Body issues make up roughly 12% of all Mercury owner complaints. The majority of the issues have been reported by Mountaineer owners.
The complaint we hear about most often is cracked rear panel in the 2004 Mountaineer.
Own a 2002–2005 Mountaineer? Chances are your lift-gate is cracked. Complaints about cracked rear panels in that generation of Ford SUV’s including the Mountaineer, Lincoln Aviator, and Ford Explorer is one of the most commonly issues repor…
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Sometimes it helps just to tally up the complaints and see where the biggest stacks are. Use this information to learn about troublespots or to run for the hills.
Cracked rear panels might seem like a cosmetic issue but owners know there's more than meets the eye. The split panels let water seep in and corrode underlying components. The inevitable rust and swelling can damage the rear wiper motor and lead to shattered rear windows. It's a mess that Ford should try to clean up, not just sweep under the rug with semantics in court but that's exactly what they're doing with a new class-action lawsuit.
The affected SUVs named in a new cracked tailgate lawsuit are the 2002-2005 Ford Explorer, 2002-2005 Mercury Mountaineer and the 2003-2005 Lincoln Aviator. The lawsuit alleges that even though Ford sold millions of those SUVs, consumers might not have purchased the SUVs if the defect had been known.