Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

The new towncar and the New LS will have front wheel drive.

http://www.cars.com/news/stories/071304_storya_an.jhtml?page=newsstory&aff=national

enjoy the read.

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

Stupid freaking executives. Frickin' morons.

The FWD/AWD bit could go well for small cars, if they get ride and handling right, not to mention styling and interior appointments. But killing RWD is a stupid, stupid move.

They should do what they're talking about, but with two or three additions.

They need a performance car, based on the new mustang platform. It can be 2 door (mark 9?) or four door, but it has to be somewhat sporty, and it has to have a high-feature engine (DOHC 4.6 or 5.0 mod motor, and they should come out with some kind of VVT for it). This car needs to be a flagship, and should compete with the Evoq (XLR? whatever it's called in production).

They also need a big RWD based sedan. Continuing to use the Panther platform is not a very good idea for this. They should be developing a large RWD unibody platform which will accomodate AWD. They can use this to build the next town car, and possibly another large sedan, smaller than the town car, to compete with the Seville. This platform should also be used for the next generation crown vic, and marauder (which should at minimum have a supercharged motor, preferably the 5.4 in the navigator, or the new 5.8(?) that they were talking about coming out with... but the damn thing better run at least high 13's).

How come i can see this, as a lowly engineer, and they can't even understand it when their competitor shows them the frickin' way?

10 years ago lincoln was where cadillac is now, and cadillac was where lincoln is now.

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

Bye bye Ford.... I hope it goes down the drain anyways.

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

Hey, it's a stupid freakin' move, but... Acura has done the FWD thing with limited succcess, so it's not all down the drain, I hope they atleast offer AWD as an option on all the front drivers.

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

Do the guys at Ford ever poke their head out of their office? Does it really take a rocket scientist to realize that GM failed horribly when they went to fwd. Lincoln is really getting cheep with their cars and trucks. I am very unimpressed with my navigator as far as fit and finish go. I paid for a name and that is all I got. The mark VIII was the last truly great car that Lincoln made. It had more options too. Kinda sad. At the rate they are going this will probably be my last lincoln.

If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

Well the only smart move out of this whole mess would be that, truly said FWD cars are better overall in snow and ease of drive, so in taxi and limo use I can truly see the advantages as well as in the regular TC buyer since they never race their cars etc. For them yes it will be better to have FWD. Maybe a good option to differentiate from all other brands that now are RWD. Now if Lincoln offered another Performance version of perhaps a Mustang (RWD of course) under the lincoln nameplate with added HP as well as goodies to attract perfomance byers. And maybe a performance AWD version of the LS it would make sense. So to sum it up TC in FWD not too bad LS in FWD mismarketed??!!

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

I wish some of the people who make these decisions at GM and Ford over the past few years would go work for some of the rival import companies. We then would not need to worry about a trade deficit.

Let's revisit some of the highlights:

Put an aluminum engine with no sleeves in the Vega and Monza, so that the engine wears out prematurely.

Make the Citation ungainly without any style. A GM spokesman at the time told the NY Times that people would get used to it. They didn't.

Cadillac V8-6-4 folllowed by the equally horrible HT 4100 V-8.

GM diesel V8 engines based on gasoline engine blocks.

GM downsizing every car line, continuing the trend long after other car companies actually started to make their cars bigger.

Make the best selling rear wheel drive Oldsmobile Cutlass into a front wheel drive car, effectively putting Oldmobile into a downward slide into oblivion.

Cadillac Cimarron - the economy J-car at a premium price. Lincoln Versailles - everyone though you were driving a Monarch or Granada.

Use Ford company money to buy junkyards and then scrap the cars on the assumption that this will force people to buy new parts instead of used parts.

The V-6 front wheel drive Continental - a luxury car with mediocre performance and more problems than components.

Give the the new two-seat Thunderbird a destroked Jaguar engine and call it "relaxed performance" while other companies put the highest performace engine in their flagship luxury car.

Turning Lincoln into a car division with only two car models to offer.

Turning Lincoln into a truck division, as if the price of gas would never go up again.

Alexander

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

[div class="dcquote"][strong]Quote[/strong]
Well the only smart move out of this whole mess would be that, truly said FWD cars are better overall in snow and ease of drive, so in taxi and limo use I can truly see the advantages ...[/div]

I think the limo and taxi people want the durablity of RWD, they put a ton of hard miles on the cars.

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

well, gm is starting to get it right. Sad to say, but my next car will probably be a gto or a cts v. that is, unless chrysler offers the 300c in a stick.

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

There's no way the Town Car goes FWD...

The LS, eh whatever... but the Town Car, no freakin' way...

-J:7

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

Running a fleet of 14 Lincoln towncars/Limousines, I have come to realize that Lincoln hasnt built a decent Towncar since 2001. The newest joke is the 2003 POS series.

So far, out of the 7 2003 Towncar sedans we have, 6 of them needed new differentials within the first 50k miles. They also all seem to have an electrical bug that haunts them. 5 torque converters, 2 transmissions, and 4 failed ABS systems. Not to mention the fact that the FACTORY alignment specs will cause excessive inner front tire wear(to the tune of 12k miles on tires). hell, if the RWD car wears front tires like a FWD car(too much toe-out while rolling due to poor tie-rod design) they might as well build them that way.

oh, and one of them even spit out a driver's side SIDE impact air bag, while the driver was parked. Engine off, key out of ignition, and sound asleep, and KA-POW! The guy(65 yrs old) almost had a heart attack.

Therefor I can only see Lincoln doing one thing to improve the new Towncar-toss it in the trash.

The driveline is not reliable, especially for fleet use. as much as I hate WRONG-WHEEL DRIVE(FWD), I think Lincoln needed to do something with the existing RWD platform since it is a POS.

In life, two wrongs dont make a right, but in algebra, two negatives DO make a positive!

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

What did Lincoln change on the Town Car from 2001 to 2002. To me they look like the same car. Did they actually change the differential, transmission, the torque convertor and the front suspension?

http://members.tccoa.com/lastmrk/Images/lastmrk2.jpg

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

Front suspention, and lots of other parts were changed in 03.

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

Craig, you have had a drastically different Lincoln experience from the company that I drive for. All but two of their fleet have been changed out for the newer body style Town Cars, and I don’t think they’ve had any major problems. In fact two of them are around 150K already. These sedans go on average 90-110K a year. I know they had a tranny problem with one car that turned out to be a loose wiring harness, and the only other problem that I can think of is that the newest member to the fleet had a rear window try to escape it’s track right around 23K miles. The reason I remember is because I was driving it when the window popped out. I can’t imagine your guys drive those cars any harder then I do. I’m not even sure I want to mention some of the livery atrocities that have occurred, but somewhere there was a post about racing limos...

I know for a fact that we don’t go through tires nearly that fast, the biggest killer of tires for us is part time retirees driving over sharp curbs.

And even with the problems you’ve been having, try putting any kinda serious mileage on a stretch Deville and then come talk to me... lol

Hope your luck gets better! -J :7

RE: Bye bye Lincoln and RWD

yea, i know there isnt much as far as options go in the Livery world.

we put 120-170/yr on our cars. Our drivers arent any worse with the 03's than the previous cars. In fact, we have 2x '00 T-cars, 310k+ miles, and still run fine. tires last about 60k, tranny's are still originals, and only one of them got a new diff. because the cover leaked, and the 90w went everywhere, running it dry.

i couldnt tell you why our '03's are junk, but according to Livery magazine...there isnt ONE satisfied customer in the fleet industry, with the '03. Until you!

We might just snag a '04 300C and see what kind of abuse it can take. Otherwise, looks like we might be shopping around for some "used" T-cars from the '02-previous style.

17" rims DO NOT belong on a Towncar!