Just keep in mind, in regard to the cooled seats, that they are not air conditioned. So if the A/C hasn't been running long enough to really cool the interior down on a hot day, the seats will only blow air as cool as the fan under them can pull from the ambient temperature of the interior. They are basically just a fan that circulates cabin air through the pores of the seat cushions. Works fine once you get the interior nice and chilly, but until then you won't really feel cool air coming from them. Still helps you from getting sweaty though on those days when the sun is really beating against the car. I definitely recommend tinted front side windows though to help combat the heat.

 

Done deal! Only warning in the system is the TPMS which isn't a surprise. Has the rear A/C click which is apparently common.

Know of any other decent Navi forums?

 

I've got a 2003 Navi I bought in April or May (been a very busy year so I'm a little foggy on anything prior to last week!) and its actually my first ever Ford vehicle and I'm 43. Not that I had anything against Fords, Lincolns, Edsels, etc just out of the many vehicles I've owned (Chevy, Cadillac(s), Pontiac, Olds, Dodge, Honda(s), Acura(s),MB and Audi-I think that's it plus now the Lincoln) some new, some slightly used, used and VERY USED-(that was a 76 Pontiac Grand Prix, bought for $300 when I was 18, $300 with a slipping tranny, a TH400 trans that cost me a whopping $300 to have swapped with a fully rebuilt TH400, something I doubt can be replicated on any "modern" transmission! It served its purpose for a year or so and sold it for $900!) but this was first Ford product and its my daily driver/work truck and just happened to come along when I was looking to replace old DD/WT at a great price and was in nice shape, very clean and no codes and I did some research after first look/test drive from private party seller, saw mainly the air suspension issues, general electrical issues and a few others, but any used luxo vehicle is going to have that stuff, even a Lexus (prob not as many though!) but the Navi being a tarted up Expedition is actually a plus to me buying on the used end, probably means the many shared parts can be less $ and so far that's proven fairly true.

Anyway, enough about me as far as some of your questions go-

-FORUMS-This is the best one I've found and I've looked around quite a bit, there's another forum based first on the F150 and then the rest of the Ford/Merc/Linc trucks that looks good for F150, 250, etc owners and not bad for Expy/Navi so I'd say that's my #2 pick and the Lincoln only forums I've seen seem a lot better even for ?s on a Mark VII vs Navigator questions. The Lincoln only forums have the Navigator sub forums but it seems like these Ford truck focused forums are best choice to get good info to me, maybe because truck owners might be more likely to not just want to know what the problem is but even start wrenching away on it vs Lincoln car owners and at least there's room to get at things under the hood of a truck still, good luck on many cars these days! The Lincoln lovers ought to give the Navi at least some respect though as it probably kept Lincoln afloat for a while there and was reason Lincoln beat Cadillac in total sales at least one year, but I've found 99% of my answers mainly here and a few on that other Ford truck forum.

-AIR SUSPENSION-Yep, sure enough a few months after I bought mine, I noticed a few odd things with the air ride system (looked like orig OEM and it was) and it had 115k or so miles and truck lived in WI where I am for entire life (didn't see your location and can't tell from the pic) but apparently cold winters wreck a little extra havoc on the many rubber or syn rubber parts of the air ride system, I'm in SE corner of the state but still gets nice n cold here in winter, plus we salt our roads (salt the hell out of them some winters!) so that was no big shock when one day the front end was down and NOT going up! I saw so many posts saying "just swap the coils in" but I wanted to keep the air ride mainly for pulling trailer like I do fairly often, but after horsing around with that stupid system that they had those early 80s fake Seville/Lincoln Continentals bouncing on their front or rear ends back then and STILL can't figure out how to get it right, I got tired of fooling around with it and needed truck back for hauling stuff, so I joined the coil swap club (got the Monroe Quick Struts) and I'm fine with how it rides now. My trailer has max cap of 3000 lbs fully loaded (incl trailer) and very little rear end sag, so I'd say swap em now too, UNLESS you are able to access the OBD suspension module, which I was not able to although I think on here someone said they did and using same software I use called Forscan (free download, works great but even Forscan forum mod told me no air ride module access) so I quit trying but someone else said they were able to using Forscan and if so, that makes diagnosing a faulty air ride a hell of a lot easier and that MIGHT have made me stick with the air ride, not sure. Lots of parts to poss fail in there!

-PLUG ISSUE-I've of course got the 4v 5.4L and am having all 8 plugs/coils done in couple of weeks because I had ONE of them go bad few months ago, ran codes it was easy cylinder to reach, 2nd from front on driver side #7 maybe? Not sure but read you really should do all of them at once, but no way in hell would I try to get at the two on either side at the back, due to the chance of having the plug break off I believe is the issue, whatever it is I know IF that happens you just turned a rather rough running motor into a big repair and I've got a great garage to take it to, honest and very competent guy with clean shop, so having him do that!

-OTHER ISSUES FOR ME-I found that great shop after my AC went out, luckily it was the end of summer and I LOVE AC in cars! A friend who (thinks) he knows a lot said "well your compressors fine, looks like its spinning fine" but he was wrong and cpl weeks later the seized up pump devoured my serp belt! I was 3 blocks from home, had just left so made it back without motor even hot yet and took belt off after removing shroud and saw that pump WAS seized. I got the parts for it, new pump (aftermarket) $130, OEM idler pulleys, OEM tensioner, etc everything it said that needed to be replaced but had never done that kind of AC work and found this shop through friends and it was about $450 in labor with an oil change and cpl other minor things and maybe $300 total in parts via Amazon and back to running great and cold AC for winter in WI!

I've also got the "rear HVAC" clicking, that's normally the blend door and there's a million threads, you tube videos, etc on those and that looks like something anyone handy can DIY if they want to, I will be soon!

Otherwise, I've heard 1000x over to keep the oil changed on them (obviously with any car/truck you should but esp with the 4v motors, lots of moving parts!) and the 4R100 tranny's are supposed to be pretty stout units too. I think they have their share of electrical gremlins and see that Ford finally quit the 4 wheel air ride game a few years later, but that's an area that seems to be too much for many makes, that's why the $100K and up MB CL coupes are so cheap for resale, they've got an air ride system that to fix OEM makes the Navi system look like pocket change!

Good luck with yours and i like the color myself!

 

The elements within the seats are capable of generating both warm and cold air regardless of the climate control setting on the dash or the temperature in the cabin. I know, it's a bit of a mystery to me as well as to how the cooling is done. From my limited knowledge on the subject the elements can generate or dissipate heat, depending on how the electricity flow is controlled through them. The fan is just like the regular blower fan, it is used to push air across the elements and through the seat ducts.

 

Yea, I heard Lincoln has some sort of heat exchanger that helps.. gotta get the filters changed.

Better daylight picture

 

The air suspension on these trucks are not that reliable and costly to repair. The height sensors are common to fail at low miles (2 at the front and 1 at the rear) They are very expensive too at 300+ each. The aftermarket Dorman height sensors are cheap but not that reliable.

I also noticed that starting at 2004 the door ajar sensors where wired differently and uses a different design for the sensors where it's made of plastic that will not get stuck due to rust/corrosion.

The sliding boards are also not reliable and they tend to rust and aluminum support brackets tend to crack.



https://www.facebook.com/diyLincolnNavigator

 

Well so far the suspension appears to be working properly,so thats a releif for the time being..

 

Duplicate post - feel free to delete.

 

Hey Alloro! Not to argue with you, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying that the elements can do anything to actually help generate "cold" air. I could totally be wrong. But all I've noticed is that on a hot day, when the interior has not cooled down, you can't even feel the slightest bit of cool air when you turn the seats on high. The fan is moving air through the seat, but just warm (ambient, not hot) air, so you don't really feel it. However, once some cool air has circulated throughout the cabin and removed the heat the I certainly can feel the seats start to cool down.

I'll definitely agree that it has nothing to do with the temperature that you set the climate control too. It can be a very cold morning and the heat blasting, but if the interior hasn't warmed up yet I can definitely get cold air moving through the seats for some time. Once the cabin is toasty, the air is no longer cool. I'll have to look into these elements... I didn't know there was anything in the seats element-wise that provided cooling, I was certain that the cooling was just done via the fan circulating ambient air throughout the seats. Do you have any info on the elements, or have you seen any replacements? Maybe mine is just worn but I've heard people say these seats have never produced cool air while the cabin is hot since these trucks were new.

Looks pretty clean on the exterior!! Did you end up buying it???

 

Yep, we got it.

From the owner's manual
"In cool mode:
• Rotate the thumbwheel to select
the desired cooling level from 1
(MIN) to 5 (MAX). When setting 1 is selected, the seat(s) will provide
vent cooling only (same temperature as cabin air).
Allow five minutes for the temperature level to stabilize"

Since they say setting one is "vent cool only" certainly implies that the seats generate some sort of cooling.

Just found this on the MKX forum, and seems this idea is true for Navigator as well. What's interesting is they use this element for the heat too, as I'm used to heated seats just being resistive wire, and in my Chrysler 300 I had a few cars ago the seats were only "ventilated" where they drew air through the seats (pulled air away from your body).



"There is a thermo-electric device (TED) located within each front seat cushion and backrest.
◾The TED uses a ''Peltier'' circuit of P-type and N-type semiconductors connected in series using copper electrical conductors. Sandwiched between the semiconductors are insulating ceramic plates.
◾When current is applied to the TED, one side releases energy as heat, while the opposite side absorbs energy and gets cold.
◾By reversing the current flow, the hot and cold sides reverse.
◾The seat temperature is monitored and adjusted by a dual climate control module (DSCM).

Ford uses three different variations of these systems, so you will have to inspect the vehicle in order to identify its exact nomenclature.

During normal operation:
◾Cabin air is drawn through the seat fan motor and distributed to each of the TED modules located in the seat cushion and backrest.
◾The TEDs then heat or cool the air.
◾ The air is then directed into the foam pad surface.
◾Channels in the surface of the foam pad are used to distribute the air along the surface of the seat.
◾Once the system is activated, the DCSM controls the heating/cooling modes and the fan motor speed based on the control switch settings."

 

Congrats on the purchase!!

Good find on the info on the seat cooling. My apologies to Alloro

Maybe the TED is just so heat-soaked from the ambient heat during summer time that takes a while to cool, or maybe there's just something within that whole assembly on mine that's worn, but here's more detail on what I had noticed....

This past summer, on 90+ degree days especially, when the car had been sitting out in the an open parking lot soaking up the heat and the interior was really hot, the seats would not start actually blowing even remotely cool air for quite some time. I've only had the car since April, and this-past summer I noticed that the A/C was not blowing very cold, only about 50 degree coming out of the vents once I had been rolling down the highway for a while. Until I could break out of the 20-30 minutes of sitting in traffic, keeping the A/C set to MAX A/C and the fan blowing full speed, I would only see somewhere around 60 degrees coming out of the vents. Once I finally was able to start reaching highway speeds and the A/C was starting to blow cooler the seats were still not blowing cool air-- though the vents were finally starting to blow colder air the cabin was still heat-soaked. It would never been until I started getting cold air out of the vents at highway speeds that the seats would start to provide cool air, once the cabin started getting thoroughly cooler. Otherwise, I could sit in traffic for 2 hours, blowing 60 degrees of air out of the vents, not nearly enough to cool the cabin on a really hot day, and the seats will absolutely never blow cool air if I kept them on the coolest setting for the entire two hours.

I really relied on the cooled seats when traveling down the highway on those really hot days, because they were very supplementary to my poor-performing A/C system, so whenever I would approach slow or stopped traffic for 10+ minutes my A/C would start providing warmer air again (not warm, just not as cool as highway speeds) and the seats would lose their cool on even the coldest setting.

So at least in my experience, regardless of the technology used to cool these seats, the temperature while in "cooling" mode relied very heavily on the cabin temperatures to cool. If the cabin was hot or warm, the seats will never blow cool air, no matter how long you let it sit.

It kind of makes sense though, because if the material used for the conductors is heat-soaked and the ambient temperature is warm, the conductor coupled with a fan blowing air will certainly eventually blow cooler air as the conductor cools as much as it can with the ambient temperature, but that fan can blow cooler ambient temperature across the conductor the resulting air will never truly be cool.

It's too late to use the summer heat to test the theory, but maybe you can try to crank your front and rear heat full blast for a good 30+ minutes, let it really saturate the entire cabin, and then lower the heat to where it's still warm-ish but not hot, and put your seats on the coolest setting. See what happens. If you hop back in the truck 15 minutes later are the seats blowing cool air at all?? I'd be curious if you're seats work better than mine if you ever get a chance to try that.

 

I have installed a new A/C compressor, condenser, accumulator/dried, expansion valves (one for front a/c system, one for the rear a/c system), and new O-rings. Seems like I still have a leak somewhere in the system (though my blacklight flashlight is not exposing any leaking UV die in the front or rear A/C lines.... hopefully it's not the front evaporator leaking somewhere), but hopefully I can get that resolved and with a recharge of the system here soon I'll be set for summer. That way I'll be blowing much colder air into the cabin and get those seats cooling sooner too. This past summer was a struggle!

 

Have you changed the filters on the seats? That's on my to-do list. Also at this age the foam might have broken down causing poor performance.
New driver side foam is on my to-do list also, but now I just noticed a slight (and bizarre) coolant leak, so that's moved to the top of the to-do list now lol.

However just thinking logically your "condition" seems perfectly normal.. from the description they run air over a heating or cooling element and then through the foam up to your body... i.e. it provides "relative" cooling... Maybe it reduces the temp by say.. 10 degrees, so if you have 90 degree air, it could provide you 80 degree air... if you have 70 degree air, it can give you 60 degree air, etc.

Also, since it goes through the foam you have to have the element stabilize its temp, cool the air, then soak the foam in the "conditioned" air, etc.

I had noticed it seems like it takes the seats quite a while to heat up. I'm used to the resistive wire glued to the back-side of the leather that are basically instant.

 

No need, we're all here to help each other, learn from each other, or both.

 

Yeah, it almost sounds like your seats aren't doing the correct job of cooling. It's possible your elements or the control module is bad. It might be worth a trip to the dealer for a computer diagnosis so you know for sure and can fix what's wrong. It's also possible that with your A/C not cooling well that the seats are struggling in temperatures that are way to hot for them to compensate for. All I know is that even in the summer I have trouble running my seats all the way up on high because they get uncomfortably ice cold.