92 Lincoln Town Car

Did a road test this week in a 92 Lincoln Town Car.  The front seat was a split bench decorated nicely in 21 year old beige vinyl.  On my passenger door there were about a dozen buttons and knobs and above those mid door was a two foot long beige vinyl hand strap - which I needed to grab each time the vehicle rounded a corner. 

I don't know if it was the combination of the suspension system, extreme weight and vinyl seats but I could have used yak tracks on my butt to keep from getting to know client Shawn more intimately.  It was just like those wedding reception group dances - "Turn to the right, slide, slide.  Turn to the left, slide slide."   

The Town Car is long.  Hit somebody head on and you've got a chance.  I was going to ask Shawn after the ride if I could borrow this vehicle the next time Jackie and I needed to move, seeing that all of our bedroom furniture would fit quite nicely into that Lincoln's trunk.  We would just need to remember to take all corners nice and slow.

The year 1992 wasn't the best vintage for Lincoln's.  Jackie fell in love with a red Continental and one day we saw a used one on the local Lincoln-Mercury lot.  It had only 17,000 miles on it, was half the price of a new one, and my gosh came from Florida so rust was not an issue.  It was a beautiful automobile.  After we got it we drove to Kalamazoo for a nephew's baptism, in a pouring rain, and showed off our now spotty brown and red vehicle to family afterwards.  Pride indeed comes before a fall.

The engine blew at 117,000 on the way to Detroit but we were so releaved to learn that this happens quite often with that model.  At about 125,000 miles the electronic dash started going funny.  There were 16 warning beeps programed into the system and if the car hit a bump (or thought it might hit a bump) we would get the 16 bing chorus.  Every once in a while the digital speed would go funny.  Since we know we're not doing 10 mph on the freeway we would pull off, shut down the engine, start it up, and everything would be fine - after the 16 bing chorus of course.

This car was not designed for the average guy to work on.  The starter went out at my brother-in-laws house and he and another brother-in-law ran down to Pep Boys to get a rebuilt.  While I was looking for that left handed wrench they were scratching their heads as to how to remove half the engine so they could get to it.  Two hours later a simple job was done (well, I never did find that wrench).

Every time I would bring the Lincoln in my car guy would say; "This style does not have a very good track record.  I would get rid of it if I were you."  But I kept thinking; "What else could go wrong?"  And then I would find out.  Anyway, after a lot of what else the air shocks go out.  They are extremely expensive to replace.  I wonder it there might not be regular shocks that can be used instead and the car guy says that he will research it.  Turns out that there are a lot cheaper regular shocks available on line that will work but the amount of labor needed cancels out any benefit.

So someone gives me their old 92 Lincoln Town Car.  It has a lot of miles on it and hardly runs but it does have the same air shocks.  This comes with a teen age boy that my son-in-law, the youth pastor, knows.  All the young men at his rural church work on cars and this one has volunteered (for a small price) to switch the shocks to my car.  This is until he actually looks at how much labor is involved just to get the shocks out of the Town Car.  The question become moot about a day later when the power steering goes out.  I barely manage to drive the Lincoln 5 miles to the junk yard where it dies halfway into the parking lot. 

"How much will you give me for this beauty" I ask the manager.  "100 bucks" he answers.  "Come on" I say.  "The tires are worth more than that."  It was take it or leave it and since all I could really do at that point was leave it we had a deal.  Clean the red 92 Continental was still a beautiful car.  But I did not look back.