Ford Repair: Car wont move forward, metal shavings, ford taurus

Question
I have a 1995 Ford Taurus and as I was driving up a hill it lost speed and than stopped moving forward all together( it had no problem rolling backward!). I was able to get pushed into a nearby parking lot and that's when I noticed that there was some sort of fluid splashed all over my front driver's side tire and there was also a puddle where the car had initially stopped moving. Oh, and there was smoke also. When I checked the tranny fluid there was nothing in there. I'm wondering if this sounds like something simple to fix or if it could be a costly repair?

Answer
Valerie-

  My guess is the repair will be fairly costly...although costly is a relative term.  It sounds like the problem is likely somewhere in the torque converter.  The torque converter is a lot like a clutch except it's for an automatic transmission and instead of using direct friction it uses hydraulic pressure.  Your problem isn't at all unique to Taurus transmissions as they've been plagued by transmission failures for years.  Exactly how much the repair will cost depends on a lot of things so it's hard for me to say exactly how much it would cost.  If there's a lot of metal shavings in the transmission combined with losing all of it's fluid you could be looking at a new/rebuilt transmission.  Then again, it might not be that bad.  Hope this helps.

Steve