2004 Mercury Mountaineer

The 2004 Mercury Mountaineer generated 210 complaints, 1 recall, 3 investigations, and 103 TSBs, exceeding the 2003 figures of 152 complaints, 1 recall, and 2 investigations while falling well short of the 2002 peak of 390 complaints and 5 investigations. Across the generation, federal filings show an early cycle of high activity from 1997 through 2000, a sharp spike in 2002, and a subsequent general downward trajectory; 2004 interrupts that decline with a rebound in complaints before volumes drop to 82 in 2005 and largely remain lower through 2010. In this arc, 2004 sits as a mid-generation outlier with elevated owner reports relative to its immediate neighbors, though it shares their low recall count of just one campaign. The top 2004 complaint areas were Structure with 65 filings and Power Train with 48, with 11 crash-related and 2 fire-related complaints recorded, but the data does not specify root causes. For a buyer, this makes 2004 a moderate-risk choice—better than the 2002 model with its generation-high complaint volume but notably weaker than the lower-complaint 2005 and later years—suggesting a later model year would be the safer purchase.