2002 Mercury Mountaineer Review

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Review:

You know and I know that the image Mercury wanted to conjure by giving the name Mountaineer to its sport-utility vehicle several years ago had everything to do with suggestions of "ascendancy," "superiority," "derring-do." From the outset, Mercury Mountaineer has been promoted as the upscale sport-ute for upscale folks whose chief transportation requirement is upward mobility.

I am no mountaineer myself, but I suspect everyone engaged in scaling steep rocks expects to fall now and again. Dragged down by its belay-partner--its nearly identical twin Ford Explorer--Mercury's Mountaineer has indeed taken a tumble since last year's Firestone tire/rollover debacle engulfed both vehicles in a public relations inferno. To make matters worse, the economy has slowed just as the next generation 2002 Explorers and Mountaineers are hitting showrooms this spring. Demand for any vehicle almost always softens just before it's about to be replaced with a significantly revised version.

But can that tendency account for all of Mountaineer's discouraging slide in sales? According to Automotive News, Mercury sold 40 percent fewer Mountaineers in the first quarter of this year compared with the first quarter of 2000. (Explorer sales are likewise down about 25 percent.) In these circumstances, last week's recall of 56,000 Mountaineers and Explorers to repair brackets that might shatter the rear "liftglass" hatch is fully consistent with that other notorious hazard of mountaineering, the avalanche.