Had to post on this blue oval news web site simply because of the amount of educated consumers who utilize blue oval news researching prior to their vehicle purchases. Besides the known issue of the dreaded plastic resin intake manifolds cracking on the 4.6L SOHC engine on the Ford Crown Victoria there is a more catastrophic quality issue with the Crown Victoria and that is the torque converter shudder on the Crown Victoria 4R70W transmission. Starting with the '92 model year and it's aode and now the 4R70W which replaced the aode starting in '98 Ford has known of quality issues of their transmissions which manifests itself as a horrible shudder or vibration as the transmission shifts from 3rd gear going into 4th gear (usually transitioning from 40 to 50 mph!). I purchased my '99 crown vic and it has provided me reliable transportation until just recently. I picked up this horrible shudder just 6 weeks prior to my 3yr/36K Ford warranty running out. When this problem first occurred with having just 22K on the odometer and 6 weeks left on the warranty I quickly brought the car in for waranty work. Universal Ford in long island city, NY validated that indeed there was a shudder and replaced the transmission with a rebuilt transmission. I drove the "repaired" vehicle from nyc to leesburg, Virginia but on the return trip the shudder came back worse than ever. I managed to limp the car back home and the vehicle has been at universal Ford since. For those of you considering a Crown Victoria perform your "due diligence" and visit some of the other impartial crown vic web sites (www.corral.net but more importantly www.crownvic.net) searching on "tranny shudder". Ford has known of this problem over 5 years but hasn't publically made it widely known along with their plastic resin intake manifold debacle. I've owned over a dozen Crown victorias in my life and starting with the '92 model year when they transitioned over from the old pushrod-8 5.0L engine to their new 4.6L SOHC T

- Rego Park, NY, USA