Plan to buy a 1998 TC Exec.

[Florus]

Hello there,

first my name is Florian I am 22 years old, and I am from Germany near Munich.

I want to buy a 1998 Lincoln Town Car Executive with about 71.000 miles on it. The owner bought this car with around 40.000 miles at an auction in Florida. The owner itself also comes from Florida - sunny belt, so it should have no rust.

Now I have a few questions about the car, most important is the reliability of this car, I heard that it's a very solid car designed as heavy duty. Is that right?

As I know there are some problems with the plastic intake manifold, but there was a recall, how can I find out if the recall was done? When I check the VIN on the Ford page I just get the result that there are no recalls for this car. The CARFAX history also gives me no information just "No recalls".

What are the common problems with this car? I know, that's a very general question, but when I asked a mechanic here in Germany about a Lincoln they always say "Buy a [insert German make here](i.e. Mercedes, Audi, BMW". So I just can try to grab some information here.

BTW: Sorry for the english, I am trying my best!

 

[Florus]

Sorry double post. Can you delete this one?

 

[mark0101]

Really, don't even worry about reliability. It has no common problems that are associated with TC (maybe blend door). 2002 TC here, bought new with 0 miles and now has 160,000 miles. So far what has gone wrong is the window motor, fan blower, CAT, and that's all I can think of.

 

[Florus]

Hello mark,

Thank you for your answer.

Sounds good. They replaced the bend door in the year 2000 - is this a common failure also if it has been replaced? Or is this a failure only occurrs with the factory part?

 

[mark0101]

Hello mark,

Thank you for your answer.

Sounds good. They replaced the bend door in the year 2000 - is this a common failure also if it has been replaced? Or is this a failure only occurrs with the factory part?

We have four Lincolns in our family and ONLY one has a bad blend door (93 MKVIII). So IDK how prone it is to break on the TC but fords in general have an issue with broken blend doors. They most likely replaced it with an OEM part, so it could break again.

 

[bigltc]

www.lincolnsonline.com gets alot more TC posts.

The rear air springs last about 8 years.
If it has the original plastic intake manifold, that will fail eventually.
I've replaced my fuel pump after 10 years.

 

[slowmkviii]

Nice choice they are great cars
would have been nice if you could have a 99 or newer with the pin intake. The car needs the extra power.