Taurus Wagons are natorious for problems.
I would personaly steer clear of Dodge as well.
If you looking for reliabilty as well as good gas milage I would strongly advise a Toyota of any kind. Toyata Corolla's are natorious for having no problems besides normal wear and tear repairs ie: Brakes, front end parts, exaust... If you want to spend a little extra money, the Toyota Matrix are very nice and comfortable. We have 11 drivers within our Courier company, we put our cars through some of the hardest torture a car can go through. We drive them 5 days a week on avarage of 9 hours a day stop and go, road trips... and out of our 11 drivers, 3 of us never have any down time because 3 of us own a Toyota. One of our drivers had a Tercel with over 400,000 kms on it, he hardly ever did oil changes and besides the reg wear and tear repairs he never had ANY problems with it. He sold it because he got bored with it and bought a Corolla, he now has over 300,000kms on that with the same proven reliability. Myself and one other driver also have Corollas and The same thing, no problems.
Our other drivers have owned Dodge Caravans and Full size Trucks, Hyundai Accent, various Nissans, Honda Accord, Saturns, Pontiac Sunfires, Full size Chev vans... the list goes on they have all had several problems of differents kinds and many days of down time. Some of these aren't bad as an occaisional driving vehicle, but regardless they will break down on you.
If you want an honest opinion from a person thats runs a vehichle to the extreme, I'm telling you, Toyota will not let you down. Period.
Happy trails !
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