Mountaineer goes in shop tomorrow

[paval3]

My 2003 Mercury Mountaineer Premier AWD 8 cyl. (125,600 miles) has to be left at the mechanic's tomorrow. I really only use it to drive back and forth from my house to the horse barn next door where I keep my horses which is about 700' away. I also use it for my bi-weekly jaunt to Tractor Supply and the grocery store since I hate taking my Ranger near shopping carts.

Engine light came on last week "Service Engine Soon". My brother put his code "thingy" on and picked up the code P2195. We looked it up and supposed to be "O2 Sensor Signal Stuck, Bank 1 Sensor 1". It was due for oil/filter change (I like to have it done every 3500 miles, which pretty much means yearly for me) and tires rotated anyway and I need a low beam headlight bulb replaced (not easy for me to get to).

So my husband says why do I keep putting money into it and asks why don't I get rid of it. Several reasons. I just put new tires all the way around 5,000 miles ago; had transmission rebuilt about 3 years ago ($2800) and other than that, nothing other than routine maintenance. I think when it got to about 70,000 there were some things that needed to be replaced but nothing major since. It is much easier to load things in the cargo area of the Mountaineer than my Ranger. I've maintained the body well, so if you didn't know the year, you'd never guess it was a 2003. The main reason, I like having it so I don't trash my Ranger with pine shavings, hay, horse manure or mud that could get dragged in. I also use it for driving to work if chance of snow accumulation since I really prefer the AWD. If it's significant snow called for, like higher than the undercarriage of the Mountaineer, I'll drive the Ranger. Anyway, I hope it doesn't cost me $1,000 to get the Mountaineer fixed but I told my husband, I want to have a beater and I wouldn't be able to go buy a decent one for $1000. In actuality, I am fine with putting $1,000 into every year if needed. I just keep comprehensive and liability insurance on it these days so that only costs me $140/year.

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[MountainGoat]

Reminds me of my Pathfinder. I ran it till 210k miles, but every month something needed fixing. When the timing belt started screaming, I figured I would do it myself (brings the cost way down to about $700), but realized whatever broke next month I'd be stuck fixing since I just did all that work on the timing belt. Didn't want to get stuck in the sunk-cost fallacy, which tends to happen with old cars.

I mean it depends on the situation. Maintenance on old vehicles only ever goes up IMO. I never had a vehicle blow up on me, just get too expensive and annoying to repair over and over. If you're doing the fixing yourself it isn't too bad (a timing belt replacement will never cost just $700 at a dealer), but if you're paying for labor every time it's gonna be twice the price at least. O2 sensors are like $100. And sometimes people even clean them and put them back.

 

[paval3]

Reminds me of my Pathfinder. I ran it till 210k miles, but every month something needed fixing. When the timing belt started screaming, I figured I would do it myself (brings the cost way down to about $700), but realized whatever broke next month I'd be stuck fixing since I just did all that work on the timing belt. Didn't want to get stuck in the sunk-cost fallacy, which tends to happen with old cars.

I mean it depends on the situation. Maintenance on old vehicles only ever goes up IMO. I never had a vehicle blow up on me, just get too expensive and annoying to repair over and over. If you're doing the fixing yourself it isn't too bad (a timing belt replacement will never cost just $700 at a dealer), but if you're paying for labor every time it's gonna be twice the price at least. O2 sensors are like $100. And sometimes people even clean them and put them back.

I only put 3,000 miles yearly on the ole Mountaineer since I got the Ranger, so I hope to get some more years out of it.

I think if something comes up that would cost $2,500+, I'd be done at that point with it.

Yea, I checked on line and the O2 sensor was around $69. So I figure double that since he'll probably have to order it from the Ford garage. I did read where it said if you are changing one, you should change both because they do eventually fail. Should I ask my mechanic to do that??

 

[MountainGoat]

I only put 3,000 miles yearly on the ole Mountaineer since I got the Ranger, so I hope to get some more years out of it.

I think if something comes up that would cost $2,500+, I'd be done at that point with it.

Yea, I checked on line and the O2 sensor was around $69. So I figure double that since he'll probably have to order it from the Ford garage. I did read where it said if you are changing one, you should change both because they do eventually fail. Should I ask my mechanic to do that??

If he's got it up on the lift already it shouldn't be much more in labor to replace the other one, so yeah why not.

 

[Trigganometry]

We had a fully loaded 1997 Mountaineer and it made it to 265K before it got hauled away in 2015. Served us well over those years. Other than wear parts and tires it was still original engine, transmission and drive train. Got our moneys worth out of that beast!

 

[paval3]

We had a fully loaded 1997 Mountaineer and it made it to 265K before it got hauled away in 2015. Served us well over those years. Other than wear parts and tires it was still original engine, transmission and drive train. Got our moneys worth out of that beast!

I had a 1998 Ford Explorer (pretty much twin to the Mountaineer back then) and drove it to just over 100,000 miles before I sold it to a guy who wanted a first vehicle for his daughter. It was a very good vehicle (traveled several states to AKC dog shows) had all my service records to hand over. That was a 8 cyl. too.

 

[paval3]

Dropped the Mountaineer off at 7:30 a.m. before they were open. Saw it was in the bay on the lift when I was driving by to work later, so I stopped. I asked if he'd have to order the O2 sensor from Ford and he said no, he can get one today and said vehicle will be ready later today. Showed me the undercarriage and said every thing still looks good, except one spot behind the threshold plate on one of the rear doors, so he said when I bring it in for inspection he'll weld a piece of steel behind it. Other than that, he said it's in better shape than what some people are having to use for their daily drivers these days.

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