Immediately upon starting my 2000 Mercury Sable (car had been off and parked for 4+ hours), there was a loud explosion under the hood. It sounded like a sonic boom (people parked 2 cars away from mine thought someone had hit their car the percussion was so intense). Smoke/vapor was coming from under the hood. It was thought that there was a fire under the hood and I ran inside the establishment where I was parked and got a fire extinquisher. After getting the extinguisher, a concerned passerby asked that I open the hood. There was no fire but a lot of vapor. The intake manifold had blown up. There were 2 pieces that we found near the manifold and the manifold looked as if it had been split along its horizontal axis. The felt material underpinning the hood was ripped in several places. I called a Ford authorized service center where we have taken several vehicles over the years and they had it towed to their shop. It then had to be taken to a local Ford dealer since the service center said they did not "have the proper equipment to fix it". upon investigation on the internet to see if there were any similar incidents on file, I found an article that was in the journal of the alliance of automotive service providers, aasp by mark giammalvo describing an incident identical to mine. There had been 2 "owner notifications" issued by Ford - 00B38 April 2000 and 00B55 in September 2000 that related to a PCM reprogramming that was needed. I did not purchase the vehicle until October 2000. According to the Ford dealership who repaired the vehicle one PCM reprogramming had been done in June 2000. The Ford dealership did repair the car: "replaced intake manifold & gaskets, updated calibration already set in PCM, no later calibration is available". my greatest concern over this incident is that if the hood had been open at the time the manifold exploded, there could have been serious injury to anyone nearby.

- Simpsonville, SC, USA