1996 Lincoln Continental Transmission Problems

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Ty - 07 Dec 2007 22:03 GMT

My friend has a 1996 Lincoln Continental with transmission problems.

This car will run and drive great for about 1 or 2 months, then all of a
sudden, he gets in to drive it, and it will NOT go forward. Reverse works
fine, but it doesn't have much pull going forward. On level ground will will
pull a little but it slips really bad. I will not pull enough to be able to
drive it. (besides, we're smart enough not to try to drive it if the trans
is slipping)

The wierd part is... If he lets it sit for a day or two, he can get in and
drive away like nothing was ever wrong. It seems to happen about every month
and a half.

I'm thinking that it may be a sticky valve in the transmission. We even
disconnected the battery for awhile thinking that it might have something to
do with the computer, but I don't believe it had any effect.

If anyone knows what is wrong with this car, please forward a response to my
email: ty.phonebooth@gmail.com

Thank you very much,

Ty

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Shawn - 08 Dec 2007 01:37 GMT

> My friend has a 1996 Lincoln Continental with transmission problems.
>
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>
> Ty

Time for a tranny overhaul.

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Jim Warman - 08 Dec 2007 04:06 GMT

Driving while the trans doesn't "appear" to be slipping isn't too smart
either...

Given the age of the car, the most efficient use of time and money would be
a complete overhaul rather than a spot repair.... continuing to drive it
EVEN THOSE TIMES OPERATION APPEARS NORMAL can only add to the overall bill.

A word of advice to all that will listen.... avoiding repairs until the
concern gets so bad we can't drive the car will only ever involve more parts
and higher costs. Once we are in to the repair process, it is important to
realize that the cheapest repair isn't necessarily going to be a financially
sound repair.

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Ted Mittelstaedt - 08 Dec 2007 07:54 GMT

> Driving while the trans doesn't "appear" to be slipping isn't too smart
> either...
>
> Given the age of the car, the most efficient use of time and money would be
> a complete overhaul rather than a spot repair.... continuing to drive it
> EVEN THOSE TIMES OPERATION APPEARS NORMAL can only add to the overall bill.

Nonsense. As you say, given the age and no doubt the mileage of the car,
the trans needs an overhaul. The overhaul is going to cost the same whether
the transmission is driven into scrap metal or not. The wrecking yards are
full of those transmissions so the core value of it is almost nothing, it's
not
worth trying to baby the core to keep it's value up for whatever reason.

> A word of advice to all that will listen.... avoiding repairs until the
> concern gets so bad we can't drive the car will only ever involve more parts
> and higher costs.

That is true for some things but NOT true for others.

You can drive your tires until they are bald, that isn't going to increase
the
cost of getting new tires (unless you get into an accident perhaps)

>Once we are in to the repair process, it is important to
> realize that the cheapest repair isn't necessarily going to be a financially
> sound repair.

True. But it depends on the issue. For an automatic transmission if you
get
100K miles out of it and it starts acting up, chances are very low that
if you get it in to the shop really fast that fixing the trans will be any
cheaper
than if you wait until the trans finally stops working.

In this case the owner is almost certainly better off trading the vehicle
into a new car dealer for a newer car and saying nothing about the bad
transmission. The new car dealer will immediately
wholesale it off to a used car dealer who has a repair shop that they can
use to fix the trans far cheaper than the owner could.

Ted

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Steven Stone - 08 Dec 2007 15:17 GMT

|My friend has a 1996 Lincoln Continental with transmission problems.

I had a 67 T-Bird with a C6 tranny that had similar symptoms.
It finally quit altogether, only way to go forward was to put it in
second gear instead of drive. Time for a full tranny rebuild ?

Steve

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Ty - 13 Dec 2007 15:25 GMT

I think you guys are missing my point... I understand that a tranny overhaul
might be the only solution, but...

It's the "WIERD PART" that is confusing me.

This tranny drives out great! It doesn't slip. It shifts out just fine. It
pulls hard. He's even taken the car on a couple 1000 mile trips. Then, after
about 2 months, when everything is going great, you get in one day and it
will not go forward. After a day or two of rest, you can get in and drive
away like nothing was ever wrong, and you won't have to worry about it for
about 1 1/2 to 2 months.

The last time it gave us trouble, we disconnected the battery overnight. The
next day everything was fine. Before, it seemed to have taken 2 or 3 days to
fix itself.

I'm looking for a logical explaination of why this tranny would act this
way.

Ty

> My friend has a 1996 Lincoln Continental with transmission problems.
>
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> Ty

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