
Buying a Taurus can be confusing if you want to shop online. Equal blame accrues to the site design and the disjointed way Ford sets up the online build-your-own process. With Taurus, you have to choose among four models – SE ($25,995 with freight, no options), SEL, Limited, SHO – with increasing features sets, and then choose among four grab-bag options packages rather than individual options. One such option pack, called Rapid Spec 301A, comprises branded floor mats, heated and cooled front seats, a rear power sunshade, and heated rear seats, and you’re left to figure the linkage among floor mats, heated front seats, and a sunshade for the rear window. Finally, in a small section of the web page, you fine-tune by choosing individual options that aren’t parts of packages except it also lists options you don’t to choose since they were parts of the packages, and every time you choose an option, the list animates, bounces around, and a couple seconds later settles down, Tetris style. If websites could be diagnosed for attention deficit disorder, ford.com should be started on 30 milligrams of Ritalin immediately, with a follow-up visit in six weeks.
A fully equipped, ford.com-built, all-wheel-drive SEL much like the one I tested ran $41,025 albeit, I thought, but without the blind-spot detection and cross-traffic alert that I believed I ordered as part of a package. Wait, it was included. It’s just that the final view doesn’t detail the parts of Rapid Spec 303A (where the BLIS option resides) but does have zero-dollar amount on a line you do see for BLIS (better perhaps to say PKG or INCL than wonder if a $0 price means it’s not ordered). This web site confusion is trouble for Ford because an increasing number of car shoppers don’t like the baffle-the-buyer atmosphere that pervades too many dealerships, so they do their pre-buying online and only for the final step set foot inside a showroom. A confusing website may send shoppers elsewhere. Incredibly, Ford ranks slightly above average (15 of 36 brands) on the latest J.D. Power Manufacturer Web Site Evaluation Study.
Should You Buy?
The 2010 Ford Taurus is one of Ford’s finest offerings in years. Combined with the Ford Flex crossover, Ford Fusion especially in hybrid form, and the long-overdue 2010 reworking of the Ford Focus for the U.S., Ford has a credible lineup. Add to Ford’s value proposition the first-class cockpits of the sibling Lincoln offerings, and you can see why Ford didn’t need federal bailout money.
As to whether you should buy: A Taurus provides a lot of creature comfort, technology, and safety, at a reasonable price, especially if you stick with the front- not all-wheel drive versions and save $2,000. With its high shoulder line and smallish (not tiny) side windows, it’s an attractive and winning alternative to the Chrysler 300. It’s also a valid competitor to the spacious Buick LaCrosse. Most buyers will find the 2010 Taurus roomier in back than a Honda Accord and about the same as a Toyota Avalon. (Up front, they’re about the same.) The toughest competition for the Ford Taurus will be against the full-size, rear-drive Hyundai Genesis sedan, which has plenty of passenger room, Lexus levels of fit and finish, lots of technology options (Ford has more), and a price that won't top $40,000 with a V6 engine.
If you target the Taurus and it’s for highway cruising, consider the active cruise control, the package with blind spot detection, and the active seat option. The extra price you pay — $41,025 tops for an all-wheel drive SEL if you find (it’s not easy) and check every option — will be quickly repaid on comfort over the life of the car. If you owned some of Ford’s less leading lights a decade ago – say the Ford Windstar or Ford Escort, as I did – it’s hard to believe this is the same car company. Ford has bailed itself out.
Far and away the best, most balanced sound; moderate noise isolation
Wider set of controls than any other headphones, but probably more than you need, or your handset even supports
They’re too big to exercise or travel with
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