roush9799
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- October 6, 2012
- Messages
- 211
- Reaction score
- 6
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2016 Ford Explorer XLT
Hello all. I am now a proud owner of a 2002 Mercury Mountaineer. Here's the story how I became one. I had an '04 FX4 extended cab. I still owed a bit of money on. Me and my wife had a discussion one night about finances, and how hard it was to get my 2 year old in and out of the back of it. I didn't have to drive to work since I farm and live on it. The truck would sit 2 weeks at a time and when we went anywhere we would take the wifes Escape. I have 3 farm pickups for my disposal anytime I need one. We decided to make a sale on the FX4. Actually, I sold it Tuesday. Well, yesterday was a rainy day. We had done made the decision to buy an Explorer, Mountaineer, or Aviator, and we weren't going to spend over $7,000. We were looking for the '02-'05 style. I searched ebay, craigslist, and all the other auto and dealer sites. Most I found in our price window had 100,000-140,000 miles on them. We drove all around yesterday looking at a few different ones. Never really found the one. Was on our way home and drove past a Lincoln/Mercury dealership. Wife was in the passengers seat and said, "there's one, and another one the same color". At that point I was almost done for the day, it was almost 4 o'clock. For some reason I decided to turn around and go back. I get out of the car and proceed to head over to the Explorer, (they only had 20 cars on the whole lot). Salesman came out and said, you don't want that, it's got over 200,000 miles on it. He had a Mountaineer the exact same color as the Explorer, he said look at this one. It's an '02 with 72,000 miles on it. I almost got in my Escape and drove off, I figured that's pretty much out of my budget, but I decided to look inside to see what it all had. Tag on the window had $10,595, and reduced to $9999. It was a sharp vehicle originally sold by the dealership via the window sticker in the glove box. He asked me what I'm wanting to spend. I told him $7,000 is my max. He said he could finance the rest, I told him I didn't want to get in that mess again. He then said, well, this price is negotiable. I said, well, I'll take it for a drive. It drove great, has new brakes. Frontend felt tight as could be. It was pouring down rain so I parked it on the concrete out front and let it set and watched for some oil leaks as I was about to get in my car and go again. He then said, well, come on it a minute. I went in and he said he could get it down to $7500. I said, well, that's still too high, I'm stuck on $7,000. He came back with an offer of $7300. I finally said $7100 was final. Well, he printed out the bill of sale to see where it would end up. He said the final price was going to be somewhere around $7900. I said that's too much, I can only give you $7100. He said it's a rainy day and we really need to make a sale today. We haven't sold one car all day. Well, then he crossed out the document fee, and then proceeded to back figure it to get it with license transfer and tax down to $7100. He got it down within $12 and the wife felt so bad for him she said we'll pay the $12. He was in his upper 70's and trying to operate a computer and was having some problems with it. Before i knew it we were on the way down the road to get a certified check before the bank closed. I called my insurance on the way back to the dealership to get it added. Now I'm the official owner of a weekend cruiser/vacation gettin/grocery getter and I love it. It's a 2002 Estate green with a silver bottom luxury. I've never owned a vehicle with so many controls on the steering wheel before. I love the auto climate control too. It's AWD and has the 4.6L V8. I thought it was a V-6 when I first saw it, till I looked at the engine compartment. I thought the V8's all had the emblem on them unless it fell off. I figured up the mileage, and on average it was driven about 6,500 mile a year. That's probably all I'll drive it too. Only flaw I could find was the crack in the back. There are no dents or paint imperfections anywhere. It wasn't like the '05 I looked at earlier in the day that had no paint on the roof, only rust. I think that dealer was trying to pawn it off on a short person.
