Lincoln (Ford) invited me into the lap of luxury for a week with the redesigned 2018 Lincoln Navigator Black Label. Boyz II Men said it best – it’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday. I’m going to miss driving this sporty beast with a V-6 cranking 450 horsepower and 510 lb-ft of torque, the same engine you’ll find in Ford’s fire-breathing Raptor. This near three-ton blue chrome ship will spank most cars on the road with your family in the back waving through the tinted windows.

Interior

After living in our home nearly three years I got a leather recliner. It’s one of the joys of my life. My wife loves taking pictures of me laying in it and she doesn’t understand my fascination. I’d throw this chair into a dumpster fire if I could unbolt the 30-way front seats of the Navigator and have those instead. Those seats take the old “captain’s chairs” moniker to a whole new level by providing the opportunity to adjust the headrest, upper back, lower back, extended leg support, lumbar and flank support both at the thighs, with a back massage thrown in to really mix it up. I’ve never experienced more customizable seats than this. The one feature not mentioned in the seats, but most exciting for me? Air conditioning. When you leave work in the summer afternoon and the asphalt is punishing you on the walk through the parking lot, the air conditioned seats deliver a respite that cannot be achieved by mere a/c set to max alone. (Lincoln, please make air conditioned leather recliners.)

You can also select the left or right side or both sides from either row. Once both rows of seats are folded down, you can pack anything you want inside the cab – it’s bigger than the storage unit you swear you’re going to clean out.

Technology

Remember when you bought your car, they gave you an instruction manual and you ignored it because you’re grown and you know how to figure things out? This Navigator has so much technology that if I had the time and owned the vehicle, I’d likely read the manual because the number of menus, buttons, knobs and features available will make your head spin. Ford/Lincoln’s SYNC is part of the package delivering both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, depending upon your life choices. There are high speed USB outlets everywhere, wireless charging in the center console (works with the iPhone X), interior lighting color options to suit your mood and more. The menu and navigation information is pumped through an Apple iPad Pro-sized 12″ screen. The people in the third row and in outer space (through the pano sunroof) can see what’s going on. It’s that big. Traditional gauges are also a thing of the past with a fully digital display. The display minimizes what’s not important, so you’ll find the digital needle pointing to your speed and RPMs and the surrounding numbers are fading away like Marty McFly in good ol’ 1955 at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

Lincoln helps keep you properly on the road with a ton of safety features. The Navigator has cameras all over it so you get a simulated overhead view when you’re backing up, a fantastic rearview camera, sensors abound, a heads-up display showing that the lane keeping assistant is active, speed, cruise control information and also speed limits. I found speed limit information wasn’t always accurate, so instead of reading signs like some vehicles, it must be pulling the information from a database. If I had the vehicle permanently, I’d have read the manual to find out how to provide feedback for speed limits to update the databasae.

Lincoln also took the audio in the Navigator seriously. Packed with 20 speakers, the Revel audio system will knock your socks off. There will be socks everywhere and you’ll likely lose one, like you do in the dryer. Revel is part of the Harman brand, which is part of Samsung after they dropped $8 billion on them. Harman has been producing killer audio hardware for years and with the acquisition by Samsung, it will continue for many years to come. The sound insulation from the road is excellent in the Navigator, leaving your favorite tracks sounding amazing.

Styling

Hands down, this is the finest looking Navigator yet. Lincoln designers crafted the grille with a fine polish to make it look particularly expensive. The Black Label version of this Navigator smells like a high-end leather shop, with most surfaces covered in proper hide. The trim pieces inside are done in a tasteful and expensive-feeling whitewashed wood, to go with the yacht theme. The 22″ wheels, while lovely and understated, still provide a supple but sporty ride. You’ll find LED lights all over the vehicle for bright, instant-on illumination, as well as tasteful puddle lights that shine out of the door handles.

Performance

This beautiful school bus moves! The Raptor-borrowed engine, tuned for Lincoln, has a V6 rasp at idle, but turn the dial to Excite mode, stomp on the gas and tell the fam to hold on because you’re about to show the streets who’s boss. Lincoln has body roll control to keep you upright and feeling confident in the process even when you need to take a curve a little faster to get the kids to swim practice on time. The Navigator can be as much fun to drive as you want it to be. Otherwise, put it in Eco mode and just cruise the block like you should be doing anyway. All the neighbors will stare, nod approvingly and give you two thumbs up.

Disclosure: Lincoln provided this vehicle for testing for a week with full tank of gas for my enjoyment. The wife felt fancy in it, too.

If you’ve ever wanted to sell an item but you didn’t know how to price it on ebay, this blog post will help you determine the going rate on ebay. We will need to assume that your product is not a one-of-a-kind collector’s item. For this example, we’ll use a Zeiss Batis 25mm lens for a Sony camera.

Step 1: Determine the condition of your item. Does it have any scratches, scuffs or damage that could reduce the value of the item? Do you still have the original box and instruction manual and all the accessories? People tend to believe that items have more value if you have the original box and accessories, except for my wife, who is sick of closets overflowing with them.

Step 2: Search for this item on ebay to see if others are selling your exact item right now. If you see a Buy It Now for an item that is identical to your item, with the similar wear, packaging and details, it will be difficult to sell your item at a higher price. If you like the price you see, try to undercut your competitor by a few bucks, choose to accept a Best Offer or provide a faster shipping experience. If you have no competitive edge over the existing competition and you don’t like the price, wait for the existing listing to end and then list your item.

Step 3: If you search for your item and there are no competitors selling the same product or others have listed an auction-style listing with the same product and you’re ready to list today, you can also select an auction-style listing and the high bidder wins or this research will help you determine a Buy It Now price. Once you’ve searched, you need to see what prior items have sold for on ebay.

On mobile: search for your item, select “Filter” then choose “Sold Items.”

On desktop: search for your item, scroll down, then choose “Sold Items” on the left menu.

Step 4: Now that you know what an item sold for on ebay, you still want to know how much money you are going to make after the ebay, PayPal, and shipping fees. Shipping fees will be the most variable, so try to figure those out or ball park them by checking FedEx, USPS or UPS. Order some boxes from the carriers for free if you plan to sell a lot. I like to use finalfeecalc.com to see what I’m going to get in the end and see if it’s worth it for me to sell the item on ebay. If I see the average sale price of the Zeiss Batis 25mm is $900, I can enter that into finalfeecalc.com. Then I’ll guess that shipping is going to cost me around $25. If I provide free shipping for the item, finalfeecalc.com tells me ebay gets $90, PayPal takes $26.40 and I end up with $758.60.

Step 5: We now have a clear picture that the lens will net me $758.60 on ebay. Not bad. How do I price it locally? Remember, Craigslist, Facebook Market and Nextdoor don’t take a cut if you sell an item locally (at least at the time this post was written). Now you know that anyone looking to buy this item on ebay will also likely see that the lens is worth about $900, but you know you’ll get $758.60, leaving a split of $141.40. Any price you choose to sell it locally is both a windfall for you and for the buyer. You’ll make more money if you sell it for $800 locally, for example, and your buyer saves $100.

In the end, I typically will list an item for the higher price on ebay and a lower price locally. Good luck!

Enjoy the entire set:

Enjoy the entire set:

Enjoy the entire set: