The stereo and climate controls in the center stack have large, finger-friendly buttons with or without the optional navigation system. The results here are mixed. The stereo and navigation system operate on separate power supplies, so you can have a map displayed without having the stereo on. That's not true of all navigation systems, including those from Mercedes. However, the stereo tuning function is buried beneath a sequential rocker switch, forcing you to wait while it scrolls up or down through the frequency band to find any station other than one of the presets. The navigation system screen could be larger, but the information it provides is adequate and accuracy is above average. On the other hand, with the navigation system and satellite radio, the Mountaineer, like other Ford products, has a competitive advantage. You can simply punch in the three-digit station of your choice, which is much better than scrolling through up to 80 or so stations to get to the one you want.
The front seats are comfortable, with adequate thigh support and bolsters. Overall, passenger roominess is competitive for the class. The Mountaineer offers comparable headroom in the front seats as the GMC Envoy and Nissan Pathfinder, trailing them by less than an inch; front-seat legroom betters the Envoy by an inch and equals the Pathfinder; front-seat hiproom is almost identical.
Second-row head- and legroom is comparable to the Envoy, but the Mountaineer offers significantly 2.5 inches more legroom than the Pathfinder's second row, a noticeable difference. However, the Mountaineer doesn't have nearly as much second-row hiproom as the Envoy and Pathfinder do. The middle-row bench seat has full seatbelts for three but head restraints for only the outboard passengers.
The third-row seats in the Mountaineer are significantly roomier than those in the competition', with nearly three inches more legroom than Envoy and more than six inches over the Pathfinder. Headroom and hiproom are comparable. The third row is a bench seat with minimal padding and fixed-height head restraints, which loom large in the back window; they do collapse, but only by tugging a loop hanging out the backside. Much better are the optional third-row seats that can be power-folded via two rocker buttons in the rear cargo area, directly below a thoughtfully provided button for power central locking.
Accessing the third row is a three-step process that doesn't strike us as all that secure. First, you pull a strap that releases the head restraints so they fold forward. Then you pull up on a stiff lever to fold the seatback down on the seat bottom. And then you lift the heavy seat assembly, rocking it forward toward the front seats, where it parks, unrestrained, while people crawl into and out of the third row seats. If you lean on it while climbing out, it can rock back, and possibly hit your foot.
We like the look of some of the light-colored interiors, though we're concerned they'll get dirty. The light-colored, suede-like inserts attract dirt like a magnet and, once dirtied, are a hassle to spruce up.
Mercury's Sync communications and entertainment system, due later in the model year, can recognize Bluetooth-enabled cell phones, access their phonebooks, and play calls and read text messages through the speakers. It also has a USB interface to connect with iPods and other MP3 players. Voice commands and/or steering wheel buttons can be used to control all functions.
The rear-seat entertainment system, controls and all, is housed in a black plastic box suspended from the ceiling and running the width of the roof immediately behind the front seats. The drop-down screen seems small a bit small. When in position for viewing, the video screen combines with the rear head restraints to render the rearview mirror virtually useless. Outward visibility elsewhere is good, with less obstruction than expected from the thick C-pillars.
The door panels are an example of how safety and ergonomics sometimes don't mix well. The idea behind the layout of the interior door panels, front and rear, was to use the armrests and door pulls to supplement the impact protection hardware built into the door's innards. Thus, the armrests and door pulls were separated, with the pulls positioned below the armrests. As a result, the door pulls are well below and forward of the natural plane of the arm and wrist. This poor ergonomic positioning makes it a bear to grab hold of the pulls and they offer too little leverage to make closing the doors easy. In addition, the inside latch handles are positioned all the way forward at the end of the armrests, where they're 'a stretch to get to and at an illogical angle to operate. Though Mercury (and Ford, which uses the same design on the Explorer) announced the door panels would be reconfigured as early as 2006, nothing has been done to this point.
In back, the Mountaineer offers only 13.6 cubic feet of cargo space behind the third-row seats. That's less than either the Envoy or the Pathfinder, by nearly 10 cubic feet versus the former and by nearly three cubic feet versus the latter. Fold down the third row and it offers 43.9 cubic feet of cargo room, about the same as the Envoy but more than five cubic feet less than the Pathfinder. With both back rows of seats folded, however, the Mountaineer prevails. Its 83.1 cubic feet of cargo space are three cubic feet more than the GMC and Nissan. We'd like to have some hooks on which to hang grocery bags like those found on the Chrysler Town & Country and other vehicles.
