Lincoln MKZ

Which Lincoln MKZ years should you avoid?

Going by 1,669 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Lincoln MKZ years to avoid are 2007 and 2008.

• 2007259 complaints, 2.0× a typical MKZ year, most often about the airbags; and 2.4× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (3 fires, 14 crashes, 2 deaths).
• 2008281 complaints, 2.2× a typical MKZ year, most often about the airbags.

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2018, 2015 and 2014 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →