2003 Mercury Marauder #2- 2006 - The Last Straw
I am willing to bet you are wondering why this page starts off with an image
like the one above... easy: it's the straw that broke the camel's back. The camel?
Me.
One thing I had noticed almost days after picking up the new car was how the
bass sounded much weaker than I was expecting. Sure enough, a quick diagnostic check
showed the factory subwoofer was not functional. Luckily, at that point I still had
the other Marauder so I was able to narrow down the problem to a voltage issue. It
suddenly dawned on me that there was a ground problem on that line, and parsing through
the factory shop manual I isolated the problem wire. However, finding the actual wire
was an adventure, as shown above, since a ground point was completely missed!
After many frustrating hours of hunting for a missing wire, it was finally
found: taped (!) to a harness, hidden behind a structural item. Never ever attached
at the factory! Incredible! For the long-time visitor here, you'll remember a similar
loose ground on the first Marauder dangling in the trunk area (not the same circuit as
this one) so at least they were kind enough to neatly hide the dangling wire this time
around. Again, thanks a lot, the awesome boys and girls at St.Thomas Assembly Plant!
Once I piggybacked this ground on another ground point, the subwoofer worked fine.
Right from the moment the car was purchased, I noted the handling was weird.
Shortly after the purchase, I decided to rekindle my relationship with my original Ford
dealership, after having emitted some fairly harsh words over having been stranded due
to the monkey who could not manage to tighten the battery terminals properly on my other
Marauder, thereby stranding my family and I in a bad rainstorm close to 2 hours away from
home. However, I hoped to be able to start fresh with this "new" car by having the
alignment verified and a few small things addressed.
One issue was the overhead lamp lens constantly falling on my youngest son's head.
A related issue was a knocking sound from the rear area on bumps, which I had trouble
differentiating from a knocking sound from above the headliner. The result: the headliner
on these cars is secured by 5 or so adhesive strips (!) and on this car, they neglected to
place adhesive on three of these complete cross-car strips and partially on a fourth.
Score another one for the hard-working in-breeds at the St.Thomas Assembly Plant in
Ontario. Ironically, I got my car back without the overhead lamp issue being properly
fixed. More on that later (starting to sound familiar?)...
Regular visitors here may recognize the above photo... it's the same
harness that ended up shorting my PCM on the other Marauder, barely a month into ownership
while away on a road trip with my family. Guess what: this car has it too. No biggie, since
we managed to catch it before a problem happened? Wrong: the one and only DECENT technician
at my Ford dealership decided he'd had enough with working on crap products, and left the
mechanics trade altogether! Wow. There goes my last hope. So obviously I got the car back
with absolutely nothing having been done to address this problem, to prevent me from
being stranded once again someday.
Oh, and the handling complaint... nothing wrong. Oh well. However after months of my
own research, I'm told by someone over the internet that both my rear shocks have
leaked badly. Ironic that someone can spot this by looking at a photo over the Internet,
but a technician standing RIGHT THERE BESIDE THE FREAKING SHOCK ABSORBER cannot tell the
same thing. Having had enough, I tried my hand at a local Ford dealer much closer to my
home... indeed they spotted the leaked shocks and replaced both rear units, but failed to
be able to address a squeak/groan/rattle from the front end (more on that later).
No idea if they're the same thing, but at least the
handling improved. I still maintained the front units were weak as well... even a
back to back comparison with my other double-the-mileage Marauder failed to convince
them: unless they're leaking like Niagara Falls, they're considered okay. All this with
an extra dose of attitude from the old fart who worked on the car, too! I guess he was
only familiar with the Grand Marquis type of handling.
Look familiar? Coming back from vacation, I spotted these stains on my driveway.
Uh oh. However, these aren't from the exhaust system: have a look at my nice brake rotors
and the staining they're doing to the insides of my wheels! What kind of metal are these
things made from anyway? Can't Ford find out what other car manufacturers use to make
their brakes?
Ford and rust... a marriage to last for all time!
What about that front suspension rattle and squeak? Not from the suspension at all!
Raising the hood bumpers stopped the hood from flapping loosely in the latch! Sure
enough, the passenger's side hood bumper is loose and refuses to keep its height for any
longer than a week or so. Interesting how both my cars exhibited the same problem with the
exact same bumper, since the driver's side ones were always nice and tight!
But the squeak... oh my dear Lord! It got SO MUCH worse once I raised the hood bumpers.
I recognized the squeak/groan right away: the hood latch! No one (and I mean NO ONE) was able
to determine the source of that infernal noise on my 1st Marauder and I had resorted to weekly
greasings of the latch mechanism using heavy suspension grease. And now here it was again on
this car as well.
On this car one can clearly see the friction points on the hood-mounted loop. However,
in a stroke of good luck, someone on the Internet noticed that these cars are not shipped with
hood "isolators". Chances are if you own a car from a maker other than Ford, you will have
rubber isolators on the fender edges designed to keep the hood from travelling side-to-side
as the vehicle moves. Interestingly enough, the Marauders are isolator-less. The Town Cars,
built on the same chassis, are equipped with such units so $20 later and a hood latch adjustment,
things are relatively quiet.
-18 C... brrr! That's pretty cold. Doesn't happen extremely often, but up here you
have to be prepared for the occasional cool morning. Imagine having no way of warming the
interior of the car on a morning like this. Well, welcome to Ford quality. Analysis of
service records on a few Marauders showed heater-A/C blower replacements being fairly
common, and sure enough one weekend the fan began operating intermittently.
The connector INSIDE the blower motor appeared to be flaking out. By the time
the car was dropped off at the dealer for repairs, it took some serious tugging at the
fan motor by the connector in order to get it to work. At the time of this writing,
the car has been down for over a week, waiting for a shipment from the warehouse in the
US, as there is NO STOCK in Canada. This from a large company like Ford? Times certainly
ARE tough for that maker.
Of course, it doesn't stop there: the power door locks had freaked out one
evening on the way home earlier in the year. Now the remote opener/starter completely
ceased to work while at the dealer! This isn't a Ford piece, as far as I can tell. I'm
including this here as a reminder to avoid this unit in the future, should I ever spot
such an item.
But I saved the absolute best for last: after a few days of rain, I went to
remove the winter mats from the rear passenger area. This is what I saw...
That's a pretty fair accumulation of water.
Not just one straw, but a serious of really small sharp ones that are
simply too much to accept from such a low mileage vehicle. We've discussed this at
great lengths, my wife and I, and it's a done deal: the car is history once it's back
from the current repair visit (whenever that ends up being).
We haven't exactly ironed out what we're looking to replace this car with.
Initially, the new Dodge Magnum seemed like a practical choice... then we considered
an older Volvo sedan like an S80 (yes, there is a Ford link there, scary enough)... or
maybe a recent Acura SUV... or how about a new Charger R/T?
Whatever we decide, we've learned our lesson... my dad was right:
