Sunroof failure or glass breakage on the 2000 Mercury Cougar
1 crash 1 of the 12 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When sunroof failure or glass breakage gets reported
Owners of the 2000 Mercury Cougar report sunroof failure or glass breakage at a median of 75,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles, from 11 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 70,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 95,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 25,000 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A window that narrow is the signature of a part that fails on its own schedule rather than on how the car is driven — which is usually a design or supplier problem rather than wear and tear.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 70,000 miles | 70,000 miles | 75,506 miles | 79,677 miles | 95,000 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $700–$4,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 3 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2001, at a median of 55,000 miles, and latest on the 1999 at 80,000 miles.
By volume the 1999 carries the most reports, with 33; the 2000 has 12. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
I purchased my vehicle new, in 2000. In 2002, after driving the vehicle a total of 38,000 miles, the sunroof assembly broke and needed to be replaced. The dealership I bought the car from covered the work under my extended service plan. Just the other day, while driving my car, the sunroof assembly broke again. This time though, the sunroof detached from my vehicle. Thankfully, I was driving on a road that had little to no other traffic. Had I been driving the vehicle to work during rush hour, the sunroof would have most surely caused an accident. Also, it appears that the sunroof assembly failing is a well known problem, as it is documented on www.cougarsunroof.com. If quality is indeed job 1 at ford, why would they not fix an obvious design flaw? *nm
Dt*: the contact stated while driving 20 MPH,the sunroof was opened by a power control which partially elevated the sunroof. Afterwards, there was a popping sound. The exposed sunroof assembly caught air which ripped the assembly, causing minor damage. The manufacturer was not very helpful, did nothing to satisfy the contact's complains. *ak
My year 2000 mercury cougar just reached 70,000 miles last week. I went to open my sunroof yesterday and heard a loud cracking noise after pressing the button. The rear end of the sunroof was ajar and the sunroof motor was still in working condition but I could not get the roof to close all of the way. I took it to a private auto repair shop where they took the sunroof apart and found a piece of cracked plastic on the driver's side. They got the roof to close as best as they could, however it still remains ajar and runs the risk of leaking. I was told by the auto repair shop that this could cost me anywhere between $1,000-$2,000 to fix. About 4 years ago, while my vehicle was still covered under its manufacturer's warranty, I was told by my dealership that they were experiencing a lot of problems with the sunroof in the cougars and "to use my sunroof often so that maybe it will break while it is still under warranty." I contacted ford yesterday and was told that there are no recalls on the sunroof because they do not consider the problem to be a safety issue and there was nothing that they could do for me. *jb
Also reported on the 2000 Mercury Cougar
Alternator or charging system failure
Fuel pump failure
No-start or intermittent start failure
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Other speed control problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 12 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does sunroof failure or glass breakage happen on the 2000 Mercury Cougar?
Across 11 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 75,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 80,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is sunroof failure or glass breakage on the 2000 Mercury Cougar?
12 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed