Town Car 4.6 oil choice

I switched in the VRP yesterday with an fl820s. Oil that came out looked pretty good, I'd say only a couple thousand miles on it. The car was last serviced at a dealership, and the next oil change wasn't due for about 3k miles per the sticker, filter on there was a Microgard and was solid and nicely put together. Looking in through the fill cap, motor looks really clean already with no varnish to be seen. Belly of the car was also really nice. I feel like I did well with this one! (Knocks on wood.)

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Warm it up and take some wot pulls 😎
Pending the trans filter and first drain and fill, as well as fresh 75-140 in the pumpkin. These cars aren't fast, but they're not terribly slow either. They have good midrange for most normal driving needs.

Also no DI, intercooler, cylinder deactivation, etc...

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30mpg not representative of normal operation, but never under 20 and 24 pretty achievable. That 30.0 was about 40 miles at about 55mph, flat.
 
Did a drain and fill on the trans, 4.5 qts mercon LV and a new motorcraft filter. Old fluid pretty dark but not burnt smelling. Not much dust on the magnet, but some.

Was the first fluid change I imagine, still had the dipstick plug in the pan.

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Does anyone have a recommended cheap pump to do another exchange through the dipstick hole? I'd like to do another fluid change to get the fluid fresher, but don't really want to drop the pan again.
 
Did a drain and fill on the trans, 4.5 qts mercon LV and a new motorcraft filter. Old fluid pretty dark but not burnt smelling. Not much dust on the magnet, but some.

Was the first fluid change I imagine, still had the dipstick plug in the pan.

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Does anyone have a recommended cheap pump to do another exchange through the dipstick hole? I'd like to do another fluid change to get the fluid fresher, but don't really want to drop the pan again.
Don’t know how cheap you’re looking for. I bought this one back in ‘23 and it’s worked out great

https://www.amazon.com/OEMTOOLS-24389-Extractor-Overflow-Dipstick/dp/B00LCEWR4A
 
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?
I suggest 1-2 OCI of 5w30 Valvoline Restore and Protect. Then 5w30 Quaker State Ultimate Protection Full Syn 5w30.

For oil filter NAPA Gold, Microgard Select, or any other autostore housebrand oil filter that's made by Premium Guard and is in reality a Premium Guard EX filter.
 
Bullet proof motor. I was issued 5 cvpi’s with that motor. We used and still use Delvac 5w40 for long ocis. The weak spot is the transmission. I’ve wrecked double digits😬 but wasn’t nice to them.
 
I think it's a good plan to run a new to you car with VRP. It's the same price as the other good synthetics at Walmart (cheaper now with the rebate for a few more days), and it'll get the engine back to factory cleanliness (after 4 changes or so), especially because you want to keep it forever.

VRP would be a great forever oil too. However many here just run it to clean engines up and then switch to something else, for various reasons. Not because it isn't a good forever oil (that's the "Protect" part of the name). Since it's no more expensive than other good options that don't clean, I don't see a reason not to run it forever. The UOAs posted here have been excellent from a wear standpoint. Something else will take your car (and not rust either in your case!). However, if you wanted to save money after running 4 OCIs of VRP through it, you could switch to whatever 5W-30 is on sale on Walmart and save a few bucks (and not much, because inexplicably this oil is still $29.99 at Walmart for a 5 quart jug).
There are other good options that cost less (for after it's clean enough).
 
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