Consumer Complaint Detail

MERCURY / MOUNTAINEER / 1998

Recalls
0 Injured
Investigations
0 Death
Complaints
No Fire
Components - Details
NHTSA Complaint Number: 007104799 Incident Date: Apr, 20 2007
Consumer's City: ONSTED Consumer's State: MI
Vehicle Transmission Type: AUTO Manufacturers Name: Ford Motor Company
Model Name: MOUNTAINEER Model Year: 1998
Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No Component's Description: Electrical system
Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No Persons Injured: 0
Vehicle's VIN#: 4M2ZU55P1WU Date added to File: May, 23 2021
Date Complaint Received: May, 05 2007 Complaint Type: IVOQ
Incident Reported To Police: No Purchase Date: Oct, 19 2005
Was Original Owner: No Anti-lock Brakes: Yes
Number of Cylinders: 8 Date of Manufacturer: -
Was Vehicle Towed: - Description of the Complaints: Being the space is limited, i have the same problem with my car as follows: my check engine light has been coming on. i have had various shops use their computer to find out why the light was on and have paid for cleaning valves, sensors, and hoses as well as having new sensors installed. the first instance occurred at 90,000 mileage on my vehicle. today, the shop where i now take my vehicle for servicing used their computer to see why the check engine light was on yet again and it generated a tsb from ford, article 04-7-5 which supersedes article tsb 03-25-1. this article states the issue as "some 1998 explorer/mountaineer vehicles equipped with the 5.0l engine may exhibit a malfunction indicator lamp (mil) on with diagnostic trouble code(s) p0420 (catalyst system efficiency below threshold-bank 1) and/or p0430 (catalyst system efficiency below threshold - bank 2). the action listed for correction of this problem is stated as "to service, reprogram the powertrain control module (pcm) to the latest calibration using wds release b28.3 or higher. replacement of catalyst's is no longer necessary to address the most common causes of this condition." this sounds like a problem ford installed on these 1998 mountaineers and i believe ford should bear the cost of reprogramming the computer in the vehicle for the vehicle to function properly and safely. the worker at the shop took the time to explain to me what this article meant and the possible ramifications to the functioning of my vehicle because of the problem caused by ford not having the correct computer program running in the vehicle. my mechanic is telling me that this vehicle has 3 catalytic converters and will cost about $3000 for the parts alone. because of this problem my vehicle will not pass emissions or inspection. i went 1 year with this problem and now it is back again. *jb