Anything I should check out?
2004 XLS AWD
170K

 

Find out when the timing belt was changed.If it breaks your engine will be toast.Other than that,give everything a good look.At 170k hard to know what has been done and what has not.

 

I just bought an '04 with 160K recently, Trans oil looked good but I still did a drain and fill. However, gear oil for the AWD was good in the trans case was almost nonexistent in the rear diff.

There were 4 recalls on it:
SR-11-001 for the fuel filler pipe
SR-08-003 for the shift interlock
SR-05-001REV for the parking brake cable lock nuts
SR-04-009 for the propeller shaft bolts
You can call your local dealer with your VIN and they can tell you if any of these have been done. They will also probably do their X point safety inspection and hopefully not lie to you. My 1st dealer told me my gas tank was leaking and wanted to sell me a $1500 replacement and did not replace my fuel filler tube even though it looked exactly like the pics in the recall service bulletin. Also did not do the parking brake nuts. And told me I had a rear shackle broken, even though the car does not have leaf springs with a shackle, and they did not mistakenly mean the sway bar links, as neither were broken, so I don't know what they were referring to except fpr spme nonexistent repair they wanted to bill me for.

Also, there was a mid year revision in '04. Went from 215 to 225HP, daytime running lights added, couple of other things. Important as some parts changed such as the water pump on original version has no back housing (if you are doing timing belt, you should also change this). So look on the plate inside your driver's side door jamb. If your prod. date is 9/30 or earlier, you have the original version (and you won't have daytime running lights if the post I learned that from is correct). As mine is the original version, I don't have them.