Unclassified problem on the 1999 Mercury Mystique
2 crashes 2 injuries 1 death 5 of the 22 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 8 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.
When unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 1999 Mercury Mystique report unclassified problem at a median of 65,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 75,000 miles, from 8 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 33rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 45,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 80,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 36,600 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
Reports bunched into a band this tight usually mean the component has a life of its own: it goes at roughly the same mileage regardless of who owns it.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45,600 miles | 48,750 miles | 64,500 miles | 72,750 miles | 82,200 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, 2 a crash, 2 an injury and 1 a fatality are 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 4 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 1999, at a median of 65,000 miles, and latest on the 1998 at 100,000 miles.
By volume the 1999 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
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 a 1999 mercury mystique gs from premier lincoln-mercury in collinsville, il in april 2000. Last week I noticed that the dashboard was beginning to warp. The problem has grown steadily in the past several days, and the dash is now so warped that the front defroster ventplate popped off the dash. I know that ford offered free repair or replacement from august 2001 through august 2002 pursuant to owner notification program 01b78. However, the terms of the program made it clear that no repair or replacement would be effected unless the problem was evident. Unfortunately, as my dash did not begin warping until very recently, ford customer service reps and the service manager at the dealership have informed me that there is nothing that can be done. Ford was obviously aware that the dashboards were defective, else it would not have voluntarilty implemented onb 01b78. I cannot understand why those owners whose dashboards did not begin to warp until after august 31, 2002 should be distinguished from other owners whose dashes warped prior to august 31, 2002. I see no qualitative difference between the two. I regard this as a…
While waiting to make a left turn, another vehicle going between 50-55 MPH struck consumer's vehicle head on. Upon impact, air bags failed to deploy. *ak *la the occupant of the vehicle that was killed was seated in the rear seat. According to the par the occupant was not buckled. According to the detective that investigated the crash, the impact was not to the direct front of the vehicle. Cw
I have a 1999 mercury mystique that I purchased new. In apox. 2001, the dashboard came loose next to the windsheild and bowed up. The dash was replaced under warranty. Apox. 1 year later the dashboard did the same exact thing at which point the warrany was done, it still sits bowed up about 3 inches, thus impairing my vison while driving. I was recently told at my local ford dealer that ford knew of the problem, had a special kit to fix it and a program up to 2 years ago to repair the dashboard at no charge. I had no knowledge of this program when it was in effect and ford did not contact me to let me know about it. As the program ended 2 years ago, ford refuses to repair my dashboard, although they have admited to me that it is a manufacturing defect.
Also reported on the 1999 Mercury Mystique
Other body or interior problem
Other visibility problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Loss of braking
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 22 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 22 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 unclassified problem happen on the 1999 Mercury Mystique?
Across 8 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 75,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 1999 Mercury Mystique?
22 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.6 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