Questions and Answers

Ford Taurus SE Idle Vibration Q. I have a 1995 Ford Taurus SE 3.0 liter fuel injected with automatic transmission. The problem is when the car warms up and is in drive or reverse it has a serious vibration. If the car is put into neutral the vibration stops. When accelerating the vibration stops.

The car runs great except for the vibration. At times the vibration is so bad it turns heads. I have changed the motor mounts which were badly worn, belts and pulleys and it did improve it some what. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks...

A. The way I'm reading this is that the only time you have the vibration is in Drive or neutral and stopped.

If that is indeed the case, and you replaced all the motor mounts, then we have to look at the exhaust system first. From the sentence "At times the vibration is so bad it turns heads." it seems the vibration is more heard than felt.

There are several heat sheilds around the exhaust system that keeps heat away from the body and other temperature sensitive components. The attachments are small thind bands that rot away and break. This results in the same vibration you describe. In fact this was so common there was a TSB issued on how to correct it.

The fix is, essentially, connecting two large radiator hose clamps together and using four of this combination, wrap them around the heat sheilds on the catalytic converter and muffler thus securing the shields and eliminating the noise.