The contact owns a 1998 Mercury Grand Marquis. While driving various speeds, the engine misfired and hesitated to respond. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic who diagnosed that the plastic intake manifold was cracked, which caused anti freeze to leak out and damage the engine coils. The vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 80,000.

- Nashua, NH, USA

I observed a coolant leak around the thermostat. I found the plastic intake manifold to be cracked around the thermostat and leaking coolant. I made contact with Mercury and found that there had been a recall on the plastic intake manifold in which they would have replaced the part at no charge during the safety recall campaign. I was not made aware of the safety recall and have owned the vehicle since 04/17/02 when I purchased the vehicle used from a Mercury dealership. The dealership would no longer honor this recall although there are still thousands upon thousands of these engines still on the road. The all plastic manifold was replaced with an intake manifold with an aluminum crossover channel for the coolant. I was forced to replace this defective part out-of-pocket at a cost of $800. It would have been more had I not been friends with the mechanic. The vehicle had 102,281 miles at the time of the failure.

- Boca Raton, FL, USA

Vehicle started to buck and when I pulled my vehicle over I lifted the hood. I found anti-freeze flowing on the top of my engine. I had it towed to my local garage & they told me that the intake manifold is cracked. I did some research and found out there's a recall on this part. When I called my local Ford dealer, they told me there is a recall on this part, but it's only for police and fleet vehicles only. Now that this was said to me, I was told by my garage it would cost me $1000 to fix. Something I don't have. Ford was not very cooperative about my situation and I'm very disappointed.

- Windsor Locks, CT, USA