2007 MERCURY MONTEGO — Complaint #948911
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about EQUIPMENT:MECHANICAL:INTEGRATED JACK/LEVELER/STABILIZER filed November 11, 2012
NHTSA complaint #948911 (ODI reference 10483977) concerns a 2007 MERCURY MONTEGO and was filed on November 11, 2012. The owner reports the failure occurred on November 11, 2012. The vehicle had 65,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to North Carolina based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as equipment:mechanical:integrated jack/leveler/stabilizer, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same MERCURY MONTEGO cohort independently describe similar equipment:mechanical:integrated jack/leveler/stabilizer failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2007 MERCURY MONTEGO shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
THE FACTORY-SUPPLIED VEHICLE SERVICE JACK FAILED DURING A SPARE TIRE CHANGE. THE JACK IS A STANDARD MECHANICAL SCREW JACK WITH A 16-INCH LONG, 3/8-INCH DIAMETER HORIZONTAL BOLT SCREWED INTO A THREADED SUPPORT MEMBER IN THE JACK. THE THREADS IN THE THREADED SUPPORT MEMBER BECAME STRIPPED WHILE THE JACK WAS LIFTING THE VEHICLE, CAUSING THE JACK TO FULLY COLLAPSE AND THE VEHICLE TO FALL TO THE GROUND. THE THREADED NUT IN THE SUPPORT MEMBER NO LONGER HOLDS THE 16-INCH BOLT IN PLACE, AND METAL SHAVINGS ARE SEEN ON THE HORIZONTAL BOLT. THERE IS NO SIGN OF THREAD WEAR ON THE BOLT ITSELF, SO THE FAILURE IS PURELY DUE TO THE THREADED NUT INSIDE THE SUPPORT MEMBER OF THE JACK. AT THE TIME OF THE COLLAPSE, THE BOLT WAS BEING TURNED USING THE FACTORY-SUPPLIED JACK HANDLE. THE JACK WAS RAISED APPROXIMATELY 10 VERTICAL INCHES FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE BASE TO THE TOP OF THE CAR CONTACT POINT AT THE TIME OF THE FAILURE. THE JACK HAD NOT YET LIFTED THE VEHICLE ENOUGH OFF THE GROUND TO CHANGE T
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 948911 |
| ODI Number | 10483977 |
| Date Filed | November 11, 2012 |
| Failure Date | November 11, 2012 |
| VIN | 1MEHM42137G |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.