Plan to buy a 1998 TC Exec.

[Florus]

Hello,

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

I plan to buy a 1998 Lincoln Town Car Executive with about 71,000 miles. The owner of the car bought it at an auction in Florida (it's a former corporate fleet car, sold in 2000 - I checked this via CARFAX) and drove it for a couple of years there. Then in 2006 he took the car to Germany and now he's selling it.

Now I have some question, in Germany it's very difficult to get information about this car. When I ask my mechanic (or other people) they always say "Buy a [insert German make here]" - it's kind of difficult to get some experts opinions here.

I heard that there are some problems with the air suspension, the owner said that he replaced it. I think that's good, because it's one of the costlys repairs as I have read here.

The next common problem are the plastic intake manifolds; I tried to fiend out of there was a recall but I can't find any history neither the CARFAX-report or the Ford page gives me any information here. I always can read that there are no recalls, but I want to know if any recalls have been done on this car. Is there a way to get a kind of history to recalls?

Are there any other common problems with this car? What should I take care when I take a look on this car?

I hope to get some answers from you! BTW: sorry for my english, I know it's not the best.

Thanks in advance!

Florian

 

[V-Tally]

The intake manifod replacement isn't that bad, neither is the air suspension replacement, depending on how hard it is for you to get the parts. Look for pictures of the replacement part and original part online, then compare to the car you are planning to buy. When I did the replacement on my old 2000 I remmember there was a distinct difference in materials used, but I can't recall what it was. Also the alternator bracket did not bolt up the same to the new part.