Okay fellas...here'* how things played out. Rather than type all this mess a second time,
I'll just give you the link:

http://www.mercurymarauder.net/forum...ad.php?t=26551

Now I am one of you! I had to get a black one because they weren't willing to completely negotiate away their price advantage on the White-Gold Tricoat model. It doesn't have the Homelink or the power sunroof like the other WGT car, but I still got my HUD and other good stuff. Can't wait to get the tint put on, and I'm DEFINITELY going to invest in some of that InvisaShield stuff (or something like it) for the front end/leading edges.

And ZAINO! The dealer gave me some of this Simoniz-1 (something like that) stuff; they claimed it was just as good as Teflon. I dunno...

I ended going about 37-9 at final closing; $2200 of that was the extended warranty. Not too bad...the original sticker with dealer markup was 40 and change.

Congratulations! After reading your Marauder link, I hope you have better luck.
Since your Marauder was black, you already know how hard it is to keep shiny and clean. I have the same problem with my Z. I just received my Zaino kit. I've never spent so much on a "wax" kit.
Gotta love the buttons. They can be a curse as well as a lot of fun.

Glad ya made the switch, and you wont regret it! Shame you couldnt get em down on price but the market and economy is so different over there and the extra shipping must make a difference also . Good luck and please get us some pics up in Your Ride section... if you need help there'* a gazzillion club members who are photobucket geniuses here and they got me going even as electronically ignorant as I was a few short months ago

Glad to see GXP members here are starting to rise. That will be a great help in sharing tech info etc.

Well, half a week with it, and still smilin'.

Got a couple of minor issues; I've done a bit of research but I thought I post these
in the blind to see what the responses would be:

1) Got the HUD vibration. Not bad, but with the potholey roads around here...
It seems like a real blemish for a 37k car. In my research here on the site, I've found
that there'* a tension bar under the dash that needs to be tightened (?) I'm wondering
if it'* something I can fix myself or if I have to submit to a trip to the dealer...has anybody
seen this part that needs tightening, and is it accessible?

The vibration'* minor...just a little bit of a jiggle.

2) Foglight harness. Is there a cutoff on the TSB for the harness; in other words, does it only apply to cars built before a certain sequence number or date? This one concerns me a bit because I do about half my driving after dark (I work second shift at the office), and I'd hate to have my new car burn itself up over a bad wiring harness.

And I'll say the same for the power steering TSB...

The Monsoon stereo kicks serious butt! This thing is way better than the Marauder'* stock system, although I still wish I had the CD changer in the trunk...how does the head unit come out? I ask because at some point in time, I'm going to be back on the mainland and I'd REALLY like to hook up the XM option. It doesn't have it now (HI doesn't get any satt radio at all) but I'm interested in finding out for future reference...

Thanks folks!

For the HUD, take it back to the dealer. Make them fix it right.

The TSB"* are GM paid for untill your warranty is over. So your cool with them all. But alot of them arent applicable unless your cars is already broke. I'm going to post a TSB review post when I have time. cars is eating up alot of it right now but here are 32 things to look for. They are replacing the fog lamp harnees as asked to though. Mine hasnt burned up yet and Mr Goodwretch still ordered one for me.
link for tsb'*

Yeah after making the service advisor aware of the fog light TSB they ordered and replaced both harnesses. Kept my car for a day to do this so I drove a Impala for a day. Thay actually wanted me to take a Buick Lucerne V8 for a day in hopes of me trading in for it. All I can say is that car is 100 percent more quiet inside than any gm car I have rode in including cadillacs.

marauder307 you clearly have made me feel better about not getting the Mercury. I assumed it was a better car than the bonneville and I see it was not. I hope you have good luck with your new GXP. All GM cars I have had have had little problems that needed to be dealer corrected but all in all they are great cars. For the most part you will enjoy that GXP. I wish I could understand what this HUD problem was and how would I know if mine had that problem. I dont think I do though since I dont see it bouncing.

It isn't really a "bounce"...just a jiggle. And I'm on the fence about whether it'* truly worth the hassle of dealing with the dealer. Around here, what takes most mainland dealers mere hours to fix, takes these guys days...it'* the whole "Hawaiian time" thing; wcollier would understand.

The Marauder was great when I first bought it. The biggest single problems that I can point to with that car are a couple of things that don't actually have anything to do with the vehicle itself:

1) Mercury built it, but never advertised it, and at numerous dealers, refused to support it. This kinda relates to my second point...

...2) They built it badly. Paint was absolutely horrible; I had my roof, hood, and trunk redone under the body warranty. The alignment specs were set as though the car were a Grand Marquis; while it was certainly based on the G-Mark, it was a vastly different critter, and using alignment specs for skinny 17-in tires would destroy a set of fat 18-in tires on the front ends in no time. The tires couldn't be rotated because you had different sizes front and rear (235/50ZR18 in front, 245/55ZR18 in the rear---the taller profile was meant to give the car the "raked" look of a hot rod). And the stock BF Goodrichs (BFG G-Force T/A KDWS) have been a source of complaints as well; these tire sizes were only made for the Marauder, and BFG has pulled them from production. You can get the KDW2s, though...

Worst bedeviling problems have been in the engine and drivetrain. The valve heads were faulty, and a LOT of Marauder owners have had their cars drop dead on them because cylinders 7 and 8 overheated from poor cooling. Valvetrains themselves have been found sloppily constructed; the cam journals were too lightly torqued at the factory. Transmissions had a bad C-clip somewhere in the gears, and those C-clips were prone to break under load, go back through the tranny, and take out 4th and Reverse gears (Mercurymarauder.net'* main vendor, Dennis Reinhart, has developed a fix for this using a spiral lock clip instead, and he'* sold hundreds.) As to the diff, Ford actually had to put out a TSB to service/replace the half-shafts for scoring issues. And, of course, there'* the usual problems with Ford brakes...kinda tough hauling down 4200 lbs of charging black 4-wheeled freight train with rotors smaller than what we get on the GXPs.

I put up with these worries for as long as I did because I really believed in the value of the car. It'* a rarity---well, sort of---and being the musclecar nut that I am, I easily recognized the historical aspects of the Marauder name. One thing that I DO miss about it is the intimidation factor; Moses didn't part the Red Sea better than I could part rush hour traffic with that cop-car body. The trunk size was magnificent in every since of the word and had a nice industrial-plastic organizer in it that I could drop wet stuff in if I had to.

I met and wooed my fiancee in that car...and drove it everywhere from Daytona Beach, FL to Honolulu, HI. 3 years of some interesting adventures...which probably contributed to its demise. I don't drive my cars hard, but they do get used...I recall plowing through snow in St. Louis with it; couldn't get above 25 because any faster than that and I'd be all over the road. Scared the $hit outta some punks in a Camaro on I-55 one Sunday afternoon while coming back from Coast Guard reserve duty. I remember intimidating the hell out of a couple of vagrants in Pt. Arthur TX one night while on recall duty with the Coast Guard down there---what else would YOU think when a big black 4-dr sedan pulls up and a guy wearing a dark blue uniform and a gunbelt jumps out of it? (Actually I was just making a pit stop before going on duty...) Made a couple of trips across Missouri and Kansas to see my sweetie while she was still on recall duty at Ft. Riley with the Army Reserve...been through rain, sleet, snow, hail, mud, and 40,744 miles of adventures with that car...

So I'm going to make some new memories with this one. I love it and look forward to many years with it...