Lincoln LS Power Windows

ohm777

(2002 LS, owned for 11 months). Before buying my vehicle, I read messages on rear power window problems but decided to buy anyway since some messages spoke of future fixes/recall. My story: used the left rear window and then it wouldn't go up or down. Since I was on the road (8 hrs from home) I took the door apart to take a look and see if I could get the window to close. VERY POOR DESIGN! Cable had come off the pulley assembly and wrapped itself around the motor/regulator and could not be unwound. Fortunately, it wasn't raining, although the temp was 45 degs, and at 70mph, it was a very noisy and uncomfortable ride. I was pissed! A car of this caliber shouldn't be of such poor design! Luckily, I found a dealership 2 hours later and they fixed the window in a little over an hour. How “fortunate” that they had the part on hand... Hmm?

What is being done to service and replace this KNOWN DEFECT? Probably not much and the company is just buying time until warranties expire. LS owners beware!!!!! If you’re not using your windows you’re bound to be surprised at some point down the road (I’ve only used mine a dozen times). I will contact the BBB to file a complaint.

saveri

The LS rear window problem is well documented. Ford came out with a final fix earlier this year. All 2002 vehicles built after the end of Jan. 2002 will have incorporated the final level design. The fix should be readily available as a service part at your dealer. Hope this helps.

navigator3740

the BBB? Wow, I'll bet Billy Clay is quivering now! Sorry, that was cold. This subcontracted design is the very same mechanism used in BMW and Mercedes, and it's not cheap or defective. It has an inherent weakness that has been recognized by Ford, which is why they have the parts on hand, as they should. I think you're overreacting a bit to what I see as exceptional service and attention by your dealer, and effective remedies applied by the manufacturer.

So, all I can add is this story. A cop friend of mine has a Cadillac Deville. I don't know who the subcontractor is who makes their power window mechanisms, but his rear windows have both failed 7 times now. SEVEN TIMES! He finally had to take them apart himself and screw them into the up position making them inoperative, because the car is now out of warranty, and GM won't fix them anymore.

I'll tell him to file a complaint with the BBB. Obviously, ohm, you have a low tolerance for machinery. One failure, one fix? In an hour? What more do you want? You weren't walking! Cars are machines. They break. Actually, it's a miracle they run at all! It's mildly annoying when they do, but if the dealer can take care of me in an hour or so with no hassle, I'm a happy customer! If you can hate your car over this one issue, I don't know how to help ya.

0patience

The repair should have been warrantied, there is a TSB on the problem and it may have not been a poor design, but it was not applied appropriately.

Article No. 02-7-3
04/15/02
ELECTRICAL - POWER WINDOW - REAR POWER
WINDOW INOPERATIVE - VEHICLES BUILT THROUGH 1/22/2002

LINCOLN: 2000-2002 LS
This article is being republished in its entirety to update the vehicle applications and the parts involved.

ISSUE
The rear door power window regulator may become inoperative, leaving the customer unable to raise or lower the rear window glass. This may be caused by the rear window regulator malfunctioning.

ACTION
If inspection and diagnostics lead to an inoperative rear window regulator, install the revised design window regulators in BOTH rear doors per the procedure in the appropriate model year Lincoln LS Workshop Manual, Section 501-11 (Window Regulator - Rear Door Removal and Installation).
Part number Part name
2W4Z-5427008-AA Window Regulator - RH
2W4Z-5427009-AA window Regulator - LH

navigator3740

impressed. Still sounds like Lincoln is stepping up nicely to me......

scottc8

and it was a design problem. Lest anyone think Lincoln tried to go cheap on this window regulator, it was purchased from the same company that supplies BMW. A year ago, an owners' club visited the Lincoln assembly plant where we grilled them relentlessly on the window problem. Nobody was more surprised than Lincoln engineers when these things started failing in the field. Some people can stretch logic to the point of calling this a safety issue, but it isn't, hence no recall. The real problem is unscrupulous dealers who refuse to acknowledge the TSB and insist on replacing only the regulator that has failed, instead of both.

This window problem has been magnified greatly by the fact that the LS has been remarkably trouble-free overall since it's introduction. My '00 has 60k miles and has not had a single problem other than one window failure. My experience has been typical, and I speak as a member of an owners' club with over 1000 members and a two-yr. veteran of the Edmunds Lincoln LS discussion board.

saveri

Has anyone with the new regulators had problems with operational noise? My friend's LS had a slight grinding problem with one of the final design level regulators.

scottc8

In the group I communicate with on another website there are many '02 owners with cars new enough to have the final version. We haven't heard of any such complaint.

akirby

Let me point out that this problem only showed up on vehicles that DO NOT regularly use the rear windows and is made worse by high heat. What I believe happens is that when the window is in the UP position that puts the most strain on the regulator (this part connects the cable to the window itself) which initially was a plastic part. Leaving it in this strained position and adding heat day after day eventually causes the plastic to deform and eventually fail.

Pretend you're a tester and your job is to test these windows. What would you do? You'd exercise them to death to make sure they hold up for years in the field. And they did - just fine. No problems found. Would you have thought to NOT use them and let them sit in the heat for several months? Many took months or even a year or two before they failed initially. This was simply not something any normal test procedure would have found. They tried a redesigned plastic part which did not fix the problem so they took the final step and went with metal. That's just not something you can do in a month or two.

Annoying? Yes. Poor dealer service in some cases? Absolutely. But put yourselves in Lincoln's place and say (with a straight face) that you could have done better. I don't think so. You just have to chalk this one up to Murphy's law.

navigator3740

Amen.

swschrad

another strike against plastic, too

nomoregms

It's time for a "new" used car. The LS appeals to me for several reasons, the main one being that it is a luxury vehicle of the right size. I have been driving a 1992 Park Ave. since 1992. We typically drive our cars for 10 years or longer. The LS is so new to the market that I want to get as much info from actual owners who have had good and or/bad experiences with this model. We are looking at the 2000 or 2001. We were Continental owners before and really liked them. Interior comfort is important, but greatr dependability and a smooth, solid ride are also big issues. Those things all seem to get good to excellent ratings from Edmunds. I'd appreciate any info anyone wishes to share. Thanks.

fun_with_ls

You can say what you will about design, but I have owned cars for almost 40 years and have NEVER, EVER, had a window failure until my Lincoln LS. BOTH rear windows failed nearly simultaneously after sitting at a covered airport parking lot for a week. Maybe the engineers should get out of Michigan once in awhile.

speedshift

Here's a link to Edmund's LS thread.

ls1bmw0 "Lincoln LS" Oct 20, 2001 5:52pm

Apparently that's the last post I read.

If ride is important, and your roads aren't as smooth as glass, buy an LS without the handling package. Quick way to tell is the 17" wheels. You want the base package with the 16 inchers. Base cars also have minimal chrome trim on the front and rear bumpers.

The V6 has only adequate power but gets good mpg. The V8 is much smoother but fairly thirsty. If mpg isn't a concern then the V8 is the way to go.

leadfoot4

Please define what you mean by THIRSTY... my wife is the primary driver of our 2000 LS, equipped with a V-8.
Most of her driving is 60%/40% city/highway, and the car's computer reads 18.8 to 19.1 average MPG. I reset the computer to clear it's memory before we go on vacation, which is mostly highway driving, and we average 26-26.5 MPG. Seems pretty good to me.....

speedshift

My foot must heavier than your wife's. The best I get on the open road is 20 mpg with the V6.

The V8 is rated 17/24 EPA. Based on my experience with EPA numbers 17 is about what I could expect (I drive mostly around town). That's what I was getting with my previous car and it was killing me, especially paying for premium, but maybe that's just me.

Nomoregms should go to MSN's Carpoint and read Danial Heraud's review. He seems to be the most impartial of the reviewers I've read.

lngtonge18

I must say that you have either been extremely lucky in your 40 years or just don't keep cars long enough. I have encountered many power window and even manual window failures. Most recent example: my 92 Miata encountered a similar failure as the LS. A plastic clip holding the cable in place broke, allowing the cable to literally wrap itself around the window frame and jam it. The only difference from the LS problem is I could still raise the window, just not lower it more than halfway. A simple tie wrap fixed the problem though. My mom's old 86 Accord's driver-side window motor mysteriously quit working. Turns out a hairline crack on the circuit board from closing the door too hard was causing the problem. My 84 RX7's manual window regulator had to be replaced because the window jammed and the gears stripped. Both power rear windows quit working completely and the front passenger window needed help going up on my dad's old 78 Grand Marquis. I could go on and on. Again, count yourself as extremely lucky for never running into window problems. They aren't as rare and unusual as you think.

scottc8

I have 61k miles on a '00 LS V8 Sport model purchased new just over two years ago. It has been virtually flawless, the only problems being one burned out light bulb and one failed window regulator. The rear window regulator problems are due to a flaw in the design of the part, which has been corrected. A dealer who follows the directive from Lincoln will replace both rear regulators if one fails, assuming the car is under warranty (3 yrs, 50k miles). What they'll do after warranty is still uncertain, but our owner's club has been led to believe they will make liberal allowances for this failure.

Speedshift's advice is sound; if smooth ride is of prime importance you will be happier with a car without the Sport package. The LS has been criticized for road noise; it's the price we pay for the high performance suspension. But, if you find a good deal on a Sport model, you can smooth, and especially quiet, the ride by putting the right tires on it.

Our experience is that there is little difference in fuel economy between the V8 and the V6. My V8 gets 23-24 mpg in mostly highway commuting, 26 on the open interstate. "Adequate" is the word for the V6 power, although aftermarket exhaust and upgrading the air intake with the '02 part makes a significant difference. The V8 is just a blast; not really a drag racer, but a monster from 60 mph or so.

Whoops, there I go. Sorry, forgot this is about power windows. I'd recommend this car to anybody. This ends this commercial message.

gerry100

In response to a previous post regarding plastic in the window regulator -

Dozens of different polymers and polymer compounds (plastics) are used in every vehicle used today Each "plastic " used is picked for its specific properties/combined with a specific part design and tested in the specific environment it will see. All of the automakers test in the southwest for extreme heat conditions, and all have initial rules of thumb for max temps in different parts of the car ( the interior is 235F for example). If a part is made of a material not up to these temperatures, distortion or failure can occur. Excessive design stress aggravates the situation.

These failure were probably caused by a poor part design or material selection that was not sufficiently tested - not by "plastic"

These days FoMoCo are all feeding voracious purchasing organizations that are measured by what dollars they can squezze from their component suppliers and in their zeal engineering and quality are often compromised .

IMHO this is one reason why Ford has gone from having more cash than they knew what to do with to struggling.

BTW, my rear power window falied 1/2 way up on July 4th weekend after 1 hr parked in 95deg heat.
LM was very responsive, especially after I told them that ther $40K BMW beater would be driving around with silver duct tape holding the window shut.(my 2000LS was out of warranty but they fixed for free)

swschrad

if these parts were kevlar-reinforced teflon, maybe no failures. that costs more than stamped steel, though. automakers are really enamored of making everything they can from ABS, which is really a mixture of plastic stocks (acrylonitrile, butadiene, and styrene)... and whether it's hard ABS or soft ABS depends on the mixture of the feed stocks into this engineered product.

we can all guess the rest... which has a shorthand version as well, "lowest bidder."

regardless, if the window on the sunny side is jammed in a warped slide and the shaded side isn't wrecked, it's an engineered failure that needs correcting.

gerry100

ABS could be made to work in the door environment if the part is designed and assembled correctly.

I'm not sure what it looks like in there but the offending part could be made of nylon,polycarbonate,acetal,PBT,PET or various alloys and reinforced compunds of the above depending on many things we don't know.

akirby

This was not a cheap part. It's the same exact part used by Mercedes. You can't honestly say they should have had a test where the windows sit rolled up and inactive in desert heat for several months. The only thing you can criticize is the interim step of trying a redesigned plastic part instead of going to the metal part right away.

saveri

The usage of plastic parts under a continuous load/stress situation is in general not good design practice. Can a plastic part be designed to bear the loads within the regulator system, probably yes. Though there is no good reason to as a metal reinforced part is not significantly costlier.
The LS probably went to an interim plastic part as a means of containment action until a permanent solution could be found. Remember that the fix has to tested and new tooling set up. This is a common approach used in the automotive industry.

swschrad

tested, approved, and sold to the design board. remember the ultimate solution in Ford Germany was to use nylon to contain the camshafts in the V6 engine? well, somebody didn't run the test engines very long. nylon doesn't like high temps and it really doesn't like them with oil. and it took the third tooling and a sorta-recall to get steel out there for the users.

it's cheap to mold plastic, and there are less steps in production. metal costs more.

saveri

I work in the automotive industry and have had experiences with designs that have not held up in the field. One of the first rules of thumb is to try and contain field failures until all failure modes have been understood and a design fix achieved. Several interim fixes may be utilized if the initial containment action does not perform as expected. Depending on the severity/complexity of the problem the time to find a final robust fix varies. An engineering team is always required to assess whether the interim fix is good enough or if more work needs to be done. This in my experiences explains why the LS went through several design iterations before getting "it right".

At one point I could have quoted the cost difference between a plastic slider and a metal reinforced one. The cost difference is not significant. I am sure Ford would not have initially gone this route had they realized the potential for this magnitude of failure.

ver2us

How do you know the exact date your car was built? I have a 2002. Dated January, 2002 on the manufacturer's tag you can see when you open the driver's door. In an earlier post, it was stated that vehicles built through 1/22/2002 have the malfunctioning regulators. Hope mine was built on the 23rd!

swschrad

if the build date is not on the sticker. can't remember if I saw it on my 00 explorer, but it was plain as day on my 90 ranger.

scottc8

The dealer has the exact date, or can get it. Mine is always on the invoice when the car is serviced. ver2us, guessed I missed the post you're referring to. Our owner's club was at the assembly plant in Oct.,2001 and they were telling us the new parts were going on to the line in November, and would be in dealers' parts depts. by January '02.

ver2us

Thank you both for the information. The post I was referring to is #4 posted on Oct. 16th. I will contact my dealer today and try to get the exact date.

twomor1

On a few occasions I have come back to my 2000LS to find all four windows down about 1". Has anyone experienced this? Thanks.

scottc8

This will sound dumb, but so be it. I once went out to the garage to find the car unlocked, with all the windows and the moonroof open. I never park it that way. Sometime, somehow, the unlock button on the key fob in my pocket must have been pushed and held down, effectively being pressed three times and held, which activates the "global open" feature. Maybe you did something similar? Or it's the guys in the Black Helicopters.

I did mention it would be dumb.:)

swschrad

I will have my field operatives come in on the ground next time.

seriously... I have two keyrings and two control fobs in my pocket, and occasionally one's keys will push another's buttons.

unseriously, that usually happens when I put on my camoflauge suit and am winched up into the chopper.

scottc8

bolivar

Going south on Interstate 55 in Mississippi, my radar detector started screaming. And kept it up, much longer than it usually takes to find the police car. And, it was at max signal. Finally, one of those 'black helicopters' came flying over, apparently following the highway, and then the detector shut down.....

Mr_Shiftright

Probably waiting for a beep on his missile launcher.

swschrad

some jurisdictions use spotter helicopters and aircraft to catch speeding evildoers, and turn them over to the wheeled mounties. if you ever wondered what the white crosses on a road were for, they're reference marks for the air patrol.