Right rear coil spring failure. A 5 inch long piece of coil spring was found under the vehicle on the driveway. Inspection confirmed the spring had failed. The vehicle has no crash or damage history. The broken piece of spring was corroded at both ends , indicating it was cracked for a significant amount of time before the total failure. Online research indicates this may be an endemic problem with this vehicle.
Mercury Mountaineer coil spring problems
17 of the 1,992 owner complaints about the Mercury Mountaineer describe broken coil spring, most of them for the 2002 model year.
- owner complaints
- 17
- worst model year
- 2002
- typical mileage
- 87,000
Is there a fix? There is 1 recall for this area of the car. See below
By model year
- 20033
- 200213
- 19971
Often reported together
What owners say
2002 mercury mountaineer awd v8 - approximately january and may 2009 both rear hub bearings went bad at 87,000 and 90,000 miles , both sets of emergency brake shoes were disintegrated when taken off . Rear coil springs are broken . Front differential box has leaked for some time now . Rear end axle seal has been leaking for some time now . Going on 4th set of brakes on front . June 2010 at 109,000 miles transmission finally went out - after acting up from time of purchase at 37,000 miles - it would slip when put in drive at first morning startup and would jerk erratically at low speeds - we have never pulled anything with vehicle .
Rear coil spring failure - completely broken in two poses a major safety problem.
On cold mornings, the front windshield fogs/frosts up. Turning heat on and selecting defrost provides little to no air to windshield. Dealership identified it as a broken vent select door, requiring dashboard to be removed and part replaced, $1100 fix. In doing research on the vent select door - cars are designed that if the selector breaks that the air should default to the front defrost so that windshield would not fog/frost and cause a life threatening situation. Multiple times this has occurred while driving, all along believing that the fogging up was due to snow build up on outside vents. The fact that the vent broke and did not push air to the windshield is why I'm logging this complaint as it could have resulted in a life threatening situation. In reading the other entries, noting that I've had to have the rear coil springs replaced and had back liftgate replaced after cracking.
Tl* the contact owns a 2002 mercury mountaineer. The contact stated that during routine inspection, a technician concluded that the two rear coil springs have fractured without any prior warnings. He then added that the failure was common for this model type. He is in the process of having the vehicle repaired at an expense of $600.00. The manufacturer was notified, but no assistance was provided. The failure and current mileages were 80,000. Updated 10/26/09. *lj updated 10/26/09
Failure of rear coil spring on 2002 mercury mountaineer.
Both rear coil springs were broken. Both had been weakened due to corrosion before they broke. This is a widely-known issue with this vehicle and I had been checking for this problem every couple months. I last checked in december of 2008 and neither spring was broken through and neither showed external corrosion at the time, but they must have been very deteriorated even then. My point is that a visual inspection with the wheels off did not reveal the problem before the springs broke. One of the broken springs has a split along the length of the spring wire several inches long and a complete failure roughly perpendicular to the wire. The other does not have the split; it is just broken in shear perpendicular to the wire.
While driving my 2002 mercury mountaineer I hit a bump on a small bridge and my rear drivers side coilspring snapped in half. Oddly about ten days later I was following a mountaineer that hit a dip in the road and the same coilspring broke. I do not know the year of that mountaineer though. To repair the coilspring is extremely expensive because it is dealer only 300.00 for the part and 135.00 to install it.
When replacing wheel bearings (another infamous ford defect on these vehicles), noticed both rear coil springs broken in multiple places at top of spring, where coils dug into each other and created a stress riser. This can eventually cause a loss of vehicle control.
Rear coil springs on mercury mountaineer, 2003 just broke in to two pieces.
Related recalls
Suspension
- What is wrong
- Vehicle description: sport utility vehicles. Under certain conditions, a front sway bar link can fracture.
- Risk
- Vehicle handling could be affected, increasing the risk of a crash.
- Remedy
- Dealers will replace both the left and right front sway bar links.
Recall number 00V402000 · Recall details
Questions about the Mercury Mountaineer coil spring
Which Mercury Mountaineer years have broken coil spring problems?
The model years with the most reports are 2002 (13 complaints), 2003 (3 complaints) and 1997 (1 complaints).
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