★ My Thoughts on Lincoln’s MKS Sedan [A REVIEW]

I’d like to talk about cars for a moment. First of all, the finest car I ever was lucky enough to sit in the passenger seat of was a 2004 BMW 5 Series and it was impressive but sport doesn’t appeal to me as much as luxury does. I come from a small town and “expensive cars” weren’t a day to day occurrence until I moved to San Francisco and realized that the majority of cars are more common than sub-30K dollar vehicles.

Over a month ago, a representative of Ford emailed me asking if I’d like to take one of their vehicles for a ride. I simply asked for the most high-tech and modern vehicle they produced. I assumed they’d send me a Gen-Y Ford 4-door vehicle but instead they responded back with a 2009 Lincoln MKS and offered to let me take it out for a 5 day road trip from San Francisco to Vegas.

For the record, I’ve never “reviewed” a vehicle before and when I began blogging on LiveJournal in 1999, I had no idea that blogging would even get me into a vehicle for a week to review but I gladly accepted the opportunity to give this “review thing” a shot and below you can read, “My Thoughts on Lincoln’s MKS Sedan”.

It’s no secret that American car companies are feeling some pain from the financial collapse paired with a diminished image that domestic car companies have in our eyes. I can’t say that domestic automakers shouldn’t have seen it coming given that everyone I know told me repeatedly that Toyota and Honda vehicles were more reliable than Ford or Chevy for at least the last decade. Regardless if it’s true or not, the reality is, my first car was a Toyota Camry and I had no intention of getting an American made car. I’ve driven Ford, Chevy and GM cars before and wasn’t impressed as I could tell a difference between the overall design, gas mileage and quirks that overseas cars didn’t have but the MKS changed all of this for me.

According to Wikipedia, “The Lincoln MKS is a full-size luxury sedan from the Lincoln division of the Ford Motor Company.” That pretty much sums it up for most car buyers but what does it really mean when you sit behind the wheel? Let’s start with the experience of walking up to a Lincoln MKS.

Ford dropped the car off at my workplace on a sunny Friday morning. The chrome wheels, black paint and curves gave the appearance of a modern classic car but I had a feeling there was more to offer under the hood. In my opinion, the car’s design was classy and wasn’t overdone at all. I enjoyed gazing upon it in the sun and awaited the experience of sitting in the driver’s seat. Over the course of 5 days, this happened every time. Leaving a rest stop, hotel and walking back to the car after standing on Santa Monica Beach, I was excited and thrilled about getting behind the wheel. I assumed an MKS would be like my grandfather’s Lincoln Town Car and it wasn’t at all. This was a full size luxury sedan ready to surpass the speed limit and overtake other cars.

I’ve always heard trunk space was gigantic in Lincoln cars and the Italian Mob joke about “how many dead bodies a town car can hold” came to mind (no offense Ford). The trunk held our suitcases comfortably and I think we could fit 6 full size suitcases with ease in the Lincoln MKS not to mention 3 people could sit VERY COMFORTABLY in the backseat with no issue and in supreme comfort. The real comfort was in the driver’s seat.

I hit the unlock button on the security device and was told that I don’t need a key to start the car. That’s right, just put the security FOB in your pocket, get in side of the car and its presence allows you to hit the “start” button and the engine will turn on. This was the beginning of a few hundred features that made my jaw drop. There I sat, behind the wheel of a very comfortable ride. It was time to think about safety and get comfortable. Automatic seat adjustment was killer. There’s standard front, back and reclining seats but the addition of raising and lowering the seat + lumbar support made up to 6 controls that equaled a very comfortable ride! The side-view mirrors were adjusted with a switch and even the steering wheel moved in four directions electronically.

Conveniences are aplenty in this car and for me, it was all new but some of these have been around for years on far less expensive cars. Laura and I really enjoyed the dual-climate features of the MKS and the ability to pipe 60 degree cold air to my side and 70 degree air to her side but the speed of the fans couldn’t be adjusted. The back seat had separate air control as well. I’ve experienced heated seats but never cooled seats which was a welcome treat as we drove through the dust bowl of California and heat rose to 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

The real wow factor was in place when we plugged in an iPhone to USB and connected it to the car via BlueTooth. Incoming calls would show up on the display and it even supported the iPhone’s address book system to display the name of the person calling. I could also check voicemails and phone friends by name from the car’s dashboard. I spoke to my father while on a noisy interstate system for over 45 minutes using the car’s speaker system. I’ve never heard my Dad in THX 2.0 7.1 Surround Sound but it wasn’t as scary as many of you would think. I asked him if he could tell that he was on speakerphone and that the cars going by were pretty loud and he said it sounded just like chatting on the telephone in a quiet house. This is a welcome feature given that in San Francisco, I can’t have a decent phone call with anyone (even in my own house) due to the noise of the city.

Sadly, my IPhone wasn’t supported as a music device. Lincoln uses Microsoft SYNC technology where you can plugin an MP3 player, Zune or iPod and the contents are indexed for search, playback and navigation via the dashboard. The iPhone isn’t supported so I resorted to burning 4-DVDs of MP3 audio files which resulted in about 1,500 songs that we listened to the entire trip. The songs were still indexed and displayed ID3 tags and album artwork which was simply viewable on the MP3 files themselves. This worked pretty well but I regret not having an iPod along to really test out playlist support.

Audio was fantastic! The music sounded great, bass was perfect but I did notice that songs with a lot of bass experienced some overload by the speakers. I don’t think Lincoln envisioned the target demographic of this car would be playing Slim Thug’s “I’m a Boss” at full volume down HWY 101. Well i did and the results were “ok”. On the other hand, opera and Sting sound amazing and so did Coldplay.

Taking windy roads at night was crazy fun as the headlights turned with our wheels to help you peak around corners. it freaked me out at first but I quickly became used to seeing what I was driving into instead of the lights playing catchup as I round a corner. Headlight turning was subtle was super cool!

GPS navigation is something I can never live without for road trips now that I’ve used it. Before, I found it acceptable to trust my iPhone, run of the road occasionally while navigating the road and then ask Laura to take over holding the wheel while I pinched and zoomed my way around a map on a 3″ screen. What is the great thing about having a built in navigation system? Entertainment (ooh pretty colors going by fast) and a soothing mom-like voice letting you know that everything is fine and she’ll take care of any issues that arise. GPS navigation saved our asses at least 7 times and Laura would tell me that 25 miles of farms is a bad sign that we’re on the wrong road and suddenly we’d come out on the correct highway! The map system took a bit of learning so it wasn’t “easy” but once you learned where things were, it became easy to enter in an address, point of interest or a location and hit “find route”.

The power of a luxury car surprised me and Laura as well. I always found myself speeding which is a sad thing to admit but I always instantly corrected myself. Passing other cars, windy mountain roads and even rain didn’t stop luxury from pushing through and gripping tight to the asphalt. The automatic wipers were a great touch, the wheels were extra wide and cruise control made me feel like I wasn’t even driving. 0-60 in um…. fast. That’s the best way to put it. I didn’t time 0-60 but I did go faster than I ever expected a sedan to go and at one time on Highway 5 realized we were going 105MPH and had to slow it back to 90 which is the average car speed on that road. My Toyota Camry hit 115mph once but i slowed down after the frame started shaking. This car hit 105 and it felt like I was going 50.

This vehicle was big and that was a great thing for the open road. Climbing into the backseat to get beef jerky was a breeze and lying all of the way back to catch a nap was incredibly simple. The car’s size only became an issue when we were ready to park it. The 2010 model has a self parking mode where you pull up to a parking spot and push a button but this one didn’t and it made parking very difficult. The added rear view camera was nice and made things a bit easier. The car’s safety features were aplenty including beeps when you were going to bump into something on the front or back of the car but sitting at a stop light, every pedestrian crossing the road would cause the car’s system to beep like crazy. This was the case in SF, LA and Vegas. Gas mileage wasn’t as bad as I thought. I averaged 22MPG on the highway and around 19 on city streets and that was with full AC and a very heavy foot.

Overall, I’ve never driven a more comfortable ride that has enough power to take on most vehicles on the road. I was lucky to not receive a speeding ticket at any time but was having so much fun that I wouldn’t have cared. The MKS was a vehicle that I loved to drive and every chance I had, it was back in the seat for some more mileage. We drove almost 2,000 miles in those 5 days and every bit of it was the most fun we’ve ever had in a car. I remember after the 8 hours (with stops) drive from SF to LA, Laura and I drove into LA thinking, “we’re already here?” and the same went for every ride we had until filling up the tank for the last time in SF. I asked Laura if she would ever buy one of these (if we had the money) and she agreed saying it was the best and most comfortable car she could dream for and the price honestly wasn’t so high that it was unattainable for most people. The price starts around 38K but the 2010 model has some super cool features that you don’t want to miss out on.

Turns out I wrote another 2,000 word post about something that seemed trivial but I’d call the Lincoln MKS my favorite luxury sedan and I can’t wait to take it for another drive.