LS vs Thunderbird Reliability Index

[bigbmc26]

First time posting, I've always loved the LS and finally bought a '03 Premium Sport last Summer with 44K original miles. I love it and hope to keep it running for another 20 years. I do wonder, why is the Thunderbird not plagued with the same reliability issues as the LS being essentially the same car? No where on the internet can I find mechanics complaining about the t-bird like they do the LS, haha.

There's even data to back the claim up!
Lincoln LS Reliability - Dashboard Light
Ford Thunderbird Reliability - Dashboard Light

Thoughts?

 

[joegr]

It's the same with the same problems. I think that many more LSes were sold than Thunderbirds. Many who bought Thunderbirds thought they were buying collectors cars, so they didn't drive them much.

 

[oddball]

And the worst of the reliability problems were the early tensioner design which was 2000, 2001 and maybe a bit into 2002 - so none of the Thunderbirds had that design. There were spats of transmission issues, but like Joe said, the low sales and that they were much more likely to be babied certainly helped.

 

[clubairth]

Yes I also am into classic T-Birds and as posted above they did not sell when new and then the old men that bought them thought they were buying a collector car (Which is is not...yet?). So not much use and they still try to sell them for WAY too much money so they don't really sell in the used car market either.
Kind of an orphan car really.

I would ignore places like dashboard light they simply don't know anything. No hands on experience. Get on the actual car forums. Like this one for the LS. These are old cars and ALL of the problems have long since been found out and solved.

PS; You had the pleasure of getting a reply from our resident expert joegr!
Do listen to what he has to say.
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