2003 Mercury Marauder - Summer 2003
By the end of May, I thought I had endured the last of any glitches with this first Ford product of mine... I was wrong. During the summer, some more headaches popped up to annoy me, among them:
- Driver's seat squeaking noise, from the seat tracks: replaced seat tracks.
- Squeaking hood latch assembly, lubricated latch with grease.
- Discovered the oil pressure gage was a fake ON-OFF type of indicator!
- Creaking noises from the front suspension.
- Popping noises from the passenger rear side of the car on uneven pavement.
- Realized the DRLs are on constantly, not only when parking brake is release.
- Found out the headlights click on with windshield wiper activity.
- Brake lights intermittently flaky.
- Ticking from inside the driver's side of the engine (more on that LATER!)
Most of these were corrected in a timely fashion by my dealer, while others took some more investigation. Nonetheless, I put as much mileage as I could on the car, hoping to shake down as many problems with the car, lest I end up with a lemon!
As mentioned in the 'tint' section, the only appearance mod I've ever done to any of my cars worked out tremendously well. The car had a totally different personality, one that was offsetting the frustrating little glitches that were driving me nuts now and again.
In an attempt to gage the health of my new car, I decided to verify its acceleration capabilities at our local track. I had given it what I thought was sufficient break-in mileage, and I wanted to establish just what kind of performance hit I was taking with such a ticking engine. The results were quite acceptable for a 4300 lb 4 door sedan, with photographic equipment and a full tank of fuel... 15.096 @ 94.94 mph. Very acceptable indeed, as I was expecting no better than a mid 15 second quarter mile time based on internet information.
There was also the occasion or two where I took the car to local cruises, just to show off. Not many people recognized the car, something I'm familiar with as I always tend to buy cars that are not hot-sellers. Most thought it was a decommissioned police car, of all things, or simply a modified Mercury Grand Marquis.
