I own a 2001 Lincoln LS V8. I recently had both steering knuckles replaced, front and rear brakes, two ignition coils, and thermostat. The car has 200,000 miles. How much longer do you think I have with it?
After 7yrs/150k miles more major items start to go on ANY car brand/model. How much goes is mostly luck balanced by maintenance/driving style. It could last a long time(100k more) dependent on your stomach for occasional repair(some expensive).
Well so far you have gotten off easy. Any car can expect some repair expense. Of course all cars have maintenance expense and failing to take care of the maintenance can lead to some very expensive repairs
It appears you have done well so far. I agree with Andrew in that you could reach 300,000 miles if you keep up the maintenance, a few repairs and some luck.
One year, nine months, two weeks, thirty nine hours and thirty-eight minutes, or 42,842.6 miles, whichever comes first.
For 200k, the repairs that you mentioned are not at all unusual, and I hope that you realize that brakes fall into the category of normal maintenance.
While this will never be a cheap car to repair, if you stay current with maintenance, quickly investigate new symptoms, and repair problems promptly, this car should last for many additional thousands of miles.
I assume that the valve cover gaskets have already been replaced with the newer design ones?
Other not-uncommon failures would be cracks in the coolant reservoir, DCCV failure (climate control blows hot air all the time), and power window regulator failures.
Sounds like a great car to me. Brakes and thermostat are normal wear and tear items due on any car, coil failure could have been caused by failure to change the spark plugs on a regular basis, and my memory is fuzzy on this issue, but were the steering knuckles part of a recall?
If not part of a recall, then the ball joints are part of the knuckle assembly and when you factor in high mileage and crummy road surfaces the ball joint failure could be considered normal.
If it runs/drives well, doesn’t burn oil like crazy, then drive it to oblivion.
My last Mercury had 420k on it when sold (still running/driving well) and my current Lincoln has almost 240k and it also still runs/drives great.
Coil failures on this engine are well known. At least three causes have been identified, oil in the plug wells, water in the plug wells, and heat. Many coils fail long before the first plug change is due, so that seems unlikely to be the issue. Some that fail have physical cracks in the casing. It just seems like the coils are marginal on this design. I had two fail at about 60K miles. No oil, water, or cracks. Plugs were good, the coils just went bad. BTW, they don’t usually fail completely, they just get weak. Ford has done warranty extensions for this issue, but the OP’s car is too old for coverage.
Two coils in 200 K is pretty good. O.P., keep doing what you are doing and drive it without worry.
Anything present in the plug boot wells (water or oil) or a degradation of the rubber boot can cause a misfire just like a bad spark plug though.
My brother has a 1988 Lincoln Mark which is approaching 300,000 miles. The ignition coils may be a problem. You may have another 100,000 miles. One thing about an old Lincoln: “It will run on all of its cylinders some of the time. It will run on some of its cylinders all the time. However, it won’t run on all of its cylinders all the time”. I guess you know that from replacing coils.