I bought this vehicle in January of 2021. The lady I bought it from had been the only owner, and it was in excellent condition! She took great care of it and loved it, I suspect. However, it has had a few different issues already, the cluster panel issue being the most difficult to distinguish the exact cause of the problems that was experienced due to one simple resolution, that is not simple to determine if you don’t research the symptoms well. In the beginning, I honestly believed there must be short somewhere between the battery and the ignition area. Then I began thinking that possibly there was an issue with the alternator, faulty and sometimey but not all timey. 😆

Then probably a month or so into attempting to figure out what was really going on, I decided that the ignition must be the culprit. Wrong again. After researching everything and all the information I could dig up on the specific problems and the Mountaineer‘s most common issues…..(this not being one of the most common) and video after video on YouTube finally I stumbled upon the relay on the backside of the cluster panel that is supposed to ensure that each component in the dash gets the appropriate amount of voltage. When a vehicle has been ran on the alternator without the battery or maybe the battery posts had corrosion built up at some point, enough to cause a weak connection with the terminal which in turn effects voltage distribution completely, are two logical reasons for the malfunction of the super difficult to diagnose correct faulty part. This has lead to many other owners’ of Mountaineers to replace more costly parts unnecessarily, such as the ignition, the alternator, the battery, wiring harnesses, ECM in one case I found.

Anyone who experiences any electrical issues with their vehicle, regardless of make and model, check fuses first! Under your hood and inside the passenger compartment, usually under the steering wheel by the driver’s side door.