Aviators

[acuratex]

Will we be getting an aviator section on this board or jes slip in as the BWs are eased out? Any avi owners care to jump in and comment on the vehicles and the pricing they've received? TIA

[pro-five-oh]

Acuratex, I know the Fleet Manager at Bayway Lincoln Mercury...if you want to talk to him (he sells cars at dealer invoice or something close to it) drop me an Email.

I just referred one of my friends to him to get a 2002 Cougar. My friend was very happy with the price and attitude of the fleet manager. I sat in an Aviator at that time and absolutely loved it. It certainly looks like a great SUV.

[Bill Murray]

Acuratex:

Don't go messing with the Blackwood thread :D

I posted a long time ago that there were two which is now up to about eight owners on f150online.com but since there is not much else over there for Lincoln owners, let me recap a few things so DaKat doesn't sink the thread.

Sales: More or less 3200 have been sold so far leaving some 6-800 unaccounted for.

Discounts reached $20K in some sales regions including mine (Atlanta) but the last $5K off seems to have disappeared within the last week, so it is $15K off.

Performance: In general, all owners are happy with base performance. The 3.73 axle ratio gives acceptable off the line punch and the 32 valve motor really gets on the cams at about 2,500 rpm and above. Nowhere near the rush of my '99 Lightning, but it gets a second life from 2,500 on up. Fuel consumption is almost spot on with the window sticker numbers. 11-12 in town and 16-17 on the road. Both can be improved upon a bit but not much. The speedometer only goes to 100 mph, but I have seen that and just watched the tach continue to climb and would not be surprised if it were good for maybe 110-115.

Comfort levels: A truck is a truck is a truck, but if you ever wanted a luxury truck, look no further. My personal acid test is that my Pat will now not consider taking a long trip in either our 02 Continental (hers) or our 92 Town Car (mine).
Of the current 8K miles, about 4500 have been on long 1-2K mile trips. You can drive for 2-3 hours, get out of the truck and actually walk around which is not the case with the other two.
All the electronic gizmos work marvelously well with one exception (see quality issues) and I especially like the GPS Navigation system and use it quite a lot, even locally.
Best test for that one was driving from home to Lincoln Nebraska. Punched in the street address of the hotel in our driveway, followed the voice instructions to the letter and as we drove under the hotel portico 1100 miles later, the voice module said "you have arrived at your destination" and it was not off one foot. The only nigglie for me is that the power seats have a manual recline as opposed to a power recline. Kind of cheap but we live with it.

Practicality: Well, like style, that is in the eye of the beholder. I haul fertilizer, grass seed, goods for my business and so on in the bed/trunk just like in my Lightning. I have so far not tried to drive it with the lid up or the barn doors open and that is a restriction, but it does pretty well for me.
4x8 sheets of plywood are out of the question of course, but I don't do a lot of that anymore. Only holds 4 passengers, but they ride in style. I can listen to a CD on the 6 disc player that is in the console and my granddaughter can listen to the Disney program on the radio in the back at the same time.

Problems: Only speaking for myself, but the passenger side heated/air-conditioned seat has not worked since delivery. It is a three day stay at an upholstery shop to fix and I will wait till spring for that. Mine has the not unknown Navigator motor mount jiggle and I am going to have the upgraded mounts installed in the next few weeks.
There is a rattle in the exhaust system when you close the front door on the drivers side and there is also a rattle in the rear seat area when you close the drivers side passenger door.
The mirrors are very sensitive. especially on the passenger side. The driver side mirror can survive 3-4 door closings before needing to be readjusted, the passenger side rarely makes one closing.
As these vehicles are controlled by a PC similar to your home PC, once in a while you have to reboot the whole thing. The Cooling/Heating system sometimes gets lost and starts to blow cold air where you don't want it. I have had similar problems with the timing for the lights to come on/go off and even the garage door opener. Rebooting the whole shooting match usually solves all problems. Personally, I don't like this, but I have to do it in my business all the time.

Modifications: Of the 8-10 owners I am in contact with on 2-3 boards, most have gone with cosmetic/functional stuff. Running boards, window/sunroof deflectors are pretty common.
I am aware of one Blackwood that is running a current HD exhaust system and two of us are or are just about to try performance chips. I am also looking at a better intake system (Air Raid I think) and I would suspect more than a few will do at least a cat back exhaust.

Other/Owies:

This is my own thing, but I took an excursion into one of the famous Georgia drainage ditches about two weeks ago. Dropped the truck into a right turn ditch and went down about 2-3 feet. Truck landed on the spare tire carrier (Thanks to Goodness)and wiped out the trailer hitch wiring harness, scraped the heck out of the spare tire and carrier and wonder of wonders, pushed the entire bed up from right to left and left a really neat crease in the back of the cabin. No broken paint, no damage to the bed itself, just a hell of a 4" crease on the cabin. Seems like the bed just settled back to it's normal position after the smack. Took it to the dealer and spent $100 on diagnostic time and the verdict was that other than the crease, no harm no foul.

Time to go for now.

DaKat: Let this thread live, please. :D
Bill

[Aviator]

Hi everyone. Glad I found this site. Bought two of the first Aviators to hit Georgia. My son has one in Vinnings and ours is in Roswell. Love the vehicle but fear we bought a little fast. They now have $3k incentives on them - dang!

The best deal was that we both traded in 2002 Thunderbirds on them and came out very well. Two days after I traded my red Bird in they opened up A-Plan prices on the 2002's and the used prices dropped like a rock.

Be interesting to see how well the Avaitors hold up in the used market. Dealers seem to be able to get all they want now.

Did anyone get the full second row bench instead of the buckets and console? That would make it a little more convenient with 6 or 7 passengers.

I thought it would be good if the second row console had a quick release so it could be pulled out for easier access to the rear seat. Hate the kids crawling over it to get in the back.

Anyone here in the local Atlanta area Lincoln owners club? Guess I'll have to check it out.

Duane :D :D :D