Looking at 97 Mountaineer V8 AWD

[msmith65]

I just saw this for sale in a parking lot. It has 144,000 miles, receiver hitch, alloy wheels, keyless entry, leather, nicely tinted windows. Overall it looks good.

Any common problems I should look for?

What would you ask the owner about?

 

[Bill Kemp]

Ask the owner: What has he replaced? When fluids were changed? Look at fluids.
At 100,000mi. I have replaced ball joints, Alt., rear end.
Just drive it and have a mechanic check it out.

 

[410Fortune]

Thats a nice truck

Few simple things, you can check the front and rear brake rotors for grooves, if there are grooves plan on replacing brake parts

check in front of the rear tires, behind the tupperwear for rust

Smell the transmission fluid dipstick, does it smell burnt?

does it puff any white or black smoke out of the exhaust?


Make sure the heater and A/C work, make sure the A/C compressor is not cycling every 5 seconds

Look for leaks, get under it and shake stuff, it just depends on how thurough you want to be by yourself. I give them hell, car dealerships with Explorer's dont like me....

 

[msmith65]

I looked over my '93 in similar fashion. Thanks to those of you with suggestions.

What I'm looking for are problems that may be peculiar to this year and model.

 

[boominXplorer]

any of the 5.0's have no big problems. They are strong. Now when you begin to modify is when you need to take things into consideration

 

[410Fortune]

okay the exhaust manifold on the pass side gets loose and leaks.
the rust is typical all gen II's
the AWD T case seems to not have any issues
Because its AWD the front CV joints wear out faster
the torsion bars sag and the alignment needs adjusting

but other then that not really anything problematic with the 5.0L's