Behind the Wheel | 2013 Ford Taurus: 4 Cylinders in a Big Car: Sometimes Less Is More

IN an engineering move that pursues the delicious ? if elusive ? goal of having one?s cake and eating it, too, Ford is offering the 2013 Taurus family sedan with a fuel-efficient turbocharged 4-cylinder engine.In doing so, Ford is going unconventional with its most conventional vehicle, a large sedan with a curb weight of almost two tons.

Not radically unconventional, mind you: small engines are arriving in big cars from many makers, and Ford even offered a 4-cylinder in the original Taurus of 1986, when gas seemed cheap at a pump price of less than $1 a gallon.

The goal in 2013, of course, is to provide full-size accommodations with something closer to pint-size fuel economy. It is a tactic that makes the Taurus, with a combined city-highway rating of 26 m.p.g., the country?s most fuel-efficient large traditional sedan, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In second place is the 2013 Toyota Avalon, with a combined rating of 24 m.p.g.; that car has a 3.5-liter V-6.

In recent years the once-popular Taurus ? it was America?s best-selling car five years running and peaked at more than 400,000 in sales twice in the 1990s ? has had a troubled on-again, off-again existence. When its popularity dimmed to near invisibility, it was replaced by the 2005 Five Hundred. But the Five Hundred?was so disappointing that Ford ? in what some saw as desperation ? renamed it Taurus for the 2008 model year.

The base engine in the new Taurus is a 3.5-liter V-6 built in Lima, Ohio, and rated at 288 horsepower. In a reversal of the norm, the extra-cost option is a smaller engine, the 240-horsepower 2-liter EcoBoost 4-cylinder built in Spain. It costs $995.

The EcoBoost 4 is a relatively advanced engine, using not just a turbocharger but also direct injection of gasoline into the combustion chamber, a design intended to provide more power and better fuel economy. Its torque output of 270 pound-feet tops the V-6 engine?s 254, and it reaches that peak 1,000 r.p.m. sooner. Both the 2.0 EcoBoost and the V-6 engines are paired with attentive and effective 6-speed automatic transmissions.

The EcoBoost label, incidentally, simply means it is part of a family of Ford engines in various sizes, all sharing turbocharging, direct injection and a higher price.

To Ford?s credit, the 2.0 EcoBoost is a stand-alone option on the Taurus and is available on even the least expensive version, the SE. That model has a starting price of $27,395 with the V-6, and adding the EcoBoost engine option inflates the window sticker to $28,390.

With the 2.0 EcoBoost, the Taurus is rated at 22 miles per gallon in town and 32 miles per gallon on the highway. That is 3 m.p.g. better than the standard V-6 in both types of driving.

According to the E.P.A.?s Web site (www.fueleconomy.gov), the EcoBoost would save about $250 a year compared with the V-6. That calculation is based on 15,000 miles a year (55 percent city driving) and 87-octane gas priced at $3.39 a gallon.

Stated another way, to reap any savings from the 2.0 EcoBoost option, an owner would have to keep the car almost four years ? though it could pay off sooner if gas prices zoomed or if the car were driven an extraordinary number of miles.

The Taurus can be ordered with all-wheel drive, though the 2.0 EcoBoost is available only on front-drive models, including the Limited version that I tested.

The test car had a starting price of $33,795, including a $795 destination charge. Ford then added $6,880 in options, including the EcoBoost ($995); navigation system ($795) and adaptive cruise control and collision warning ($1,195).

There was also a $3,500 package with a long list of features including a heated steering wheel, heated and cooled front seats, heated rear seats, an automatic parallel-parking system, a Sony audio system and blind-spot monitors. The total sticker price was $40,675.

Particularly with all the creature comforts, the Taurus is a pleasant and accommodating large sedan. The front seats are comfortable, a good compromise of soft and supportive, making a five-hour stretch on the road possible.

But rear legroom is only adequate for a 6-foot adult. Its 38.1 inches is 0.2 inch less than in the 2013 Ford Fusion, a midsize car.

The 20-cubic foot trunk is huge, however.

Ford?s notorious and ill-conceived MyFord Touch system continues as the bad boy of ergonomics despite the automaker?s attempts at rehabilitation. It is supposed to make controlling everything from the audio system to the climate control easier, but it doesn?t. It just makes things that should be simple, like changing the temperature, more complicated.

A voice-control system offers an alternative. But it can be a chore, requiring several steps to do something that one should be able to handle with one twist of an old-fashioned knob.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/automobiles/autoreviews/4-cylinders-in-a-big-car-sometimes-less-is-more.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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