2013 Lincoln MKZ Test Drive

On Sale Date: Now

Price: $36,820-$39,940

Competitors: Lexus ES 350, Lexus ES 300h, Acura TL, Cadillac XTS, Hyundai Genesis, Toyota Avalon, Buick LaCrosse/LaCrosse eAssist, Audi A6

Powertrains: 2.0-liter four-cylinder Ecoboost, 240 hp, 270 lb-ft; 3.7-liter V-6, 300 hp, 277 lb-ft; 2-liter, four-cylinder hybrid, 188 hp, 129 lb-ft; FWD/AWD

EPA Fuel Economy (city/hwy): 22/31-33 (I-4), 18-19/28-26 (V-6), 45/45 (hybrid)

What's New: It's been a tough road for Lincoln. After Ford killed Mercury in 2010, the company set out to reinvent its luxury brand as a player in the upscale market once more. But like Mercury, Lincoln suffers from one nagging problem: It's essentially a fancy Ford with a slightly different face. Unable to stay competitive with other luxury carmakers, Lincoln's sales have plummeted to 85,643 units in 2011, down from a company high of more than 200,000 in 1990. To right the Lincoln ship, Ford hired Max Wolff to be Lincoln's first-ever design director, created a separate design studio specifically for Lincoln, and even renamed the brand The Lincoln Motor Company.

Now we have the 2013 MKZ, the first all-new product from the all-new Lincoln. As with the last-gen MKZ, the newest iteration rides on the same global architecture as the 2013 Ford Fusion and has an identical 112.2-inch wheelbase. But that's where the structural similarities end. The MKZ is 2.4 inches longer, 0.1 inch taller, and half an inch wider than the Fusion. The car is remarkably close to the MKZ concept Lincoln first showed off last year in Detroit, featuring the same silky roofline, an exaggerated, steeply raked split-wing grille, and a decidedly European rear. Yet for all of those swooping and sweeping lines, the sheet metal is stretched tight, giving the car an equally muscular appearance.

Lincoln also upgraded the MKZ's interior, with leather, wood applique, and styling that mimics the car's exterior design cues. The MKZ's new bridge center console reflects the car's roofline and houses two hidden drink holders, a rear compartment, and two different open-air storage cubbies below the arch and under the dash. This extra storage area is made possible by ditching a classic shifter setup for a push-button system on the dash, located to the left of the standard 8-inch LCD screen with MyLincoln Touch. Below the screen is a CD player, two touch-sensitive chrome bars that let you adjust volume and fan speed, and other HVAC capacitive controls. The leather-wrapped steering has controls for a Bluetooth-connected phone, adaptive cruise control (part of the $2250 Technology Package), and customizable digital information screens in the 10.1-inch cluster display, which nicely balances futuristic and classic design themes.

Underneath, the MKZ comes standard with Lincoln Drive Control, a customizable continuously controlled damping system that adjusts the movement of the MacPherson struts and aluminum control arms up front and the multilink suspension in the rear every 2 milliseconds. Engine options consist of an entry-level 2.0-liter Ecoboost, a 3.7-liter Ecoboost, and, most interestingly, a no-extra-cost hybrid option. Both gas-engine options come mated to a six-speed automatic transmission while the hybrid gets a CVT.

Our test car also had the MKZ's most prominent exterior feature: the 15.2-square-foot retractable glass panoramic roof, a $2995 option. With the push of a button, the glass panel rises up and slides back above the rear window, exposing three-quarters of the interior to the sky. To protect passengers from the sun, the glass panel is rated up to 100 SPF, but there's also a retractable cloth screen for complete coverage. To increase cabin serenity, the MKZ also features active noise cancellation and a whole heap of sound deadening. Just jimmy your finger into the crease between the ceiling and the panoramic roof and you'll feel a solid inch of noise-absorbing materials.

Tech Tidbit: The MKZ, like the Fusion, has a new driver-assist feature called Lane Keeping System. One of the coolest features of this system is that it reads lane markings with a forward-facing camera and uses the electric power steering to move the steering wheel and nudge you back into the lane. That, along with Adaptive Cruise Control, Collision Warning, and Brake Support, enables the MKZ to be semi-autonomous?you could leave your feet off the pedals and hands off the wheel and the car will keep pace with the car in front of it while maintaining its course between the white lines. The MKZ can't quite drive itself, but it makes monotonous long hauls and stressful heavy traffic more bearable. Fully autonomous vehicles are still at least a decade away, but we will continue to see this technology trickle into production vehicles.

Driving Character: For our test drive, we requested the 3.7-liter, V-6- equipped MKZ, the only engine not available on the Fusion. Fully loaded, our test car came to a neck-hair-bristling $51,185. From behind the wheel, the wood trim, leather, and clean surfaces impart luxury, but the interior still lacks a certain refinement that you would see in an Audi or a BMW at the same price. The slightly bolstered seats wrap you just tight enough to suggest a bit of sportiness, and the leather-wrapped wheel soothed our road rage as we escaped the clogged traffic of NYC for open pavement.

Navigating loopy mountain roads and straight highways on our 115-mile drive through Westchester County and around Bear Mountain State Park, the MKZ's 3.7-liter proved powerful enough, though on occasion the transmission took a little longer than it should to downshift for more juice. The car's electrical power-assisted steering is nicely tuned and felt especially honed through a series of S turns that made us work like a dog darting through weave poles. The chassis feels firm and planted and the Lincoln Drive Control provides plenty of support?if not a little softness?in the turns. Along with the standard drive, park, reverse, and neutral settings, the MKZ also features a sport mode that stiffens the suspension, making it more responsive and noticeably more fun to whip around mountain roads, though the overall driving experience doesn't inspire any exclamations of amazement.

It's the setup of the center console that truly helps the MKZ's interior feel modern. Although the plastic push-button shifting looks cheap, the sparse center console and dash make for a clean cabin. And even though it's a fingerprint magnet, we had no trouble with the much-derided MyLincoln Touch system and think it receives unfair grief. Yet it is the same interface used in the Fusion, so it's hard to shake the feeling that you're sitting in a thinly disguised Ford. The touch-sensitive volume and fan bars proved finicky for precise operation, though the effect impresses when they do work. For volume, eventually we switched to the more straightforward buttons on the steering wheel. The bridge console also disappoints, as the open-air cubbies require some inconvenient hand contortions to reach anything. In the end, we'd prefer a standard shifting setup and center console to the MKZ's current execution.

On our drive, the MKZ's new styling drew stares and even a few compliments. That said, the design feels a tad outdated already. This might just be the inevitable effect of the split-wing grille, which lends itself to a certain older aesthetic, but Lincoln's new design language still needs some fine-tuning if it is to avoid being associated primarily with Baby Boomers.

Favorite Detail: While the front-end styling of the MKZ leaves us conflicted, the rear-end styling is a home run. The way the sloping roofline abruptly meets the short, angular trunk lid makes for an aesthetically pleasing juxtaposition, and we like the way the LED taillights span the rear of the car, exaggerating its width. The shape of the exhausts mirrors the wider parts of the taillight, which is also a nice touch.

Driver's Grievance: The center console could have made the car more open but instead wasted the space. For those with a critical eye for design, there's also an unfortunate issue with cars that have the panoramic roof: Because the entire roof slides back and onto the rear window, there is no place for a modern "shark-fin" antenna. The solution is a rather large and ugly rubber antenna on the left rear of the car. And when the panoramic roof is all the way back, it covers most of the back window and rear visibility becomes subpar, with only 9 to 12 inches of the view being perfectly clear. There is an optional backup camera system as part of a $5330 equipment package, but this doesn't help when you're driving down a highway.

Bottom Line: With the MKZ, Lincoln needed a huge hit and came up short. Faster, quieter, cheaper, and with more standard features than its Lexus counterparts (another luxury brand limited by its dependence on parent-company chassis), the MKZ will certainly steal some consumers and attract younger buyers. But after the first few hours in our test car, the novelty of the styling and roof wore off and it became hard to think of the MKZ as anything else but a loaded Fusion?one that costs roughly $20,000 more. This is a major problem for Lincoln. The MKZ is the first of seven new or refreshed models coming in the next three years, so the brand has plenty more opportunities to change consumers' perceptions. But at this moment and in this economy, we'd pass on the MKZ and option-out a premium sedan instead.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/reviews/drives/2013-lincoln-mkz-test-drive?src=rss

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