1991 Mercury Grand Marquis Colony Park Ls Wagon 4-door 5.0l on 2040-cars

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Report: Last Mercury for retail business built on Sunday

Ford is already well into winding down its Mercury line, and the autoamker has announced that the very last of the soon-to-be dead brand's products built for retail sales was manufactured on Sunday, October 3. The final Mercury Mariner rolled off of the assembly line at the company's Kansas City facility, putting an end to a brand with over 70 years of history behind it.
Even after the Mariner heads off into the automotive sunset, Ford says that it will continue to manufacture a handful of Mercury models for fleet and government service for a while longer, though mum's the word on how long we can expect that practice to continue.
Interestingly enough, according to USA Today, most incentives on Mercury vehicles have all but dried up, even as the brand's August production increased by 120 percent compared to July's figures. Instead of cash on the hood, some areas are offering no-cost maintenance or similar programs. Even so, Mercury has continued to out-sell Lincoln right to the end - besting Ford's luxury arm's sales by nine percent in August.

NHTSA advances investigation of Ford Crown Victoria headlights

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is opening a preliminary evaluation into reports of suddenly failing headlights on 517,945 examples of the 2003-2005 Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis. The government started looking into this problem in April when the North Carolina Consumers Council filed a defect petition with the agency. Now, the inquiry has moved to the next step. According to NHTSA's documentation (as a PDF), it examined its own database and worked with Ford to come up with a total of 3,609 complaints of the front lighting control module suddenly failing. When this happens, drivers lose the low-beam headlights, but the high-beams can be used by holding the stalk. Sometimes turning the switch off and on fixes the issue. Additionally, there are 15 allegations of crashes, and one reported shoulder injury. NHTSA's preliminary evaluations "evaluate the scope, frequency, and consequence of the alleged defect" and don't necessarily lead to a recall. NHTSA looked into this problem once before in 2008 and 2009 and decided that a recall wasn't necessary. Ford also extended the warranty on the front lighting control module for these vehicles. INVESTIGATION Subject : Loss of headlights Date Investigation Opened: AUG 10, 2015 Date Investigation Closed: Open NHTSA Action Number: PE15028 Component(s): EXTERIOR LIGHTING All Products Associated with this Investigation Vehicle Make Model Model Year(s) FORD CROWN VICTORIA 2003-2005 MERCURY GRAND MARQUIS 2003-2005 Details Manufacturer: Ford Motor Company SUMMARY: After receiving a defect petition (DP15002) concerning the loss of headlights and other exterior lighting in model year (MY) 2003-2005 Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis vehicles, the Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) analyzed Vehicle Owner Questionnaire (VOQ) complaints received from consumers and identified a total of 605 reports (for all submission dates) alleging headlight failure. The complaints indicate failures of both low beam headlights typically while driving, a defect condition that was evaluated under a prior ODI investigation (PE08066). Most consumer VOQs indicate that the headlights failed suddenly and without warning leaving the driver with no forward lighting, however some report the headlights flickered or dimmed prior to turning off. In some cases drivers were able to turn the headlights back on after a period of time while others reported the headlights would not come back on at all.

Junkyard Gem: 1989 Mercury Tracer Four-Door Hatchback

During the life of the Mercury brand, which began in 1939 and ended in 2011, nearly every Mercury sold in North America was a cosmetically enhanced version of some Ford model also sold here. The exceptions to this rule came when Mercury sold Fords originally designed for non-North American markets, and for which no Ford-branded version existed on our shores. The 1991-1994 Capri was such a car, as was the 1999-2002 Cougar (the Mondeo-based Cougar was unique among all Mercuries in that no other cars in the sprawling Ford Empire shared its body). The 1970-1978 Capri was sold through Mercury dealers here, but never had Mercury badging. One of the rarest of all these Mercury cars was the first-generation Tracer, a Mazda design that made its way here via Australia. The bloodline of the Tracer goes back to the Mazda 323, the ancestor of today's Mazda3 and the platform used for all those US-market Ford Escorts of the 1990s. Starting in 1991, the Tracer name went onto badge-engineered Escorts, according to Mercury tradition, but the 1988-1989 Tracers were based on the Australian-market Ford KE Laser. Underneath all of those cars (as well as the early-1990s Capris) lived Mazda 323 running gear, of course. This one nearly made it to the 175,000-mile mark during its time on the road, which is respectable by the standards of 1980s Mazdas. With an automatic transmission transferring the 84 horses from its Mazda B6 engine to the front wheels, this car wouldn't have offered a great deal of driving excitement. 1989 Tracer buyers could choose between a two-door hatchback, a four-door hatchback, and a four-door wagon. Not many Americans hurried over to their local Mercury dealers to buy Tracers, despite the fact that the nearest Ford-badged identical twins were on the other side of the globe. Mercury still seemed relevant in the late 1980s, but its days were numbered. The actress driving the Tracer in this TV commercial seems to have the same deer-in-headlights facial expression of the hapless driver-training students in the 1968 AMC Rebel commercial.