2003 Marauder with 59,000 miles. Non-smoker, 3 owner car. Maryland $12,000

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

2003 Black Mercury Marauder, 59,620 miles, Located in Southern Maryland. $12,000

I never thought this day would come but I just bought a replacement for my Marauder (an Infiniti M37x) so I am ready to pass my extremely well-kept black 2003 Marauder on to someone else who can continue enjoying it as much as I have. I have owned my black 2003 Marauder since January 2007. I am the 3rd owner and have driven it from 23,000 miles when I purchased it, to its current 59,620 miles. The original owner was from PA and traded the Marauder in on a new Harley Davidson edition F-150 in 12/2006 at Gilboy Ford in Whitehall, PA. I then purchased the car from the Gilboy Ford dealership for $21,000 01/2007. I paid cash when I bought this car, so it has never had a loan/lien on it from me, the title is in my name and clear. I have the OASIS report, which I will provide you with, and I also will provide you with a free Experian Auto check report on the car. It has a clean report and has never been in an accident.

I am a 30 year old car enthusiast and have owned quite a few cars (22 cars and counting in the 14 years I've been driving), and this is the longest I have ever kept a car, which is a testament to how fun the Marauder has been to own and drive. The car is garaged 24/7 in my private home and I am a non smoker, I have no kids, no pets, I rarely let a passenger in the car, and don't allow eating in my cars. (My wife sometimes rides in it but not often LOL). I have a master's degree in mechanical engineering, which has added to how extremely particular I am about my vehicles. I don't let shops touch any of my cars, I do all my own work. I equipped my home garage with professional tire mounting and balancing machines, a brake lathe, and electronic alignment tools, among other things (I also do my own engine, cylinder head, and transmission work on classic cars).

Let's start with the pictures and then I'll give some more details below.
I just took these last week so they are current.

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-fZ3JWFm/0/XL/IMG_0663-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-3LGWqjZ/0/XL/IMG_0664-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-hg7mRLM/0/XL/IMG_0665-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-CX3xQvT/0/XL/IMG_0668-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-KX5LHTB/0/XL/IMG_0670-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-t23bqJm/0/XL/IMG_0672-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-9KKQtBL/0/XL/IMG_0674-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-kP8k9Vq/0/XL/IMG_0675-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-6p6ctQF/0/XL/IMG_0676-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-jK4c9j2/0/XL/IMG_0677-XL.jpg

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-mnJW2zx/0/XL/IMG_0690-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-8CzQG47/0/XL/IMG_0693-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-w9x4BjQ/0/XL/IMG_0691-XL.jpg

If that isn't enough pictures, or if you want to enlarge them, here is my Smugmug main folder for the Marauder.

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder

Upgrades:
The only upgrades from stock on my Marauder are the following:

*4.10 gears. Ford racing brand ring and pinion, with all Timken bearings. Installed by me 03/2013. I have pictures of the set up patterns and they run perfectly quiet. I have built quite a few rear ends for my own cars (other cars I have built rears for include GM 7.5 and GM 8.5 as well as other Ford 8.8) and I have built rear ends for friends. I have a professional Ford dealership pinion depth gauge kit as well as a Yukon bearing remover/installer set so I can check lots of pinion depth settings. I had previously run 3.73s in the Marauder, also installed by me, but finally got the urge to upgrade to 4.10s earlier this year. The 4.10s really woke the car up and I can see why people always rave about this ratio in this car. I performed careful break-in driving procedures on the new gears (many short trips w/ overnight cool-down, to heat cycle the new gears) followed by a gear oil change at 300 miles. The differential is now filled with 75w-140 mobil 1 and will be good to go for many miles.

A few pics of the gear installation (I have many more if you want to see them)

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Finished-rear-and-Heinous/i-zLbfPsC/0/L/DSCN4495-L.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Finished-rear-and-Heinous/i-B53vVxk/0/M/DSCN4500-L.jpg

*New genuine Ford axle shafts, new rear wheel bearings, and I rebuilt the limited slip using the newest revision of the Ford OE clutches. Also installed by me 03/2013.

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/410s/i-hFtX23z/0/M/DSCN4381-M.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Wheel-bearings/i-q5M4VHX/0/L/DSCN4488-L.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Wheel-bearings/i-xnH3Jvx/0/L/DSCN4490-L.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Trac-loc-rebuild-in-car/i-DKcrD7t/0/M/88clutch2-M.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Trac-loc-rebuild-in-car/i-nKPvXCm/0/M/dsc_2407-M.jpg

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

*The car has custom projector HID headlights with mini Morimoto projectors. These are not your typical "poverty beam" plug and play cheapo fake HID's that most people put in cars because they don't know any better, these cost me around $600 to build and are a real projector HID constructed in new replacement housings. They are actually brighter and throw a better pattern than my new Infiniti. I have the original halogen headlights for the car if for some reason you would prefer to go back to the awful stock headlights. The original headlights are completely intact and untouched, and ready to re install on the car if you ever wanted to put it back to stock.

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/HIDs/i-JpFQLCX/0/L/DSCN3038-L.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/HIDs/i-tVQnpjh/0/L/DSCN3040-L.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/HIDs/i-Nk2xwzk/0/L/DSCN3007-L.jpg
http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/HIDs/i-DdxjGMK/0/L/DSCN3010-L.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/HIDs/i-C3qbVxw/0/L/DSCN3013-L.jpg

^actual picture while driving. It's like daytime w/ these headlights.

*I also have Heinous billet rear control arms on the car. (Installed by me, 03/2013). These were $410 and are much stronger than the stock stamped steel rear control arms. They also have poly bushings instead of the stock rubber ones. These control arms help the car plant the wheels when launching from a stop and greatly improved the feel of the rear suspension while accelerating.

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Finished-rear-and-Heinous/i-MKBdQL3/0/L/DSCN4511-L.jpg

**The car is running a 93 octane performance tune that I did with an SCT pro racer package. I started with SCT's 93 octane base tune for the BMD0 Marauder ecm code and then adjusted the transmission settings to give a nice responsive feel that downshifts readily, but has shifts that only feel moderately firmer than stock (I hate overly-firm shifts). I have the converter locking up in 4th gear only above 48 mph. If the new owner wants to run 91 octane instead of 93 I can re do the tune using SCT's 91 octane tune before the sale.

Cosmetic Condition:
The paint is glossy and nice for a car of this age/mileage but is not perfect. It shines and shows nicely for a lower mileage car that has been driven, but it has normal light swirls and occasional light scratches that you would expect to see on a black car that is not a show-car trailer queen. I have polished panels w/ a rotary and a DA as necessary over the years to keep it nice but it hasn't been overall gone over with a rotary in a while and if you want to take all of the fine swirls and water spots out, that would take the paint from good to great. The car has no door dings at all, I never park this car near other people, and I won't take it into cities. I don't do parking garages or on street parking with this car. There is one shallow ding on top of the hood , and the rear bumper cover has a small scratch about 1" long towards the bottom that you'd have to stoop down to notice. The wheels are all nice and are perfectly true (checked by me with a dial indicator) and have no curb damage. The spare is a fullsize polished spare. The front tires are BFG KDWs stock type, stock size, with about 15,000 miles on them. They have about 50% tread remaining and are in good shape. The rear tires are nearly new Yokohama YK580s 255/55/18 and have 100% tread remaining.

Mechanical Condition:

There isn't much to tell here. Very little has gone wrong with this car, as expected for its low mileage. The only mechanical repairs that I have had to do, is replace the blower control module when it failed (about 2 years ago, and I replaced it with a genuine Ford part). The power pedals stopped working years ago but since they are in the fully extended position (furthest from the driver) it never bothered me. I have a new metal gear to replace the failed plastic power pedal gear but haven't gotten around to installing it yet. I will install it before the sale. I replaced the master cylinder with a new Bendix brand a few months ago and did an ABS cycle and re-bleed to cure a soft pedal. The brake pedal grabs high and firm now. The brake pads are PFC carbon metallic and the rotors are newer Centric Parts premium rotors that are in mint condition.

I have aligned this car myself (-0.7 camber, both sides, 5.8 left caster 6.1 right caster, zero toe) and it goes nice and straight down the road. I check tire balance often. There are no shakes at any speed. I flushed the entire transmission fluid capacity (~13 quarts) at 40,000 miles (not just a pan drop fluid change, I exchanged the entire capacity w/ new Mercon V). I change the oil every 6,000 miles with full synthetic 5w-20. I have logged the date/mileage of any service and will provide the new owner w/ that spreadsheet. I also have most of the receipts for any parts I have installed as repairs or upgrades.

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013/i-tQhQ23P/0/XL/IMG_0703-XL.jpg

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

Here's an engine bay picture, for someone who asked.

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Engine-bay/i-DLLdzhf/0/XL/IMG_0724-XL.jpg

More pictures

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Nov-11-2013

and

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Engine-bay

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

Thanks to the mod who helped me fix the error I made in the original listing. I am the 3rd owner, not the 2nd owner as I had originally put in the listing. I had mistakenly remembered being the 2nd owner but when I just re ran the carfax I see that there was a 2nd owner who owned the car for only 3 months and 2,000 miles before I bought it. The 2nd owner was the one who traded the car into Gilboy Ford in Whitehall, PA, where I bought it w/ 23,000 miles. The carfax report shows this correctly. When I had initially glanced at the carfax a couple years ago it was a text-only emailed copy from a dealer and I thought the 3 months of ownership following the first owner was the dealer who took the trade in having the car in inventory, but I see now it was an additional private owner. Sorry for the confusion.

Here is the free carfax for my car:

http://www.carfax.com/cfm/FSBO.cfm?report=7248C15B6D1515 A84CC31FEB9DBCE726

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

I personally detailed the car this past week, spending tens of hours holding onto a buffer. I was not initially planning on doing this before selling it because the car, as you can see in all of the above pictures which were pre-detail, looked good, but now it looks great. The car had fine scratches and swirls and some water spotting before I started detailing it, typical for a black car that has existed on planet earth for any length of time, even being hand washed and garaged. I was able to remove all of the scratches/swirls/water spotting doing the following:

I started by claying the paint, then I buffed every panel as follows:

step 1 - Menzerna Power Gloss cutting compound on a twisted wool pad on a rotary
step 2 - Menzerna Power Gloss on a foam light cutting pad on a rotary
step 3 - Meguiar's 205 on a polishing foam pad on a rotary
step 4 - Meguiar's 205 on a finishing foam pad on a DA polisher
step 5 - hand waxed with heavy paste carnauba

Here are the results. The car looked the same before waxing, I did not use wax to hide any swirls or holograms.

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Waxed/i-GnJ6JTW/0/XL/IMG_0784-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Waxed/i-L3LxXVT/0/XL/IMG_0782-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Waxed/i-w9xkffF/0/XL/IMG_0786-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Waxed/i-kwhkPG9/0/XL/IMG_0785-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Waxed/i-ZwQQqHB/0/XL/IMG_0788-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Waxed/i-3DrhqL3/0/XL/IMG_0789-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Waxed/i-wmrf3nX/0/XL/IMG_0793-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Waxed/i-ZzQkNL3/0/XL/IMG_0792-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Waxed/i-95rD3vc/0/XL/IMG_0799-XL.jpg

http://bondospecial.smugmug.com/2003MercuryMarauder/Waxed/i-ZqHFQjx/0/XL/IMG_0801-XL.jpg

The paint has occasional small rock chips and a few small touched up chips but it is very glossy, the car has no door dings, and is quite presentable. Everyone who has seen it so far has been very happy with the condition.

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

The car is SOLD and I delivered it to its new owner today - thanks for the ad. -Steve