The people from Ford were nice enough to let us test drive a 2009 Lincoln MKS for several days. Now, we were hesitant at first, because cars aren't normally our thing here at Obsessable, but when they showed us all the cool tech that is crammed into this car, we thought we'd give it a whirl. As a car, the Lincoln MKS looks pretty slick. When we picked it up in Manhattan and spent that afternoon pretending we were a NY Taxi driver shooting around town, we noticed several heads turning to look at the MKS. Once while parked, a guy crossed the street nearby and shouted out to us, "Nice car!" The MKS handled well and was a comfortable ride, but that's about as in-depth as our review of the car as a car alone will be. The rest of this review focuses on the technology inside and outside the Lincoln MKS.

Keyless entry and push-button start

The first thing that you notice about the Lincoln MKS when you pick it up for a test drive and the guy hands you the keys to drive off in it is that the guy doesn't hand you any keys. You get a little keyless entry device (that actually has a key hidden in it), which must be in the car for the push button ignition to function. There's also a code that can be keyed into some numeric buttons that are hidden in a strip of black to the right of the driver's side window (called the Securicode Invisible Keypad). Touching in that black strips area lights up the numbers so that you can then key in the code. 

This feature is so invisible that I totally missed it when I had the car for review and only noticed it after I was reviewing all the documentation again after the fact. I remember seeing the code for the car, thinking that I would never be able to remember that in the four days I was test-driving the MKS, and then never spotting the actual keypad. Not using the keypad doesn't matter though, because you can unlock the car as you walk up using the keyless entry device, you can pop the actual key out of the device to open the door, or if you have the keyless entry device in your pocket and you attempt to open the door, the car recognizes it and unlocks for you. Holding down on the unlock button on the keyless dongle unlocks the car and then rolls down all the windows. Holding down on the lock button locks the door, rolls up all the windows, and closes the dual moonroof.

Once you are seated inside the car, you just have to put your foot on the brake pedal and push the ignition button to start the car.

Sensors, moving headlights, and cap-less tank

Both the front and rear bumpers on the Lincoln MKS are equipped with four sensors each, spaced across the width of the bumpers. These sensors detect if objects move too close to the car and you start hearing BEEP ... BEEP ... BEEP BEEP BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP more and more quickly as objects get closer to either bumper. This is great for parallel parking, but when driving around in NYC, it was a bit annoying when parked at a light. Plenty of pedestrians at the crosswalk would walk too close to the car, so I was treated to unnecessary and repeated beeping. 

In addition to these sensors, the headlamps actually move with the wheels when you are turning the car, which is very helpful and great for driving at night.

Also, the Lincoln MKS features a cap-less gas tank, so you don't have to worry about hanging it on the lid or screwing or unscrewing it when gassing up. 

If you ever have to fill the tank with a handheld gas tank, there is a special adapter in the trunk underneath the cover that goes over the spare tire.

Rearview camera

The Lincoln MKS also has a rearview camera that is positioned just above the license plate on the back of the car. Whenever you start to backup, the screen in the middle of the dashboard is replaced with a video of what's behind you complete with overlaid lines with markers indicating the width of the car with green, yellow, and red zones for distance. This feature takes a little getting used to for someone conditioned his/her entire life to use the rearview mirror and the two side-view mirrors religiously when going in reverse. However, with a little practice, it's a definite plus, helping you spot things close to the ground that you normally wouldn't see. It was invaluable for parallel parking down in SoHo in Manhattan.

Alongside all these other sensors and monitors on the outside of the car, the windshield wipers have an auto-setting so that they will detect moisture and start up when needed.

Steering wheel controls

The steering wheel has controls along the left side to control the cruise control, and controls along the right hand side to control the various media features of the Lincoln MKS. The cruise control is variable; this means that you set a target speed and thanks to sensors on the front of the car, the car will automatically slow down to keep a predefined distance between the Lincoln MKS and the car ahead of you.

The top set of controls on the right hand side of the steering wheel allow you to adjust the volume. The next set rewind/fast forward or skip from previous to next (this works with scanning radio stations as well as tracks on a CD or MP3s loaded in the car or available via one of your connected devices. The next set of controls activates the voice command features by toggling to the left or shifts through different types of media—AM radio, FM, radio, satellite radio, CD, and the media center connections to USB, the line-in jack, and over bluetooth—by clicking on the right. The bottom control on the right side activates the phone, but only allows you to redial the last number active.

Media Center, Sirius Travel Link, and Sync from Microsoft

The Lincoln MKS packs a powerful combination of features in its center console that is controllable either by the numerous physical controls, the touchscreen display, or via voice commands thanks to Sync by Microsoft integration. The center console also includes basic air conditioning controls. In addition to the ability to set separate temperatures for driver and passenger's air conditioning, the Lincoln MKS also features both heated and cooled seats.

All in all, the system includes a THX Surround Sound system, AM/FM radio, Sirius Satellite radio, Sirius Travel Link, GPS, a combination CD/DVD player, the ability to rip MP3 music or images to internal storage via a CD/DVD, media connection of USB and Bluetooth devices via Sync (a list of compatible devices can be found here), and media can be played via a line-in connection. Ports for USB connectivity, line-in stereo mini-plug, and a power adapter are to be found in the compartment in the armrest (pictured below).

Listening to music

The audio over the THX system sounds great (although we really wish it played the Deep Note as the system starts up). There are lots of nice touches here. As you're toggling through radio stations on Sirius Satellite radio (6 months are included free with the car, after that you must pay a subscription), the station's name is read aloud to you. 

In addition to the standard fair of radio stations and an integrated 6-CD changer for CD playback, you can also rip CDs to be added to the Linocln MKS's media library. Microsoft Sync compatible devices can connect via USB or Bluetooth for playback of audio files. Unfortunately, this does not include the iPhone, so although we were able to connect our iPhone via Bluetooth for the purposes of placing phone calls, the iPhone was not recognized for audio playback when connected by either Bluetooth or USB. However, the iPhone can still be connected via USB to charge in the car, and one could use the stereo-mini plug to playback audio from the iPhone via the headphone jack, so this is not a complete loss. It just means that iPhone owners won't be able to skip forward and back and control their media via voice commands, the controls built into the steering wheel, or the controls on the center console. 

We did plug an Apple iPod shuffle directly into the USB port and it worked flawlessly with the media playback via USB controls. We also tested with a regular USB flash drive, and again it worked fine, however, DRM-encoded tracks would not play via this method (they did playback via the iPod shuffle). We also connected an Amazon Kindle 2 to the car both via USB and via the stereo mini-plug. Via USB all non-DRM protected MP3 files played back fine and via the stereo mini-plug all of the Kindle's native playback features, including the text-to-speech came through crystal clear on the Lincoln MKS's THX surround sound. This was great for having the Wall Street Journal read aloud to you while driving.

The one thing that was a bit disappointing about the media center's audio capabilities was its dependence upon CD/DVDs for adding MP3 files to the car's library. We would much prefer to simply suck our MP3 files off of a USB hard drive or whatever media we have on hand that plugs into the MKS.

Watching DVDs

The DVD playback feature, while nice, is somewhat limited. Playback only works when you are in park. As soon as one begins driving somewhere, the DVD playback turns off and is disabled. This is good for the safety of the driver, but simultaneously renders the feature useless for anyone sitting in the passenger seat, or kids leaning forward from the backseat while on a road trip. Although the DVD playback worked well, we're not sure how many people will just sit in their car simply to watch a DVD when they most likely have a better set up in their house. Also, the touchscreen display, although very clear is also a complete fingerprint magnet (as can be seen in several of the pictures accompanying this post).

Placing calls

The integration with cellphones over Bluetooth works wonderfully in the Lincoln MKS. Pairing our iPhone with the Lincoln MKS was a simple matter of putting our phone in discovery mode and then keying in some quick numbers on the phone to complete the pairing. Once this was complete, our phone's full address book and call history was immediately available via the touchscreen display in the control center. We placed multiple phone calls via the connection and everyone came through loud and clear and reported that we came through clearly without sounding like we were on a speaker phone. Also, if you are on a call as you walk to the car, the MKS automatically senses the paired phone nearby, connects to it and keeps it in private mode, so that you can say, hold on a sec, and then hit the privacy mode button to fully transfer the call off of the handset and to the car. This also works in the reverse, and is a great little feature.

Again, the one problem with the integrated phone features is that the touchscreen dial and on screen controls are all disabled once the car starts moving, again for safety reasons, but again at a disadvantage to anyone in the passenger seat who could dial. Fortunately this is mitigated by the voice controls via Sync for Microsoft, which we discuss below.

Viewing images

This feature, like the DVD feature, seems a bit misplaced. You can load a bunch of pictures onto the car's internal memory, but you can only do so via a CD/DVD and there is no way to copy the files back off. If this were all doable via a USB connection and the transfer worked both ways, we could see photographers using this to preview their shots taken on their digital cameras on a road trip, but it doesn't really make sense as a feature in its current incarnation.

Using the navigation system

The navigation system is great displayed as an always-on map on the touchscreen display. It was wonderful for navigating the streets in downtown Manhattan. Whenever the GPS connection was lost, the map still managed to keep up with my turns until the GPS reconnected. You can conduct searches for particular types of businesses and have various locations displayed for you. Entering actual addresses and routing locations on the device isn't as intuitive as on a normal GPS, and again, the system is somewhat crippled by its safety features which turn off navigation entry while the car is moving. Again, this is somewhat mitigated by the voice controls. Searching for locations nearby works easy enough, but entering in a address proved difficult, because the system seems to anticipate the address based on addresses it has access to, and as a result sometimes you'll find certain keys on the on-screen keyboard grayed out so you cannot enter them. If addresses are already saved as locations, or if you are selecting from a list of previously saved locations, however, it works great.

Voice control

The Sync by Microsoft voice commands are pretty cool, although very multi-step in their process. You press the voice button on the steering wheel and the machine plays a noise to indicate that you pushed the button, the display changes to say that it is awaiting a command, and then another beep plays to indicate you should speak. Basic commands are understood clearly, as long as one doesn't impatiently jump the gun and begin saying the commands before that all important beep.

You normally have to say a basic command first beyond progressing to a more detailed command. For example, instead of simply saying "Call John," you have to hit the button and then say "Phone" and then say "Call John." While testing, I kept trying to call my wife by saying "Call Kristin Sample." This never brought up her name as an option. Instead it listed Jason Krute, Ted Xidas, and Ken Sample, my father. So I called my dad multiple times.

This was frustrating to say the least, but the address book was the only area where I had any problems with the voice control. I could say "Phone" and then say "Dial" and then speak the number aloud and it worked without a hitch.

Overall Performance

The Lincoln MKS test drive went well for us with the only real frustration being the inability for the voice command functions to properly recognize names called out from the address book. We liked the way the car handled as a car, and enjoyed the multiple features of the car.

What's missing?

A low price tag and good gas mileage. The Lincoln MKS in the configuration we drove is chock full of bells and whistles, it handles well, and is a nice car that my wife now wants me to buy for her even though it only gets 23MPG on the highway, and 16MPG in the city, and lists for just under $48,000. Sure, the base price for the car sans the majority of the bells and whistles covered in this review is just under $40,000, but she wants the bells.

What we'd like to see in future versions

A passenger mode for many of the features that disable themselves while the car is moving would be great. The Lincoln MKS already senses when there is a passenger present, activating the passenger side airbag, and setting off an unfastened seatbelt warning after a few minutes if a seated passenger isn't buckled up, so it wouldn't be too difficult to have a passenger mode option that would activate the controls for the DVD and other features if the passenger is there and if he or she keys in something to activate it. Also, the ability to move MP3s and other media files directly to and from the media library in the car via USB would be good.

Obsessable rating: 8 out of 10