2001 Lincoln Continental, R.I.P.

BadinBlack

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I bought a 2001 Lincoln Continental from a really crappy, unscrupulous used car dealership called hnr auto sales in Fremont, CA earlier this year. Unfortunately I no longer own this car seeing as it is sitting dead on the side of the highway just south of Lake Tahoe. The first major problem that I had with this car occured a couple of weeks ago when the alternator failed which left me stranded on the side of I5 waiting for a tow truck. After spending $330 for a new one I thought the car would be alright but on Monday afternoon when I was driving to Lake Tahoe the transmission blew on me. I was 3/4 of the way to Tahoe when I noticed a slight burning smell coming from the engine. Then the car started losing power and by the time I pulled over there was tons of white smoke pouring out from the engine (The temperature gauge by the way never showed any overheating). I waited 30 minutes, added more coolant and tried to continue driving. I only made it maybe 20 feet before the damn car lost power again. I pulled over again and was unable to drive it anymore after that point. The engine works fine, you can accelerate to 100 mph or more but the car won't move an inch. The entire trunk and rear bumper are covered in oil spray (I figure that oil or transmission fluid was spraying out of the exhaust pipe). Since I cannot afford to pay for a tow truck much less a new transmission I'm going to let whatever towing company that the CHP calls to remove the car keep it. My Continental only had 85K miles on it so I figure that the previous owner(s) did not take care of it at all and did nothing in the way of routine maintenance. I will probably never buy another Continental and will for sure never buy another vehicle from a small, dirty, independent used car dealership. ** Anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area don't ever buy a vehicle from H & R auto sales, you will for sure regret it later on.

** I noticed the first week after I bought this car that there were transmission problems. I would get a really loud vibration coming from under the hood while idling, it didn't shift smoothly from Drive to Park or Reverse and when backing up out of a parking space the car would often accelerate by itself.
 
Sorry about your luck man. If you are getting rid of the car, call a junkyard nearby and tell them you want to scrap the car. They usually tow it for free and you will get around $400 in your pocket at least.

Back to the car. Did you see what color the fluid was or check your tranny and engine oil dipstick to see what caused they car to stop? The transmission on the Conti suck but mine still had 222K with original tranny and engine.
 
That's terrible luck -- I won't complain about potentially needing yet another fuel pump. At least that part is free (lifetime warranty) and under $200 to have swapped!

It sounds like perhaps a transmission cooler line failed. That wouldn't be a hugely expensive repair.
 
My 01 is running well with 181k on the clock, other than transmission issues (which haven't changed in the last 20k miles so I'm not worried) and now a slight noise when I turn left, not 100% sure what the issue is there. Engine is very strong in these cars, but the tranny is its downfall. Very sad to see yours die so early.
 
What trans did Ford install in the front drive cars? The one in my Mark is pretty stout.
 
Being FWD we get a barely warmed over version of the Taurus automatic. It's barely adequate behind a v6 and totally out of its league behind the 4v v8. A large cooler (factory from 1999 and up I think) and firm shifting via a tuner can keep it a happier camper.
 
Okay, while it may work, and while it may work even for a while, I have always said personally that the AXOD/AX4N had absolutely no worldly business being behind a 4.6 DOHC. If the 4R70W has issues sometimes handling the DOHC, what on earth would possess Ford to install a Taurus transaxle behind one? Maybe they got confident watching Cadillac's success with the L37 and LD8 Northstars being used in heavy, front wheel drive applications. The problem with that, is that the 4T80-E transaxle is an absolute beast of a gripper, while the AX4N, well... Not so much.
 
Not all Continentals get transmission problems, and many that do get them go through several during the 50k mile warranty, so hard to say exactly what failed, but buying a car off a used car lot needs more than a little inspection, ideally PRIOR to purchase.

Too bad on the giving it away to the tow company, lots of parts sell easily off the Cont.

As a long time old car owner we keep AAA plus, 100 mile towing, and its possible to make that a couple 100 mile segments, but I've found its not that hard to cut a cash deal with a tow company to move a car during some slow time at reduced rate.
 
Being FWD we get a barely warmed over version of the Taurus automatic. It's barely adequate behind a v6 and totally out of its league behind the 4v v8. A large cooler (factory from 1999 and up I think) and firm shifting via a tuner can keep it a happier camper.

U must use mercon 5 and not dexron 3
 
We also get the 100 miles towing......
But how do you make that into more than one 100 mile tow?
Thanks, Frank
 
Have it towed to location A, shop, dealer, whatever, have them do any minor thing that keeps them happy, pick a location B and have it towed there, repeat.

Never tried it myself, but two shop owners I talked to say they have customers cars that get AAA towed to and from their shop for service.

BTW I don't think leaving a car on the road absolves you of liability, especially if anybody hits it etc.
 

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