AtWhatMileage
Body · 5 owner reports

Other body or interior problem on the 2006 Mercury Montego

1 crash 1 of the 5 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.

Only 3 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 5
With an odometer reading 3
Reports per 1,000 built 0.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 33%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $200–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 8th

When other body or interior problem gets reported

There are 5 reports of other body or interior problem on the 2006 Mercury Montego, 3 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 8th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 3 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 36,000 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 $200–$2,000 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 2006, at a median of 35,000 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 80,000 miles.

By volume the 2005 carries the most reports, with 13; the 2006 has 5. 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.

Median
  1. 2005 Mercury Montego other body or interior problem 80k
  2. 2006 (this one) 36k
  3. 2007 Mercury Montego other body or interior problem 65k

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.

Tl*the contact owns a 2006 mercury montego. The contact noticed that the paint on the hood of the vehicle was consistently fading. He is in the process of notifying the dealer in reference to the failure. The failure and current mileages were 8,500.

8,500 miles NHTSA complaint 685532 filed 2008-08-28

Tl* the contact owns a 2006 mercury montego. While driving approximately 45 MPH, the rear passenger side control mounting bracket fractured, detaching part of the frame and making it difficult to control the vehicle. The failure also caused damage to the rear passenger tire. The contact gained control of the steering and was able to stop the vehicle. The vehicle was then towed to an independent mechanic. The mechanic advised that the rear passenger side control mounting bracket and part of the frame was corroded and fractured. The mechanic advised that because of liability issues, they were unable to repair the vehicle. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and a complaint was filed. The vehicle was not repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 108,000.

108,000 miles NHTSA complaint 864340 filed 2011-06-29

As I backed out of a parking space, the car surged & I hit another parked car behind me. Even though I had my foot on the brake, the car accelerated for a few seconds. I then placed the other foot on top of the right foot & put the gear into park & the car stopped. *tr

36,000 miles NHTSA complaint 991393 filed 2013-07-04

Also reported on the 2006 Mercury Montego

Other engine problem

18 reports median 79k

Other powertrain problem

17 reports median 72k

Other speed control problem

12 reports median 80k

Other fuel system problem

8 reports median 71k

Complete transmission failure

6 reports median 65k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 5 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 5 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 other body or interior problem happen on the 2006 Mercury Montego?

Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 35,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other body or interior problem on the 2006 Mercury Montego?

5 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