1987 Ford Crown Victoria LTD from North America - Comments

Upper ball joint failed.

Blower motor eesistor burnt out.

Other than that, only basic maintenance was required.

I love it. It's not quite as comfortable as a 1984 Chrysler Fifth Avenue I had so far as ride quality. However it rides good for a big car, has plenty of power, reasonable fuel mileage, and it's about as reliable as you can get in a car, short of a diesel.

I hope they continue to build these cars in future. 4. 6L or 5.0L doesn't matter, both are tough, reliable, smooth, & powerful.

I bought a 1987 Ford Crown Vic police car after the local department dumped it at 124,000 miles. This car has a 5-liter engine (low-output: must've belonged to the Chief, who didn't have to get anywhere in a hurry) and a 4-speed auto transmission. It also has an oil cooler and a transmission cooler, which I suspect is the same as a towing package.

This car now has 224,000 miles on it and is going strong. I rebuilt the transmission at 200,000 miles. The engine is original and is still plenty fast.

I just purchased a 1987 Marquis from a lady approximately 80 years old. She was the original owner and the vehicle had only 22,000 miles when I purchased. It had been driven only 320 miles over the last 5 years. She stated she could no longer afford the vehicle and hated to see it go down covered in the backyard. She had just spent over $2000.00 dollars to have the vehicle serviced and it ran poorly. When I drove the car it had a miss, linkages were out of adjustment and a definite shutter under mild acceleration, but exhibited no other mechanical particularities. I thought the miss might be due too bad gas or filters and in need of a tune up. I took it to a dealer (ford) ; he said the diagnostics shows everything to be bad. The car needs a "major tune"; I just picked the car up and started to work on it myself. They had already ripped her off for no telling how much. I have successfully been able to remove all the codes except 34 and 91 both dealing with computer unable to control the idle. Most all components dealing with this area have been replaced to include all vacuum lines except the hard plastic ones. Additionally, inserted a kit (from Ford) that was supposed to allow manual adjustment to the idle, but could see no improvement upon installation and could not adjust idle after installation. After about 2 weeks and 1000 miles the transmission went out; assumed it was due to being parked for so long; my mistake! The trans shop informed me the trans was out of a salvage yard. No problem I had the trans rebuilt and picked the car up last Thursday; the trans disengaged three times on the way home and the shutter is still there. Am returning to the shop who repaired, but even they will not be able to fix I'm afraid. I have now found out the main wiring harness has some type short because when you go to park or push up on the steering column the dash gages and radio go off; it will do the same thing with the ignition switch and a jiggle will correct the problem. After reviewing several sites to include yours I would not recommend anyone purchasing this car unless they know how to work on it. By the way I also had the melt down with the sable transmission and that was $1500.00 for a front planetary and in less than three months it was starting to do the same thing again; luckily sold it to a dealer before I got stuck again. What disturbed me the most was, after contacting Ford they were aware of the problem and the fix, but decided not to recall or cut the fix into the production line, but warranty to the original customers for 70,000 miles. Thus a lot of folks have been stuck by this problem off the used car lots. I've been a Ford man all my life, but my patience is wearing thin, I may have to sell the 5 Fords (all 70 or 71's with no problems) I have at the house and go foreign. It's apparent to me U.S. manufactures are only interested in ripping off the public and not delivery of an acceptable product.