Vehicle
Mercury Mountaineer
A Ford Explorer with a different front end, and the body-on-frame generations share the Explorer's whole history including its rear suspension and transfer-case behaviour. The 4.0 SOHC V6 is the engine most of them have, and its timing chain guides and cassette-driven rear chain are the platform's defining fault — a rattle on a cold start is worth more than the code it eventually sets.
Generations
-
First generation 1997–2001
An Explorer with different trim; the 4.0 SOHC's rear timing chain guides are its expensive failure too.
- Body styles
- SUV
- Platform
- Ford UN46
- Engines
-
- 4.0 V6 — COLOGNE · petrol · 153 kW (205 hp) · Cologne SOHC
- 5.0 V8 — WINDSOR · petrol · 160 kW (215 hp) · Windsor
- Transmissions
- 4-speed automatic · 5-speed automatic
- Drivetrain
- Rear-wheel drive · Four-wheel drive
-
Second generation 2002–2005
An Explorer under the badge; the 4.0 SOHC's rear timing chain cassette is the fault a cold-start rattle is announcing.
- Body styles
- SUV
- Platform
- Ford U1
- Engines
-
- 4.0 SOHC V6 — COLOGNE · petrol · 157 kW (211 hp)
- 4.6 modular V8 — petrol
- Transmissions
- 5-speed automatic
- Drivetrain
- Rear-wheel drive · Four-wheel drive
-
Third generation 2006–2010
The later Explorer platform with a six-speed automatic on the V8; the V6's timing chain history carries over unchanged.
- Body styles
- SUV
- Platform
- Ford U1
- Engines
-
- 4.0 SOHC V6 — COLOGNE · petrol
- 4.6 modular V8 — petrol · 218 kW (292 hp)
- Transmissions
- 5-speed 5R55S automatic · 6-speed 6R automatic
- Drivetrain
- Rear-wheel drive · Four-wheel drive
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Posted about the Mercury Mountaineer
Be the first to write this up
Nothing posted about this yet. Whatever you found is worth writing down — even a dead end saves someone the same afternoon.
What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
Sign in or create an account to add what you found about Mercury Mountaineer.