Town Car 4.6 oil choice

Joined
Jul 26, 2025
Messages
12
Hello all,

Recently picked up my second Lincoln Town Car, a 2009 Signature L. This will be my 3 season car in central/northern NY. The car will be put up from the first snow/salt until the roads clear in spring. Expected temps 30°F to 100°F.

This car has 74,500ish miles on it and is in quite good shape - I hope to keep it for ever. (I am a big fan of the platform.) Carfax shows pretty good oil change history, looks like averaging about every 5k.

My typical routine for vehicles is an OEM filter and the correct (fill cap/owner's manual) grade of M1 extended protection. I'm not a hardcore oil guy, just determined through minimal research that the extra $2/ 5qts gets you a better oil.

My stuff is run pretty easy, and this car will see about 5k OCI. One to two years likely. Most trips should see full temp.

My conundrum is grade - I see Ford spec'd 5w-30 from 91-2000ish, then switched to 5w-20 for 2001-2011. My owner's manual says only run 20.

If this is purely cafe/mpg - I'd rather run the 5w30. But I'm a nanny and rarely if ever stray from the manufacturer recommendations.

I've run quite a few cvpis very hard in my youth, and only managed to kill one - still ran wide open (about 80mph) for about half an hour after a catastrophic bottom end failure. Don't know what oil our fleet ran. My last long Town Car(2005) sold at 180k, surely running 5w-20, purred like a kitten when I sold it.

What would you run?
 
These are great engines that can run a long, long time on just about anything from 0w-20 to 15w-40. Lots of police agencies were reported as running cheap diesel 15w-40 with excellent results.

My father in law drove a couple of Lincoln's with the 4.6. Both to around 300k with indifferent maintenance, but the engines still sounding tight and running well.
 
I think that no matter what you run that engine will still keep plugging away, especially with the low amount of mileage you are putting on it. It will outlast all of us here.
I hope to drive this car for 50 years, should I be lucky enough to last that long and still be able to see and drive.

Thanks for the input everyone, feel free to keep it coming.
 
I waited a while, and jumped on it. Car has a few gremlins that need restoration, but overall a rust-free nonfleet L is a unicorn at this mileage.

My last one was white/tan, this one is black/tan. I loved the white, but there's slim pickings these days.
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I hope your seat belt pre-tensioners don't go, it's not uncommon. I had a heck of a time finding the part. When I called, there was one in Nashville and another in Annapolis. That was it ...
 
Hasn’t been asked here before. Which engine is it, again, the 4.6? Never heard of it.
Haven't heard of the Ford 4.6?? It was put in a bazillian Ford Crown Vic Police cars, pickup trucks, Expeditions, Navigators, Town Cars, etc. It's what replaced the 5.0l (ie 302) in all the applications that was used in from the mid nineties up until 2014.
 
Hello all,

Recently picked up my second Lincoln Town Car, a 2009 Signature L. This will be my 3 season car in central/northern NY. The car will be put up from the first snow/salt until the roads clear in spring. Expected temps 30°F to 100°F.

This car has 74,500ish miles on it and is in quite good shape - I hope to keep it for ever. (I am a big fan of the platform.) Carfax shows pretty good oil change history, looks like averaging about every 5k.

My typical routine for vehicles is an OEM filter and the correct (fill cap/owner's manual) grade of M1 extended protection. I'm not a hardcore oil guy, just determined through minimal research that the extra $2/ 5qts gets you a better oil.

My stuff is run pretty easy, and this car will see about 5k OCI. One to two years likely. Most trips should see full temp.

My conundrum is grade - I see Ford spec'd 5w-30 from 91-2000ish, then switched to 5w-20 for 2001-2011. My owner's manual says only run 20.

If this is purely cafe/mpg - I'd rather run the 5w30. But I'm a nanny and rarely if ever stray from the manufacturer recommendations.

I've run quite a few cvpis very hard in my youth, and only managed to kill one - still ran wide open (about 80mph) for about half an hour after a catastrophic bottom end failure. Don't know what oil our fleet ran. My last long Town Car(2005) sold at 180k, surely running 5w-20, purred like a kitten when I sold it.

What would you run?
5W20/30 all of today’s oil will get you to the 5k mountain.
 
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