Review: Mercury Mountaineer

2002 Mercury Mountaineer
Base price: $30,610
Price as tested $36,005
EPA mileage: 14 city/19 highway

By Des Toups

Pity poor Mercury, bringing the best-ever traditional sport-utility to
market just as the market is moving elsewhere. The new-for-2002 Mountaineer
is handsome, roomy, well-mannered and powerful, but it may be a trucky
anachronism to buyers who've decided the future lies in car-based SUVs.

Their misfortune.

The new Mountaineer and its more conservative Ford twin, the Explorer, are
light years ahead of their rumbly, crude ancestors. An independent rear
suspension -- a pothole affects one wheel rather than both -- is
certainly the biggest improvement, offering carlike control and making room
for a third row of seats. But that's far from all.

Pay closer attention to the details rather than genetics, and the
Mountaineer/Explorer stands out. Take, for example, a turning circle that's
a foot tighter than before -- and five feet tighter than that of the
smaller Lexus RX300. Add that to the Mountaineer's rear parking assist (it
beeps faster the closer you get to an object), and a machine that was once
out of its element in tight urban situations is right at home.

Or buyers might consider the Mountaineer's optional 4.6-liter V-8, a
sweet-sounding piece that on the face of it only matches the horsepower of
the minivan-based Acura MDX's 3.5-liter V-6. But look at the numbers for
torque -- the muscle that actually moves the car -- and the Mercury tops
the Acura considerably. That extra grunt shows when it comes time to tow: A
4,000-pound boat and trailer would overtax the MDX's 3,500-pound capacity
but would fall well within the Mountaineer's 7,000-pound limit (A V-6
Mountaineer outhauls the MDX as well.).

Then weigh a class-leading package of safety features, most invisible on a
showroom floor. Of course, there are front air bags and four-wheel antilock
brakes, and there are optional side-curtain air bags to prevent head
injuries during a rollover, all of which are reasonable to expect on this
class of sport-ute. But Mercury offers a more tailored approach as well.
Adjustable gas and brake pedals allow shorter drivers more distance from
the steering wheel. Sensors consider the severity of an accident and the
position of the passengers before deploying air bags, and it deploys them
with two levels of force, depending again on accident severity. And then
there's the BeltMinder, a seat-belt nagger so annoying you'll only have to
hear it once.

The Mountaineer/Explorer share "Best Pick" ratings from the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety with the BMW X5, Acura MDX, Lexus RX300 and
Mercedes M-Class. Pretty heady company.

Only a cheapness to some interior fittings prevents the Mountaineer from
coddling its passengers every bit as well as those high-dollar machines.
The grade of plastic used in the center console and the tops of the doors
wouldn't be out of place in a Kia, and it's especially noticeable here,
where the rest of the interior is relatively plush.

The two-toned, perforated leather seats in our tester (part of a $1,750
package) were a delight, easy on the backside on a long trip, and their
sharp looks reinforce the urbane image Mercury seeks. The plastics don't,
and neither do the hard-to-reach power adjusters.

I'd love to see some of that same leather on the steering wheel, whose rim
I found a trifle skinny. Fingertip controls for the cruise control, stereo
and air-conditioning sprout from the steering wheel's spokes; I'd skip the
ventilation controls (how often do you truly mess with full automatic
climate control, anyway?) to keep things simpler. The advantage of
steering-wheel controls is that you don't have to look to use them, and too
many defeats the point.

I'm not a fan of the big swaths of aluminum trim appearing on everything
from Hyundais to Audis these days, but Mercury's version is at least
convincing and complements the detailing elsewhere in the interior. It'd be
nice of flashes of body-color sheet metal weren't visible around the doors,
though.

The new-for-2002 third-row seat is roomy enough for adults, certainly more
so than the rearmost pews of the Acura MDX and Dodge Durango. The second
seat is divided into three parts, which can fold flat or tumble forward
completely to allow riders into the third row. I put passengers in all of
them; no one complained. Both back rows of seats fold for a reasonably flat
floor, though my camping compatriots judged it too lumpy for a good sleep.
Everyone, though, appreciated the deeper rear-hatch glass.

Mercury dealers should keep an older Mountaineer on hand to show off the
remarkable progress made in driving dynamics for 2002. Steering that was
numb is now crisp and linear; ride that was nervous and jiggly is
relatively supple.

The independent rear suspension keeps the (Goodyear)
tires planted on rough roads, and though the Mountaineer is far from a
sports car, it can be driven aggressively without that heeling-over feeling
prevalent in everything from Nissan Xterras to Mitsubishi Monteros.

The all-wheel-drive system is absolutely invisible, with no binding on tight
turns. A drive around a suburban dealer's block is unlikely to reveal any
of that, unfortunately.

Instead, buyers naturally pay attention to what is most easily visible:
looks, features, gas mileage, price tag. Let's tackle them all quickly:

The Mountaineer isn't as sleek as its upscale competitors, but its
boxier shape allows for more cargo room. The slab-sided shape works best in
monotone colors, I think; two-tone paint schemes break up the clean shape.

Where the Explorer and Mountaineer
differ -- the front end, mainly -- I prefer the more conservative Explorer.
The busy, aluminum-finish brush guards on the Mountaineer's taillights are no improvement.
But your call, of course.

Other than trim, the one substantive difference between the
Explorer and Mountaineer
is the Mercury's all-wheel-drive option (a
two-wheel-drive model is available).

The chief advantage AWD is that one never has to fiddle with it. The Explorer's
Control-Trac system offers a
no-think setting -- but it offers the options of more economical two-wheel
drive cruising and low-range slogging, too. Chassis tuning supposedly makes
the Mountaineer more carlike; I couldn't tell the difference.

TheMountaineer offers power seats, a third-row seat and fog lamps standard,
but the two can be optioned almost identically.

One of the chief
reasons buyers are headed toward car-based sport-utes such as the Acura and
Lexus is their car-based roots.

Neither is remarkably lighter or more nimble, but both bring slightly better EPA gas mileage numbers to the
party. In the real world, though, I got a shade over 16 mpg in the Mercury
and just under 20 in an MDX a few weeks earlier.

Ignoring the fact that
you're far more likely to cut a deal on a Mercury
than an Acura, the value equation seems slightly out of whack.
Our $36,005 tester lacked a sunroof,heated seats or a six-disc CD player.An MDX comes with all,
plus waiting-list cachet, for about $2,000 more.

To truly distinguish the Mountaineer, I think,
Mercury might ladle on the goodies -- the heated seats, the sunroof, the six-disc CD player,
all that safety equipment, maybe 17-inch wheels -- and charge one price, the way
Acura does. Why nickel-and-dime buyers on a luxury model?

Shoppers can dicker all they want, of course, once Mercury has them on the lot.

Will the Mountaineer pull them in?
So far, it's working. Sales through March were up about 40% over the previous model, a sign that old-fashioned
truck virtues still have some appeal -- as long as they come in a serenely competent, vice-free package.