Used Lincoln MKZ for Sale in Durham, NC

I rented MKZ 2.0 for 22 days straight, drove it from LA to vegas and back, then LA to Yosemite, on to santa cruz and back to LA along the pacific coast highway, put on about 2300 miles. When I first got it, I was not too impressed, but as time went on I liked it more and more. I have a high end Lexus at home, so I was spoiled and hard to please, but now I miss the MKZ. I will exchange my Lexus for the MKZ. I was amazed that I was using regular gas and I was getting plenty of power and 32 miles on the highway with 3 people and plenty of heavy stuff in the trunk. I opened the hood, but without taking the motor cover it was not possible to figure out how many cylinder the MKZ had. I liked this car a lot, I liked the handling better than the Lexus I have, the technology, the backup camera etc were great. The driver window would only move up a little and stop, so I had to push the button several times to open or close it. I could not tell if it was malfunctioning, or if it was custom programmed inadvertently by myself, there was no manual in the glove compartment, I guess because it was rental.

Got the reserve trim with multi-contour (multi-inflatable, infinitely customizable, massaging) seats, Luxe Metallic, THX sound system, 10 spoke wheels with painted slots that almost match the Luxe paint. It's a great looking car especially with the after-market 35% transmissive side and rear window tint. Very comfortable, very quiet. Michelin tires were unexpected. Got 40.3 mpg freeway miles back from dealer at 70-75 mph. Been averaging 40 in all around local driving, mostly suburban. Luxe paint I really like--goes from a pewter gray with a hint of taupe and even gold in certain light angles. Wife not crazy about color, though. I thought it was an interesting switch from the silvers and grays that have been out there for many years. She wanted white, which to me says, "fleet car". Interior is very modern, flat, and simplified with touch screen and finger sensitive volume and fan sliders. Unfortunately this system has been discontinued. Fan speed noise is well muffled except at higher settings. (the Toyota Avalon which we also test drove had much noisier fan). The Avalon also had too European handling (stiff ride for long distance cruising) at least in the high end trim. Controls were all very configurable. My only complaints are two: (1) the THX system is a waste of money in my opinion. Yeah, it's powerful and can be set up with a booming base if you like, BUT, the THX system adds that center speaker (in addition to the traditional stereo left and right channels). That works well in a home or movie theater, but first of all you can't get surround sound very easily because most media doesn't contain the surround channels. Sirius satellite does not broadcast surround to automobile receivers (I called them about this). FM HD doesn't contain it (I called 2 station engineers). CD's generally do not have surround encoded although you supposedly can get them. Reportedly there also are DVD recordings that contain surround sound, but who buys either of these any more? Some MP3 downloads reportedly have surround sound so that would likely be your only chance of using this feature. You can set your THX system to chose between "stereo" and "surround". I heard no difference in any of the media I played through it. But this is the real killer: The front center speaker's volume is factory fixed at 2 to 3 times the volume of the left and right speakers. This pretty well swamps out the stereo effect that you would hear from the side speakers. They might as well just have left out the left and right channels and had just the center speaker. You can compensate somewhat by fading the sound mostly to the rear which diminishes the effect of that loud center front speaker. If you read the forums you'll see that some have just disconnected the front center speaker, and others replaced the side speakers with more sensitive ones in an effort to balance out the center speaker volume. THX is an extra $1,000 option--forget it--not worth it. At least listen to the standard Lincoln audio system, then the THX, before you get excited about the THX "experience". Don't be swayed by the demo THX theater 30 sec. playback. They just juggle the relative volumes of all the speakers to make it sound impressive. Doesn't pan out anything close in reality. Number (2): The voice command Nav. system is archaic and updates are expensive. The menus are not intuitive. My $150 Garmin is far superior and updates are free. Any smart phone will give you much quicker directions these days and it automatically updates. The screen that comes with the NAV system does give you better control of station/media control and cell phone connection.

Although the car presents itself beautifully on the road and is a "real looker", there are some things in the interior that need to be changed. I have the rust colored one (not red) and I get compliments daily on how beautiful the color combination is on the car. This is my first hybrid and I wanted a luxury car that looked unique and offered luxury amenities that I was used to in my Cadillac CTS and offer really good gas mileage. Well, if you are looking for 39/40mpg, don't bother with this car. I am extremely disappointed in the gas mileage, I am getting 28-30mpg overall, not even close to what Lincoln estimated that the car would get, very disappointing, since I was looking at the Lexus ES300 hybrid as well. The interior is nice, but the seats don't wrap/hug around you, although they are very comfortable and the retractable headrest doesn't adjust forward enough for me to be 100% comfortable. The console storage is awkward to say the least, it has two levels which you have to tweak your hand to get under and place phone keys, wallet, or whatever you want to put under there. It is cramped and tight! The steering for me is a bit "boaty", but it still handles well on the road. The pickup isn't as quick as I would like at times, but that is something I will have to live with for the next 2 - 1/2 yrs since I leased mine and that was the smartest thing I could have done! The stereo/Sirius radio is great, the retractable side view mirrors are a nice touch/sunroof/moonroof is nice too. The electric trunk is actually quite roomy considering the battery is in there, so no complaints on storage back there. The rear and front parking sensors are a must and are very helpful even with the backup camera. All in all, I would rate the car a 3.6 out of 5! If the car actually got the 39/40 mpg, I would have rated it around 4.2/5. If you are looking for a beautiful exterior design then this is the car! If you want a car that offers a bit more in the interior, then look elsewhere.