2000 Town Car

[RC]

Well, the bug is biting, there's a ton of 2000 Sigs and Executives coming off lease every month, 45,000 miles, great condition and they're calling to me smile.gif

Are there any "issues" with that year car I should know about? :eek:

[Steven]

PS.. Check recalls / Complaints / Investigations / Service Bulletins
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/home.cfm

You need to run a seperate query for each catagory mentioned.

[Ron R.]

I just bought a '99 Cartier TC and my only complaints with my car is that the distance between the gas pedal and the brake pedal is too far. When going from the gas pedal to the brake I sometimes find that my foot misses the brake and goes to the floor. This took some getting used too. Also, after I bought the car I found out that it requires 91 octane. I'm not sure that all TC's of this generation require 91 but you can check by looking at the inside cover of the gas lid of the car your looking at.
Other than these two items I like the car very much especially its looks. I constantly get compliments, ivory outside with a black carriage roof and ivory leather.
Good luck with you search.

Ron

[RC]

Thank you gentlemen, the gov place is amazing!

[Steven]

Oops, Sorry I forgot one source
http://http://www.alldata.com/recalls/index.html

[Justin2003Cartier]

quote:Originally posted by Ron R.:
I just bought a '99 Cartier TC and my only complaints with my car is that the distance between the gas pedal and the brake pedal is too far. When going from the gas pedal to the brake I sometimes find that my foot misses the brake and goes to the floor. This took some getting used too. Also, after I bought the car I found out that it requires 91 octane. I'm not sure that all TC's of this generation require 91 but you can check by looking at the inside cover of the gas lid of the car your looking at.
Other than these two items I like the car very much especially its looks. I constantly get compliments, ivory outside with a black carriage roof and ivory leather.
Good luck with you search.

Ron


DO NOT use anything other than 87 octane in any Town Car. I have a 2000 Cartier with the same engine you have. Using higher octane causes carbon build up in these engines and as a result of running high octane fuel your car will not perform correctly and will knock when you use a lower octane fuel. If your car knocks when using 87 octane have a trusted mechanic to a carbon cleaning on the engine and you should be able to run 87 octane. The engine will perform better with 87 octane than it will with 91 because it was designed to use 87...Ford even states this fact in the owner's manual!

[Dave Hardee]

RC~

The "car buyin'bug" also bit me last Saturday, and I came home with a silver frost 2000 Cartier Town Car with 27,000 miles on it for LESS than Kelly Blue Book value!
I compared mine to a 2003 TC, and the 2003's seem to have a lot more in the way of gadgetry on them, ie. HDD headlamps, power trunk pull-down, more bells and whistles, but the value you get buying a well-maintained off-lease vehicle is incredible! I got mine for less than 50% of retail sticker..and it still rides and smells new! They do run on regular 87 octane gas...mine will get about 24 MPG if I'm not in too much of a hurry.. Try one, buy one, you'll like it! :D

[ekooke]

Ron R.,
May I suggest that you learn how to apply the brakes with your LEFT foot? With practice, it will take about 0.2 seconds off of your total stopping time. At 60 mph, that means you could stop about one full car length faster than by using your right foot in a panic situation. And, you will never miss hitting the brake pedal.
No "flames" on this, please. I've heard all the arguments (both ways) many times, and I've driven this way for 45+ years (even with a manual transmission) with NO missed brake pedals. smile.gif

[Speedycat3]

LOL Ekooke...
I do not doubt that you have gotten used to..
I was just remembering when I did have to do it due to having big pain in my right foot.....It was really hard to get the dumb left foot used to applying the clutch in my 93 Stang to apply the brakes gently...It not only did shorten the stopping distances.... It also was not very amusing for whoever was riding with me..( I specially remember a female friend that ended up playing unintentional wet t-shirt contest after she spilled her big gulp on her chest when I had to brake)
:rolleyes:

[ekooke]

Speedycat3,
HAHAHA. Yes, it IS a practiced thing, and I've also noticed when someone (other than my wife) rides with me in the front, he/she seems a little nervous in traffic, because they never see my right foot move off the gas pedal. smile.gif

[Ron R.]

Justin,
I hope you are correct regarding using 87 octane. However, under the gas cap lid of my 99 Cartier it says 91 octane. Unfortunately, my engine pings even with 93 octane. I'm very dissapointed in this. I have had the car back to the dealership 3 times. They replaced the MAF, plugs, reset the computer and claim they did a decarbonization of the cylinders. Still pinging under load when the engine reaches temperature. They are making calls to Ford for further information. I bought the car with 41k on it and now have about 44k. The warrany expires the end of June so I will just keep on them till they fix it.

Ron

[Speedycat3]

Ron..
I am not sure exactly where I read it, but there is also a chance that the pinging can be related to the incorrect heat range for the plugs. The person that posted it said that had used a colder plug and that the pinging was gone.
I will try to look for the source. Is there a chance that spark plugs could have been replace d by different than OEM ones?
Angel tongue.gif

[spedzinski]

I've been a left foot brake man for years myself. Drives my wife crazy. She's always grabbin my arm to remind me to brake. By that time, my foot is already on the pedal. I keep tellin her that my foot sits hovering over the pedal almost all the time in town and there is almost no reaction time to worry about. You can't win that one with the wife though.

[Ron R.]

Speedy,
The plugs were replaced by the dealership because I was complaining about pinging. It made no difference. However, any suggestions are greatly appreciated. I'm still waiting for the dealership to get back to me on what their next step will be.

Ron

[Charles A.]

If they tell you it's the gas and there's nothing they can do, don't accept it. Run it down low and fill up somewhere else and make them drive it again to prove it's not the gas. When they can't find anything else, that's always what they try to blame!

[Ron R.]

Charles,
That was the first thing they told me to try. They asked me to go thru 2 tankfulls of a name brand 93 octane gas and see if that made any difference(I used Mobil). Of course it didn't. That's when they began swapping out parts.

Ron

[Charles A.]

Whatever you do, don't run 93! It will actually *cause* carbon buildup. But your motor has a knock sensor so it really shouldn't have a pinging problem anyway. Ask them to reprogram your PCM with the latest code revision.

[Ron R.]

Yea, they did that too. The PCM was reprogrammed at the same time they did the decarbonization and replaced the plugs. Meanwhile I'll stay with 91 octane as recommended on the gas cap lid and just play the radio loud enough so that I'm not constantly reminded of this problem. Nice car otherwise.

Ron

[Justin2003Cartier]

The gas cap must have been changed on your car because all TCs run regular gas. I also just checked my 1999 TC brochure to be absolutely certain that it runs 87 octane. Running anything higher than 87 will make the knocking worse because, like Charles said, it will cause carbon build up. If I were you I'd raise hell until the problem is fixed. Maybe you should insist that they do another carbon cleaning as well? My 2000 runs perfect with 87 octane. I like to push it when taking off and I have never heard the car knock and its not acceptable for them to tell you that you need to spend more money to run premium fuel. Good Luck! -Justin

[Ron R.]

Justin,
P.164 of my "Owner's Guide Town Car 1999 Model Year" states under Octane Recommendations "If there is a "Premium Fuel Recommended/Required" label in the filler door label area, your vehicle is designed to use "Premium" gasoline with an(R+M)/2 octane rating of 91 or higher for optimum performance.......It also states "Do not be concerned if your engine sometimes knocks lightly". I wonder if I may have some limited edition version of this car. However, I just looked at my back auto issues of Consumer Reports and they list premium fuel for the 1998 through 2002 model years. I'm not sure what's going on here.

Ron

[bill-s]

First, I'd try colder range plugs - never mind what the dealer put in. Then, try a 180 deg thermostat. Come to think about it, it might be worth measuring your actual coolant temp - maybe your stock thermostat is running hot.

[Ron R.]

Bill,
Thanks for the suggestions. I also was wondering about the thermostat since the pinging is only there when the car is fully warmed up. However, the temp gage is only at about the half way point so I don't think I'm running too hot. I'll ask my mechanic about the colder range plugs if Lincoln does't resolve this. However, I do plan to be persistant over this. They sold me the car with a warranty and there is no reason why I should put up with this problem.

Ron

[RC]

Ron, what was the resolution of the pinging problem?

I'd forgotten this discussion but now that I have one, I'm very interested smile.gif The inside of my gas cap says premium use only. I don't have any pinging problems but I haven't driven it in Dallas on a 105 degree day yet either.

[Ron R.]

RC,
Just before the warranty expired Lincoln sent a field rep out to test drive the car and concluded that the car was behaving normally. He neither confirmed or denied my complaint and as far as Lincoln is concerned this is a now a non-issue. I'm very disappointed with them.
Out of curiousity I went to a different dealership that had a '99 TC like mine for sale and pretended I was interested. I took it for a test drive and after it warmed up it also pinged just like mine. I looked under the filler cap and it also required 91 Octane. At this point I figured that this was normal behavior for this car though it's hard to believe.

Ron