If you had designed the 03 Tbird? | Ford Thunderbird forum club group 1955-2005 models

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If you had designed the 03 Tbird?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Elsie
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Elsie

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2003
If you had designed the 02-05 Tbird what would you have did differently?

I wish they had built the thing with the Mustang motor and frame.

I've got an 03 Tbird. Love the car but it has been one effing nightmare when it comes to reliability. New CPU, COPS, electric windows, new suspension, new belts, hoses, thermostat housing, radio, AC compressor gone bad, brakes, etc...…….

My 92 year old Mom quit driving a couple of years ago. She gave me her 03 Mercury Gran Marquis under the condition that I use it to take her to doctors appointments etc. Both the Tbird and Gran Marquis are the same year and have roughly the same amount of miles other than that, the cars are 180 degree apart. Nobody ever comments on the Gran Marquis other than other older people telling me they wished Ford keep making them. LOL My Mom purchased her Gran Marquis brand new and other than 1 (ONE) air filter, a couple of batteries and a new set of tires - NOTHING HAS been done to the car other than regular oil changes. The motor is bullet proof (standard V8), no crazy electronics, no leaks, parts are dirt cheap if needed and any shop can work on em.

Meanwhile nobody seems to want to work on the Tbird, parts are in short supply, and if you do find somebody to work on em they pop it to you. One Tbird owner told me some Ford dealer charged him $3K to replace the fuel pump, another owner told me an independent garage charged him $1500!!!! Those s*** should be locked up.

Anyway I digress - if I designed the thing Ford should have put a hopped up standard Ford V8 of the era in it. Offered a manual tranny as an option, and squeezed a little more trunk room, and by all effing means stayed away from having any Jaguar electronics associated with the thing. And do away with the Dual climate control - because everybody I knows has had trouble with that dam thing. Why, why do you need a dual climate control in a small 2 seat convertible car anyway??

Sorry, didn't mean to rant. Just wondering what you would have did differently if you designed the 02-05 Tbird?

Turbo would have been nice too. LOL

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I have always had a "thing" for American 2 seaters like the Buick Reatta, Chevrolet Corvette, Chrysler TC, Chrysler Crossfire, Pontiac Solstice / Saturn Sky and yes Ford Thunderbirds ( and maybe some I forgot to mention). I let me 1990 Buick Reatta go because of all the electronic issues and then missed it so I went for my "05 Cashmere T Bird. But I agree Ford engineers and design team could have done a little better with the interior and added some features that are missing. Plus the standard Mustang drivetrain would have been easier to maintain as well. Just my thoughts.
 
My biggest wish would be for more power, say a 429 cubic inch block developing something like 400 hp. My car has been issue free except for the coil problem. Also replacement parts should be more readily available.
 
Elsie said:
If you had designed the 02-05 Tbird what would you have did differently?

I wish they had built the thing with the Mustang motor and frame.

I've got an 03 Tbird. Love the car but it has been one effing nightmare when it comes to reliability. New CPU, COPS, electric windows, new suspension, new belts, hoses, thermostat housing, radio, AC compressor gone bad, brakes, etc...…….

My 92 year old Mom quit driving a couple of years ago. She gave me her 03 Mercury Gran Marquis under the condition that I use it to take her to doctors appointments etc. Both the Tbird and Gran Marquis are the same year and have roughly the same amount of miles other than that, the cars are 180 degree apart. Nobody ever comments on the Gran Marquis other than other older people telling me they wished Ford keep making them. LOL My Mom purchased her Gran Marquis brand new and other than 1 (ONE) air filter, a couple of batteries and a new set of tires - NOTHING HAS been done to the car other than regular oil changes. The motor is bullet proof (standard V8), no crazy electronics, no leaks, parts are dirt cheap if needed and any shop can work on em.

Meanwhile nobody seems to want to work on the Tbird, parts are in short supply, and if you do find somebody to work on em they pop it to you. One Tbird owner told me some Ford dealer charged him $3K to replace the fuel pump, another owner told me an independent garage charged him $1500!!!! Those s*** should be locked up.

Anyway I digress - if I designed the thing Ford should have put a hopped up standard Ford V8 of the era in it. Offered a manual tranny as an option, and squeezed a little more trunk room, and by all effing means stayed away from having any Jaguar electronics associated with the thing. And do away with the Dual climate control - because everybody I knows has had trouble with that dam thing. Why, why do you need a dual climate control in a small 2 seat convertible car anyway??

Sorry, didn't mean to rant. Just wondering what you would have did differently if you designed the 02-05 Tbird?

Turbo would have been nice too. LOL
Click to expand...


WHOLE HEARTEDLY AGREE. Maybe they will learn from this mistake for the next iteration............
 
I bet Mazda will make the next version of the TBird. Not called a TBird of course but designed to look like a the retro bird. Similar to what they have done with the c2 Corvette Stingray. A two seater with all the modern gadgets built on Miata MX5 platform. Search Google for the MX5 Rock Star. The Miata has been around for 30 years now. It is a classic in it's own right. Ford has a 33% stake in Mazda, so if we are going to see a TBird it will be a Mazda. I for one would be shopping for one of those as I am looking for an old Miata now.

Back in 2002, Ford owned or had a large stake in Jaguar. Using the Jag and Lincoln parts, they created this car from off the shelf parts. I think they wanted a cruiser, not a car to compete with and take sales from the Mustang. Retro was all the rage with the little Chevy pickup, VW Bug and the PT Cruiser. I bet the engineers never thought Ford would sell the Jag line and figured the parts would be available for a long time. I bet they never thought the car would be cancelled in four years. It would be nice to see what was on their drawing boards for two or three years down the road.

GPS wasn't made public until 2000. Flat panel screens were just being created. The mp3 craze was just coming of age. No automaker was ready to put these in their cars. Can you imagine what is going to be happening 10 years down the road when you need a fancy instrument panel for your car. It would be like looking for a screen replacement for a first gen iPod touch. How often do you toss out a mobile phone because the screen is bad or cracked or the tech is just old. Are we going to be doing that with a car because the entertainment system dies. How is the big iPad looking thing in the Tesla going to hold up in ten years? In 2005 the Motorola Razr was the phone to have. The screen on that thing was maybe 2x2.5 inches maybe. There was no real GPS app on that thing.

The COPS are everywhere now. Maybe this was just an early design. I find that changing them is a rather simple and can be done in less than 90 minutes. I for one do not understand the big deal with them. It is so much easier than replacing spark plug wires. You can get lifetime warranty replacements at Autozone and they will replace them at any time. Just pop them out and take them in.

Yep the TBird is full of electronics that are dying. I had to replace the FEM and clock spring. But how many of us are still using their 16 year old computer or monitor. Electronics die. The capacitors in the FEM go bad just like the ones on old motherboards in your computer. Unfortunately there were only 70k of these cars made and there is just not enough after market to keep making replacement parts. It seems the high mileage ones are taken apart to keep the garage queens running.

Our cars are trapped in the change over between analog and digital. The digital parts are dying and the analog parts are getting hard to get. Might as well just put lots of miles on them before we toss them out.
 
I would have traded some performance for better fuel economy. E.g. a 3.o8 rear rather that 3.58 perhaps. And a standard transmission option - at least a 4 speed. I've always viewed T-Birds as cruiser rather than hotrod but I'm sympathetic to those who would appreciate more zoom.
 
When I got mine, the first thing I thought was "What would I do differently" ... and here's the thread.

First and foremost ... I would have honestly gone "Forward look" with the headlights and frenched the tails (My kingdom for those tail's!! see attached pic). Also... would it have killed them to add fins like a 55? Not huge ones... just those subtle vertical ones.

...then I got to the meat-and potatoes of the matter... seeing as how this 3.9 is a shorter-stroked 4 liter like the Jag S-type got... would it have been too much to want the Supercharged 4.0 with something like a Getrag 420G 6-speed behind it? I ask this because I recently parted ways with an E39 BMW that I had supercharged the 4.4 liter V8, modified the heads, replaced the exhaust, 6-puck clutched the Getrag 420G, and made a few aero-changes to keep the car planted. 207mph was the best I could get out of it.

I don't expect the Bird to be a barn-burner, but yeah ... Supercharged 4-liter, 6 speed manual, limited slip diff, 18x8's with 255/30's front, 18x10's with 275/30's rear and the visual changes... I'd be stoked.

(if I win Mega Millions tonight at the time of this posting, you can be assured a Coyote V8 and 6-speed will be in the works) 😀
 

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Elsie said:
If you had designed the 02-05 Tbird what would you have did differently?

I wish they had built the thing with the Mustang motor and frame.

I've got an 03 Tbird. Love the car but it has been one effing nightmare when it comes to reliability. New CPU, COPS, electric windows, new suspension, new belts, hoses, thermostat housing, radio, AC compressor gone bad, brakes, etc...…….

My 92 year old Mom quit driving a couple of years ago. She gave me her 03 Mercury Gran Marquis under the condition that I use it to take her to doctors appointments etc. Both the Tbird and Gran Marquis are the same year and have roughly the same amount of miles other than that, the cars are 180 degree apart. Nobody ever comments on the Gran Marquis other than other older people telling me they wished Ford keep making them. LOL My Mom purchased her Gran Marquis brand new and other than 1 (ONE) air filter, a couple of batteries and a new set of tires - NOTHING HAS been done to the car other than regular oil changes. The motor is bullet proof (standard V8), no crazy electronics, no leaks, parts are dirt cheap if needed and any shop can work on em.

Meanwhile nobody seems to want to work on the Tbird, parts are in short supply, and if you do find somebody to work on em they pop it to you. One Tbird owner told me some Ford dealer charged him $3K to replace the fuel pump, another owner told me an independent garage charged him $1500!!!! Those s*** should be locked up.

Anyway I digress - if I designed the thing Ford should have put a hopped up standard Ford V8 of the era in it. Offered a manual tranny as an option, and squeezed a little more trunk room, and by all effing means stayed away from having any Jaguar electronics associated with the thing. And do away with the Dual climate control - because everybody I knows has had trouble with that dam thing. Why, why do you need a dual climate control in a small 2 seat convertible car anyway??

Sorry, didn't mean to rant. Just wondering what you would have did differently if you designed the 02-05 Tbird?

Turbo would have been nice too. LOL
Click to expand...
Retractable hard/top into trunk would be my 1st design project designing 02/05 Thunderbird
 
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