we’re looking at 1 2008 ls and thinking of buying it. i read a rating somewhere questioning the engine and transmission durabilty. anyone know about this car?
meant to type 2000 lincoln ls, with v8, not 2006
For the 2000 LS, Consumer Reports noted the following trouble spots:
Engine (Much worse than average)
Transmission (Worse than average)
Drive System (Worse than average)
Ignition (Much worse than average)
A/C (Much worse than average)
Body Integrity (Worse than average)
Power Equipment (Much worse than average)
Body Hardware (Much worse than average)
On a positive note, they rate the following areas as being good:
Cooling system (Better than average)
Brakes (Better than average)
Exhaust system (Better than average)
Electrical system (Average)
Suspension (Average)
Overall, as used car, they rate its reliability as “worse than average”.
Go to Edmunds.com and follow the prompts to see consumer and expert reviews of any vehicle. Then, you can make a smart decision. I do think that they were over-priced and generally panned by the critics, but that will be for you to decide.
I never put much faith (near zero actually) in ratings by Edmunds, Consumer Reports, or anyone else simply because there is often a story behind a complaint that is not given or even known.
The vast majority of engine and transmission failures are owner inflicted; abusive driving habits, maintenance not regular enough, etc.
The Lincoln LS engine and transmissions are fine and will go a long time - IF maintained properly. An example could be someone putting a 100k miles on a vehicle, never once changing the trans fluid, and then complaining when the transmission develops a fault or drops dead.
My son/daughter in law had a Lincoln LS until trading it off a year ago and it was a solid car up through the 90K+ miles they put on it. It would tick off about 27 MPG on the open road with the A/C running. The only problems they ever encoutered was a cracked plastic coolant tank and a dead fuel pump.
Keeping in mind my comment about “the rest of the story” the fuel pump failure was not caused by Ford or the type of vehicle. It was caused by a quick lube charging for and not changing the fuel filter.
I serviced the car for them before they moved to CO and noted when I did that the fuel filter was a half clogged original to the car Ford filter. At the time I told them to expect a fuel pump failure in the future as a clogged filter will kill a pump and sure enough, about 6 months later the pump died on them while on the Interstate.
If there is one gripe it’s that working under the hood is a pain due to so much being packed in there but that’s true of most Lincoln models. JMHO anyway and hope it helps.
If you are looking at an LS, you would do much better to get a 2003 to 2006 LS. Most of the problems the 2000 - 2002 LS’s had were fixed then, and several improvements made. The 2006 is the best year for the least problems.
I agree with you on the Consumer Reports ratings particularly for a 9 year old car. The condition of the car and how well the car was maintained is much more important. I would even argue that a used car with a below average repair record might even be better, because the repairs may have already been made by the previous owner. A used car that has a repair record with few problems may, in fact, have a serious problem just waiting to happen. The only thing I have heard about Lincolns is that “they will run on all their cylinders some of the time, they will run on some of their cylinders all the time, but they won’t run on all their cylinders all the time”.
My brother has had a couple of Lincoln Mark models that he purchased used and these cars have been great. His argument for buying Lincolns and Cadillacs is that the first owner had the means to buy the car and would do the proper maintenance. These cars do depreciate rather rapidly, so they make good buys as used cars.
Lincolns of all models are pretty common around here and they are reliable for the most part. The wide open spaces here allows many of them to roll up a ton of miles and considering the very dusty conditions (like a Mini-Dust Bowl much of the time) they hold up extremely well.
A neighbor from several blocks away has a Lincoln Town Car that has over 350,000 miles on it and the motor/transmission have never been touched. And they still drive it daily. My Mark will be hitting 240,000 sometime in the next week or so and it also has an untouched motor/transmission. It also still gets 27 MPG and if it uses any oil between the 3500 mile change intervals it’s too slight to be detected.
Those surveys and testing organizations bug me to no end. A complaint is registered without knowing the story behind the complaint, someone takes a car out on a test track for a day or so, etc. and this is supposed to be representative of the vehicle?
That’s like going out on the sidewalk in NYC, polling 20 people on an issue, and making an assumption based on a tiny fraction of a percent of the total.
I can’t say that my son/DIL’s Licoln LS was a bad one anyway. Theirs was an '01 and I think they made a huge mistake by trading it off when they developed “New Car Fever”.
I never put much faith (near zero actually) in ratings by Edmunds, Consumer Reports, or anyone else simply because there is often a story behind a complaint that is not given or even known.
I have to at least partly agree. There is some value to those ratings, but don't consider them highly reliable. For example car A may attract buyers who drive conservatively and get all the recommended maintenance done while car B may attract the kind of buyer who may decide to stop by the quick oil change place only when the oil light is flashing at them to a few weeks and it is starting to loose power. Both sources also suffer from skew data.