OK, I stopped on the way home from work tonight to get a closer look at
this beast. Suffice to say, there is some impressive engineering going
on there, but I still wouldn't buy one.
Front end - The vertical bars of the grille are very angular. There
seems to be a large amount of dead space between them and the radiator
(think old musclecars). Not a whole lot of room in the front
wheelwells, and the upper arms at least seemed quite short. It rides on
Goodyear 245/75R16s if I recall right.
Rear end - This is where it gets really interesting. For 2002, the
Mountaineer/Explorer has a fully independent suspension. To lower the
floor height inside, they created "portholes" in the framerails - round
openings that the axle passes through. Very interesting layout, I have
to admit. They didn't just cut slots, the rail kind of forks up and
down, has a circular opening, then comes back together. The lower arms
look very, very stout. The axles seem a bit skinny, but not as bad as,
say, a CR-V. Sitting on the ground, there's maybe only 3" gap between
the axle and the top or bottom of the opening. Not sure how much travel
that translates to, but you won't be seeing a ton of articulation in any
case. The rear diff looks pretty small, but I couldn't see it terribly
well, as the spare is packed pretty close to it. It also seems to be
angled up pretty drastically to mate up with the driveshaft. There's an
odd thing on the back of it as well - almost looks like a square socket,
possibly aluminum, in the cover. Couldn't tell if it was a drain plug,
a power take-off (yeah, right), or what.
The rest - I couldn't get inside, or underneath. I'd like to get it on
a lift and see what's what. Looks like things are very, very tightly
packed together. The windows were tinted (the back windows were VERY
dark), but I was able to see some. The gauges actually looked kind of
cool, circles nested together. Black numbers on white faces. The
middle seat is a 40/20/40 split but has a lot of curves to it and
doesn't look "together" to me. The IRS let them put in a 3rd row seat,
but it doesn't have much legroom and there's maybe a foot between the
back of the seat and the tailgate. If you've got 6 or 7 people in the
thing, you won't be taking luggage. Like the Durango, I imagine they
push the middle row forward a few inches to make room for the rear seat
passengers. I hope there's an option to not have that 3rd row seat.
There's quite a bit of chrome, and angular features (lights, grille)
that seem quite out of place. The vehicle looks to be very low, and
this was an AWD-equipped model (I think they all are?). Couple this
with the fully independent suspension, and the rear axles going through
the frame in the back (try to lift that!) and I don't think you'll be
seeing many 2002+ Explorers hitting the dirt hard. This is a "look
fancy & rugged" vehicle, in the class of a Lexus RX300, Toyota
Highlander, Acura MDX, etc.
I'm hoping I can find a '02 Chevy Trailblazer to get underneath as well,
and see how they did their IRS. I do know it's quite different from
Ford's.
Andy Levy wrote:
>
> Well, ok, it's a 2002 Mercury Mountaineer (Ferd Exploder). It's located
> at the Merc/Lincoln dealer in Manlius, NY. Granted, it is a Mecury, but
> at least the previous Mountaineers looked like they had a chance
> off-road. This thing is LOW. I'll be stopping by on the way home to
> take a closer look at the rear suspension especially. It's independent
> all around, and to lower the height and remove most of the wheelwell
> from inside the vehicle, they run the rear driveshaft THROUGH a frame
> member. Same for the Explorer. Their lifting days are over, though a
> co-worker tells me that people haven't been lifting many Explorers for
> several years now.
>
> Dak content: GenIII body design may be 5 model years old (almost), but
> still looks better than 9016030267125f the market today. Including this thing.
>
> -andy
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