Most reliable old man car: Grand Marquis or Buick Lucerne?

[Tahoe4Life]

Still. Ford 4.6 was a terrible passenger car engine.

But you go ahead and rock your Grand Marquis that does 0-60 in 10 seconds, averages 18 mpg, eats intake manifolds and timing sets, has the back seat of a Corolla, and blows hot or cold air however and whenever it feels like it.

Had a 1999 Grand Marquis [with the HPP package], 2005 Crown Vic and a 88 Town Car [5.0]. At one time my entire family had 4.6 Panthers. We all had long commutes to work from Queens NY. No major issues with any of them. We all got over 250K miles on all of them. No issues with A/C/Heat in any of them and we left the climate control system on all the time. We just set it and forget it. They ALL were super low maintenace. Just plain basic maintenance. Nothing more.

If Ford still made the 4.6 Panther I would have a Town Car.

 

[tbm3fan]

OP here. Still haven’t bought a car. There seem to be a lot more decent Buicks in my area than Panther cars, FWIW.

One thing I did realize is that a longitudinal engine in a RWD car would be a lot easier to work on for things like a water pump.

The water pump on a LeSabre 3800 is pretty easy to reach as you can see here. Had a story all written up for Curbside Classic about all the engine preventative work done on my 3800 Series II before it could become a problem. Could have read step by step there except powers that be decided not to let me post anymore articles.

 

[4WD]

I'm comparing engines of like displacement, literally the definition of apples to apples.

The 7.7 second 0-60 of the Navigator is considerably better than the 9.5 second 0-60 of the 5.3 equipped Escalade, despite you claiming the contrary.

Where did I say the 5.4L performed better than the 6.0L? Jesus Christ guy, reading comprehension again, I clearly compared it to the 5.3L because you claimed it was underpowered, while it was clearly more powerful than the 5.3L GM offering.

I never even heard of a 5.3L Escalade …
Maybe our dealership always ordered upwards