Review of 1989 Ford Taurus SHO -- By Gene Kim =============================================  Background:      Last week, I bought a 1989 Ford Taurus SHO, moving up from driving a 1987 Toyota Celica ST and a 1975 Oldsmobile Cutlass.  I have been interested in buying a SHO for about five months and have been combing the classifieds in Denver and Chicago every week.  I bought a remarkably clean maroon/red SHO with 92K miles on it for $6800. As far as I can tell, this is about $2000 under Blue Book and I still have another 8000 miles before the Extended Service Plan runs out.      As one should with any pre-1991 SHOs, I made sure that the car was already refit with the upgraded clutch and pressure plate, as well as having been recalled for upgraded rotors and seatbelt attachments. However, my SHO does not have the newer rod shifter -- I understand I can get this for $230 from any Ford service center.  In addition, the car received the full tune-up at 60K miles, receiving new platinum plugs and valve adjustment.      For a car with 92K miles on it, the car was virtually immaculate. The clearcoat paint job was devoid of any large chips or dents, although the front air-dam/molding was covered with lots of small scratches -- not surprising since most of the miles were spent on the highway.      Having driven a smaller two-door coupe for so long, I was a bit concerned about whether I could get used to driving a larger car.  To my surprise, the size of the car doesn't bother me at all -- it seems just as nimble as my Celica!  (No comparisons with my Oldsmobile.  :-) Visibility from the driver's seat is excellent, helped mostly by of the small the quarter-windows, aft of the back-seat door windows and in front of the C-pillar and rear window.  Parallel parking is a bit more difficult, but other than that, I love the size.      In fact, I'm starting to appreciate the large trunk as I pack up for a 14-hour drive to Washington, DC for the summer.  More on the ride later in this review.   Engine:          As with anyone even slightly interested in SHOs, I was very interested in the 24-valve 3.0L Yamaha "Shogun" engine.  I was not disappointed.  Base performance of the engine under 4000 rpms is good.  You can even do reasonable launches from second gear, although I don't make a practice of this.  The engine revs smoothly and eagerly -- tooling around town does not require many shifts.  This is good since the shifter is definitely one of the weakest points of the car. (More on this later.)      While the performance of the engine under 4000 rpms may be unremarkable, it undergoes a Jekyll/Hyde transformation once you hit higher revs.  At 4500 rpms, a butterfly valve opens and you can literally hear and feel the geometry of the engine changing as twelve more valves open up.  The engine soars to its 7000 rpm redline, and you are treated to, in my opinion, the sweetest sounding V6 around. The engine inexplicably sounds OVERJOYED to be at 6500 rpm!      I've noticed that when I drive around town, I constantly watch the tach to see how far below 4000 rpm I am.  To go from 2000 rpm to 4000, you may have to punch the accelerator -- while torque is more than adequate, it doesn't come fully online until those other 12 valves are used.   Transmission:      When _Car and Driver_ first reviewed the car in 1988, they marvelled at how Ford had put such a wimpy clutch and balky shifter into the car.  I remember driving a friend's parent's SHO in 1990, and remember thinking about whether I had the leg strength to drive the car in traffic -- the clutch was that stiff.  That was back then.      The entire clutch assembly on my SHO has been replaced under a Ford recall in 1991.  The clutch on the SHO feels no stiffer than the one on my Toyota Celica.  In fact, the friction point seems a bit larger and more forgiving.      When playing with the shifter with the car parked, the shifter felt very reasonable.  The 1-2 and 3-4 gates were where you'd expect it to be, and the shifting action was smooth.  On the road, it's much the same -- but you have to shift SLOWLY!  Make no mistake, it's a clumsy shifter.      When hurrying shifts, like when I was initially trying to impress friends, I consistently miss the 1-2 shift, often grope clumsily for the 2-3 shift, and sometimes even muff the 3-4 shift.  I find this pretty amazing in a car like this.      It also took me several days to realize that you get the smoothest shifts when you take your time.  Seems obvious, but compared to my Toyota and my friend's Honda, this seems atrocious and clumsy. Someone on rec.autos noted that CRXs should blow SHOs off-the-line because of the incredibly clumsy shifter.      I now shift much more sedately, and the shifter seems more reasonable.  When you play within these bounds, the shifter works smoothly with no surprises.  I don't know whether the rod shifter upgrade would help at all.      Along these same lines, I initially had trouble shifting gears smoothly.  Again, slowing down the shifts and taking more care to match revs when letting out the clutch helped immensely.  This took several days for me to get the hang of.  (I think some of my problems were because I've never had a car with enough power to balk at bad shifts in higher gears.)      Occasionally, I have trouble shifting into reverse.  The shifter refuses to enter the gate, and I often grind the synchros trying to  get it into gear.  I'll be watching this carefully in the next couple of months.      A quirk:  When I upshift and the engine drops back to 1000-2500 rpm, I hear a whirring and then a grinding noise coming from the the engine compartment.  Not terribly loud, but the passenger can definitely hear it.  I asked about it when I was looking at the car, as do all my passengers.  Apparently, this is a definitely a "SHO sound" and is the gearbox -- apparently called "gear rollover". Replies to my queries on rec.autos are at the end of this review.   Exterior:      As I mentioned before, I am astounded by how well the body of this SHO has stood up.  Paint chipping on the front bumper and grille are virtually non-existent.  Looking at how older Tauri sometimes don't age so gracefully, I wonder what the guys at Ford did differently to the SHO bodies.      The body, in my opinion, is extremely attractive with matching color body moldings than the stock Tauri.  For some odd reason, the SHO seems different enough from vanilla Tauri to get stares at stoplights -- of course, this could be my overactive imagination. :-)  SHOs get fog lights, a more open grille, a completely monochromatic exterior, and a deeper ground skirt in the back with "SHO" stenciled in relief.  I've seen a couple SHOs whose owners have colored these in with florescent colors or in black.  Yuck.      I don't think the car is flashy.  I like it that way.  I feel almost anonymous with all those Tauri out there, but different and distinctive enough to those of us who care.  :-)   Interior:      The interior is what really makes me feel like I don't deserve the car.  The seats are grey leather, the steering wheel and shifter are covered with black leather, and the entire instrument panel is done in a black/grey/metallic scheme.        The instrumentation is stock Taurus, except for the 140 mph speedo and 8000 rpm tach.  You get a center console with two cupholders, a large compartment under the radio (great for a CD player), an armrest that contains yet another compartment, three appropriately sized coin holders for tollways (I think), and a compartment for holding cassette tapes.  There's map-holders in the doors, and an oddly small glove compartment.      I spilled a whole can of Coke in the cupholder and was delighted to find that the entire rubber holder can be removed and washed in a sink.  Hey, I'm really impressed with the ergonomics and thoughtfulness that went into its design.  And it's a 1989, before the interior was upgraded!      The backseat is bigger than any car I've had.  Why do they need so much space?  :-)  (No smart-ass comments, please.  :-)      The driver and passenger seat have lumbar and side bolsters.  From what I hear, it's not uncommon for the side bolsters to show wear. Mine is no exception.  The left side bolster on the driver's has cracked and I'm not convinced the right bolster is inflating all the way.      A big surprise for me:  I forgot that SHOs don't have a normal hand parking brake.  Instead, they have the regular parking brake that you press with your left foot.  Too bad.  Again, I'm getting used to it, but it seems a bit anachronistic to me.   Ride:      The suspension is nice and stiff.  Too stiff?  It's stiffer than any car I've had.  A friend's new 1993 Toyota Celica ST seems tauter and is still able to soak up bumps better.  The SHO seems stiffer with less ability to soak up bumps.  Driving over railroad tracks is a noisy and jarring affair.  On the other hand, taking turns feels wonderful because the body is so rigid and doesn't flex at all -- I listened for that before I bought the car.      On the highway, the ride is great.  When I drove the car from Chicago back to Purdue, I had trouble keeping under 85 mph, let alone from trying to see what 100 mph really feels like.  It's a relatively quiet ride, but the sunroof rattles.  I've tried to find out what exactly makes all the noise up there, but it seems to be the window that rests on the rails.  No easy way to get rid of it, I think.      Over the past three days, I've oscillated between thinking the suspension is wonderful and perfect and thinking that the ride is way too rough.  (Not for me, mind you.  But I wonder whether I would advise my dad to buy one for himself.)  But, I've discovered, as with the shifter, if you take your time with shifts, you'll have no reason to complain.  Let me explain...      The ride is worst when turning and applying lots of power to the wheels.  I feel the wheels scrabbling for traction and torque steer making the car skitter left and right.  After I understood this, I avoid the limits of traction -- and I'm a happy camper again.      It's not body rigidity, but the composure of the car.      As if matching the suspension, the steering feel is quite heavy. My first impression of driving my SHO was how hard you had to turn the wheel at highway speeds.  It tracks straight as an arrow, but when driving around a parking lot, the high-effort steering didn't seem so useful.  However, it's reasonable, but it doesn't communicate the road to the driver as well as a 1993 Ford Probe GT.  IMHO, it's much better than the steering on my Celica ST.      I wonder how bad this car is during winter?   Miscellaneous notes:      GRIPES:      The rattles from the sunroof is intermittent -- some days it rattles         loudly, other days I look up wondering where all the noise went.      Activating the sunroof is sometimes very noisy -- loud squealing as 	it retracts on its rails.  I wonder if there is a quick fix for this. 	Again, other days it completely disappears.  (Function of humidity?)      Once I made the connection between the sometimes awful feeling suspension 	and torque steer, I've never complained about ride.      I wish the seats had more support under the thighs.  Also, I wish the 	side bolsters would close more tightly.        I hear that tires for this car can get really expensive.  I 	currently have Goodyear GT+4s that cost the previous owner $500 	for four.      I used to hate the Ford stereo systems -- whose idea was it 	to use a volume *paddle*?  Now, to my amazement, I don't 	really mind...  and sometimes think it's an okay idea!!! 	Pretty ridiculous, though.      Getting up to 4000 rpm sometimes seems to be a chore.  But, 	this is no big deal.  There is more than enough torque 	down low.      I often goof up the shifting when driving with friends.  It 	took me a couple of days before I could really shift 	smoothly from 2nd to 3rd gear.  (Hard to believe, isn't it?)      My car has almost 93,000 miles on it.  My parents noted that 	it is almost impossible to find a low-mileage SHO.  	Astute observation, IMHO.  I wonder how long I can make 	my SHO last -- I just bought a book titled "Drive It Forever" 	for tips in this department.  :-)      The goofy parking brake pedal still throws me for a loop.  I once 	parked the car in gear, and then accidentally let out the clutch 	after I started it.  The car jolted forward, and bounced off 	the car in front of me -- no paint damage at all, but starting the car  	is a whole new ritual for me with that fangled pedal!  Also, I began  	to wonder how strong that brake really is.  (Today, I backed out of  	parking spot today and started to drive away before I noticed  	the glowing brake light.  Oops.)      The driver's power window creaks when closed all the way.  The same     	thing happens in my parents 1989 Mercury Sable.  Oddly, all the 	other windows work smoothly.       LIKES:      I'm liking the interior amenities more and more each day.  The     	cupholders are great.      I didn't expect to use the keyless entry buttons so much, but 	it really is handy.  You can lock all the doors by 	pressing the 7/8 and 9/10 buttons together!  Neat!  And 	you can never lock yourself out of the car.      I really feel like I don't deserve this car.  I really can't 	believe that I could afford it.  I got this car ten years  	ahead of schedule.  :-)      I love this car so much that I've been telling my parents to 	look into buying one.  I love this car so much that I 	wrote this 13K file -- I meant to write a couple of lines 	and ended up with this.        If there were a J.D. Powers Survey for used car owners, I would have 	an opportunity to express my incredible satisfaction of owning this  	car.  I don't like thinking about getting another car, but at this 	point in time, I'm sure I'd buy another SHO.  For under $7000, you 	can't beat it.  (Next time with an airbag and ABS, though.)      Insurance-wise, this car is also a big win.  I pay the same premiums 	as on my 1987 Toyota Celica -- despite that it has nearly twice 	the horsepower.      Other Odds and Ends:      Much to my amazement, there is no SHO mailing list anywhere. Maybe because the _SHO Registry_ publication has filled this void.  I haven't joined yet, but I've noticed that queries about SHOs still appear on rec.autos about once a month.  Owners of SHOs are always quick to respond, and are very vocal fans of the cars.  (Maybe some of the most vocal on rec.autos.  :-)      I've put together the responses to my questions about the cars, as well as other posts with useful information on these cars.  I'll be  posting this in the form of a FAQ soon.        If anyone is interested in starting a mailing list, please speak up! I don't know if I have the resources here at Purdue to start one, but  maybe someone out there does.