I have purchased a 2006 Mercury Mariner Hybrid from Carmax with the option to return it in 5 days. I have been to Carmax many, many times and this is the cleanest vehicle I have seen at Carmax. It has only 22K miles on it. The exterior and interior are like showroom condition.

My concern is about the hybrid battery. The eight year or 100,000 mile warranty on the hybrid battery is up April, 2014. I checked with Ford and found out that a new hybrid battery cost $9,000.00. Are there any Mariner/Escape Hybrid owners out there that can advise me if I should be concerned about possible hybrid battery failure? With your experience of this vehicle should I keep it or return it back to Carmax.

The only other problem I have about this vehicle is the loud road noise on this vehicle. There are two different brands of tires on the car and I'm sure this is part of the problem.

I would appreciate if someone could respond to this post ASAP. Thanks

 

Tires wearing out at 22K is odd, the original Conti's Eco Plus tires were quite hard and lasted 50K+ miles. They were very noisy, if they're still on yours, you should ditch them ASAP, you'll thank yourself. The originals could have rotted out though.
Your concerns about batteries is common, you can search all kinds of forums and see how many people have had to rebuild/replace theirs. Chances are you won't find a lot (yet). There are some other mechanical issues that come up though but they aren't major for the most part.Nobody pays $9K these days for a new battery BTW, someone was pulling your leg. You'll need to figure out how long you want to keep the MMH and how much you're willing spend in the future repairs. A potential issue with MMH and MTH is resale value, don't expect much down the road when people have mostly forgotten that these were also sold.

 

Thank you so much for your response and the information. I was aware about the resale value and it does bother me. My wife is trying to decide if she wants to go through with the sale or keep her 2008 Toyota Higlander Sport that she really loves, but does not get very good gas mileage.

Regarding the 9k for the battery, that was the quote I received from
Redlands Ford in Redlands, Ca.