My Conti Draws Me To It !!!

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I bought this car 3 days ago. It's weird, but it seems to be drawing me to it. I had the opportunity to buy it from a friend who needed the money, and I happened to be in the market for another car. What's unusual is that I alway lease cars, but I liked the idea of owning it and having no monthly payments so I bit the bullet.

It's a 1996 Continental w/ 90,000 miles, clean interior with the exception of a tiny rip in the driver's seat leather, clean exterior with the exception of one small rust spot below the passenger door, mostly loaded with the exception of CD and heated seats. It also has a new transmission and new tires. I paid $3500 for it which seemed pretty good to me due to the new trani and tires.

Anyways, the crazy thing is my other car is a completely loaded 2005 Volvo XC90 V8 AWD which I love, but i can't stop tinkering with my new Conti! Even my wife and daughter seem drawn to it!

I have some questions I was hoping some of you guys (and gals) could help me out with.

1) Any ideas on the best way to repair the rust spot below my passenger door (about the size of a silver dollar but has been touched up)?

2) Although the Air Suspension seems to be working fine, a get the message 'check air ride' after a couple of minutes. Any Ideas on this one? I'll take it to AutoZone to get specific error codes later this week. I've been reading a ton of threads in this forum, and I hope it's something easy like the harness extension you've talked about. Any direction on exactly where to find this factory splice would be greatly appreciated.

3) Any thoughts on how I can go about successfully repairing the small rip in my driver's seat leather? All I keep thinking about are those cheesy commercials in the 80's where essentially an iron-on was used and it came out perfect (yeah right).

Sorry for the long post, but I figure if anyone can help me you guys can.

I feel my Conti calling me ... must............resist..............................
 
congrats on your conti.
For the Air suspension, see if your air bags are leaking. Turn the air suspension switch to off(its in the trunk). let it sit over night and see if the car lowers down. and autozone won't be able to get codes for the air suspension but you can go and see if they can pull up any codes.
oh yeah Welcome to LVC
 
Thanks! I've been reading through many of the threads, and this group is incredibly helpful. I'll try the suspension suggestion tonight and report back. Thanks again for the support.
 
On the rust, it will always come back unless you cut it out and use fresh metal. This is not always practical so sand down to bare metal, wipe clean with thinner, prime then use some filler as needed to bring back to the level of the rest of the paint then prime again then wet sand to feather out the edges, keep priming any spots that show filler or bare metal, wet sand with fine sand paper, then top coat and then clear. Best of you paint all the way to an edge so it is not as noticeable. when cured ( see paint labels) compound./ poilsh to blend with rest of the paint.

Leather- Most dealers have a guy that comes around every so often to touch up such items. I let the pros do that work. I had a rip in bright white vinyl headrest on on a super rare tonneau cover for my T-Bird and I let one of these guys do it. I cant tell, even 5 years later no way you would ever know. cost was $40. Took him 30 minutes.
 
Thanks for the info Frat-man-du. This is probably a dumb question, but does anyone have a suggestion on a good place to get the automotive paints/primer etc. I need to get? I've painted many houses, but never a car before. I know I where to get the paint code, but then what? The dealer?

Thanks again for the feedback.
 
Congrats on the New Conti post some pics up :D Once you get your minor issues worked out i'd start to mod it :)
 
Thanks Napoleon1072. I see you live in Charleston. I love Charleston. Anway, quick question for you or anyone else in the know. Can I replace my 1996 auto dimm rearview mirrow with a 1997 auto dim mirror?
 
yes they should be interchangeable as far as I know ;). Do you visit Charleston, SC often? If so we should have a little LVC cruise
 
napoleon1072 said:
yes they should be interchangeable as far as I know ;). Do you visit Charleston, SC often? If so we should have a little LVC cruise
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I don't get to Charelston very often, but I wish I did. I've got a good friend that lives in Charlotte, NC so I often go to Charleston for a few days when I'm visiting him.
 
OK, last night I turned the air suspension off in the trunk. It's been about 12 hours, and I don't notice a difference (yet anyway). I've never seen one of these on the ground like you guys have talked about. I'm assuming it would be pretty obvious right?

Assuming I'm not leaking air, what should be my next logical think to check? Again, the 'Check Ride Control' message come on after a couple of minutes. Although occasionally it takes quite a while to come one (10 minutes for example). Again, any input is appreciated.
 
I take that back. The rear suspension is now definitely much lower than the front. Now it does look like a total sled. I turned ride leveling back on in the trunk and hopefully it will raise back up for now. the front seams to be working properly, but I think there is definitely an issue with the back.

The fronts seem to pump up and release air as they should, but I noticed when I just went back to check on the suspension and turn it back on, while sitting in the car I heard a pop noise in the back right before the 'Check Ride Control' came on. Any ideas on where to go next? Is there anyone in the Detroit area that knows how to work on this suspension and would be willing to check it out if I paid you? I don't mind paying a reasonable rate for the work. I just thought I'd ask. I'm not afraid to do allot of things on it, but I just don't feel comfortable/confident trying to tackle the suspension.

EDIT: I also wanted to add that right before I bought it a couple of weeks ago, the previous owner had just had the transmission redone. The only reason I mention this is that I'm wondering what effect that could have on the car if they didn't disable the air suspension before working on it.
 
so it looks like your rear air bags are leaking. Now what ever you do, just don't tell your lincoln dealer to do it for you. I had to pay $2600 for my front air bags when I had it done at the dealership.
 
mark0101 said:
so it looks like your rear air bags are leaking. Now what ever you do, just don't tell your lincoln dealer to do it for you. I had to pay $2600 for my front air bags when I had it done at the dealership.
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:eek:

Yikes! I agree; I'm steering clear of the dealership whatever I do. What I really would like to do is buy all new air suspension parts and have someone I trust install it for me. I know it's pricey, but I really want to keep the air suspension. I'm sure half would feel the same way, and the other half just look at us like we're crazy.
 
I think disabling air suspension is only needed for security reasons. Like when You are under the car and suddenly rear suspension decides to release all the air that is in it...
 
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