Vehicle
Lincoln Town Car
The last of Ford's Panther platform cars, shared with the Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis — body-on-frame, rear-drive, 4.6 modular V8 — and those two are where most of its information lives. An enormous number survive in livery service, so the faults that bring one in are wear faults rather than design ones: the rear air suspension bags leak and drive the compressor to burn out, which sets ride-height and compressor-runtime codes and is the single most common complaint on the model; the blend-door actuator in the climate unit strips; and the intake manifold on 1996-2001 cars has a plastic coolant crossover that cracks. The 4.6 itself is one of the more durable engines Ford built.
Generations
-
First generation 1981–1989
One engine for nine years and one gearbox behind it — the 302 Windsor, badged a 5.0, and the AOD. Carburetted in Canada until 1985 and central fuel injection elsewhere, so the early cars set nothing at all; sequential injection arrives for 1986 and is the first of these worth putting a scan tool on.
- Body styles
- Sedan
- Platform
- Ford Panther
- Engines
-
- 5.0 V8 — WINDSOR · petrol · 97–119 kW (130–160 hp) · 312–380 Nm (230–280 lb-ft) · Windsor 302
- Transmissions
- 4-speed AOD automatic
- Drivetrain
- Rear-wheel drive
-
Second generation 1990–1997
A new body over the same frame, and the 1990 car is still the old 302 — the modular programme ran late. The 4.6 SOHC V8 replaces it in October 1990. Rear air suspension became standard equipment here rather than an option, which is where the leaking bag that eventually burns out the compressor starts being the Panther's defining fault.
- Body styles
- Sedan
- Platform
- Ford Panther
- Engines
-
- 5.0 V8 — WINDSOR · petrol · 112 kW (150 hp) · 366 Nm (270 lb-ft) · Windsor 302, 1990 only
- 4.6 V8 — petrol · 142–157 kW (190–210 hp) · modular SOHC, from 1991
- Transmissions
- 4-speed AOD automatic · 4-speed AOD-E automatic · 4-speed 4R70W automatic
- Drivetrain
- Rear-wheel drive
-
Third generation 1998–2011
Panther platform with the 4.6 modular V8; leaking rear air bags burning out the compressor is the defining fault.
- Body styles
- Sedan
- Platform
- Ford Panther
- Engines
-
- 4.6 V8 — petrol · 153–178 kW (205–239 hp) · modular two-valve
- Transmissions
- 4-speed 4R70W/E automatic · 4-speed 4R75E automatic
- Drivetrain
- Rear-wheel drive
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
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