2003 Town Car....dry knock when starting

Hi....new to forum. I have searched to see if the problem I am having has already been posted and I haven't found anything to help me. Here goes.....I have a 2003 Town Car.....my third lincoln...it is almost out of warranty and wanting to get this figured out before it runs out. Twice in the last 2 months this has happened to me. After parking car for short period of time..like to run into store and back out, when trying to start again it has made a knocking sound when starting. It was an odd enough sound both times that I immediately turned the car off and restarted to see if I could hear it again.......but it didn't happen when starting again. It almost sounded like a dry start to me....like nothing lubricating. Of course told my husband and when he started it, if didn't happen. It did it for the 2nd time the other night when he started it.....whew....i hate it when he acts like I am making things up about car. Anyhow we have searched the web to see if this has been a problem with the '03's. We love the lincolns...... this is my third one...and we just bought oldest daughter a little Lincoln LS for Christmas. So we have bought 4 of them actually. I hope someone out there can help me with this.....cause I know I will get it to dealer and it won't happen at start up for them. Please help.....thinking about trading it in if I can't get it figured out.

your oil pump has gone bad. very unusual for it to go bad this early since the car is relatively new but it sounds like your oil pump has had it and you are literally not getting any oil moving around in the crankcase until the 2nd time you try to start the car. get this replaced immediately because the longer you wait, the more you are destroying your engine due to no oil entering into the crankcase and it wouldnt only be a matter of time until the engine finally gives out. hopefully this is covered under your warranty.

Thanks for your reply........ford mechanic stopped by on his way to work the other morning to see if it would do it when he started it since i hadn't driven it a couple of days.........of course it didn't do it. He mentioned something about filling out a form about the problem while it was under warranty and it will be covered if happens after warranty expires. By the way my last was a 95 White TC........put alot of miles on it and transmission was fixing to go out as it did on my 1990, which we replaced and sold to my brother.....i said that we had owned 3 of em....we really have had 4 now.........forgot about my beautiful 1977 silver Mark, I loved that car. Did the Mini Van routine and then went back to buying Lincolns......and daughter is loving her LS and if I decide to trade this 03 that is what I am going to look for.....an LS for ME! Good Luck with your 95........they are still a beautiful car. Just watch out for transmission trouble....that happened to me on my 90 and my 95, at about 160,000 miles. Thanks again for your reply about the oil pump......makes sense to me. your oil pump has gone bad. very unusual for it to go bad this early since the car is relatively new but it sounds like your oil pump has had it and you are literally not getting any oil moving around in the crankcase until the 2nd time you try to start the car. get this replaced immediately because the longer you wait, the more you are destroying your engine due to no oil entering into the crankcase and it wouldnt only be a matter of time until the engine finally gives out. hopefully this is covered under your warranty.

Thanks for your reply........ford mechanic stopped by on his way to work the other morning to see if it would do it when he started it since i hadn't driven it a couple of days.........of course it didn't do it. He mentioned something about filling out a form about the problem while it was under warranty and it will be covered if happens after warranty expires. By the way my last was a 95 White TC........put alot of miles on it and transmission was fixing to go out as it did on my 1990, which we replaced and sold to my brother.....i said that we had owned 3 of em....we really have had 4 now.........forgot about my beautiful 1977 silver Mark, I loved that car. Did the Mini Van routine and then went back to buying Lincolns......and daughter is loving her LS and if I decide to trade this 03 that is what I am going to look for.....an LS for ME! Good Luck with your 95........they are still a beautiful car. Just watch out for transmission trouble....that happened to me on my 90 and my 95, at about 160,000 miles. Thanks again for your reply about the oil pump......makes sense to me.


yea my town car has 238,000 miles on it. the transmission started to shift funny at 176,000 miles that when i had it replaced. but the car is very strong i actually took the engine apart over the christmas holiday to see how the internal parts were holdin up and the motor was still clean as a whistle. ive baby this car since i bought it brand new and it just wont quit. i love it!!!