We inherited a 1996 Lincoln Town Car. It drives great for an old girl and certainly is luxurious.
However, the AM-FM cassette is very finicky; some times it won’t even shut off and when it does work, the display may suddenly go haywire, and run through all of the pre-set channels. There are no other electrical problems with the car that I know of. Any thoughts?
Jim, Bloomington, IL
You are going to either have to have the exsisting unit repaired, replaced with another used unit, or get a whole new unit. Crutchfield is a good source for a new one if you decide on that. You can search the web on places to sent in your bad one to have it repaired. Look at automobile radio repair. Ebay is a good source for used units or the repair places may have some also.
The AM/FM cassette on my 98 Windstar started doing the same thing when it was about 6 years old. I ordered a AM/FM CD player to replace it from Crutchfield. If it’s anything like the Windstar, it’s an easy installation. The Ford radio slides out of the dash and the new player slides in. The most time consuming part is connecting the wiring harness adaptor to the replacement radio.
Ed B.
Stock car radios are usually not very good to start with (there are some exceptions). Go to Crutchfield (www.crutchfield.com) and order a replacement. They will send you all the necessary adapters and hardware and very complete instructions. The nice thing about Ford radios is they come out easily and you can get an exact fit replacement that is a better unit for less than $100. Spend a little more and you can get some really much better systems.