Sometimes, you need to jack up your car. Whether you’re at the side of the road in an emergency and need to change a tyre, or whether you’re on your driveway at home changing your shock absorbers or your brake discs, sometimes it’s necessary to lift your car into the air.
However, what you must ensure is that when you lift your car, that you lift it safely and correctly. This involves using the proper jacking points under the vehicle (otherwise you will cause damage to your Mercury Grand Marquis) and using jack stands to support the car while you work under it.
You have a choice of either using the factory-supplied jack that comes with the car, or using a hydraulic trolley jack purchased from a store. I would always 100% recommend using a hydraulic jack purchased from a store – this is because the factory-supplied jack is only really meant for quickly raising the car to change out the wheel because of a flat tyre, and isn’t meant to raise the car up for any extended period of time. Trust me – it’s much safer to go to buy a $40 trolley jack than to use the supplied jack.
Lifting your Mercury Grand Marquis
Obviously, you’re reading this because you need to lift up your Mercury Grand Marquis. You should make sure you read the following in order to do this safely.
Before you do anything, ensure you have the following equipment:
- Jack stands
- A jack
- Wheel chocks
- Lug nut wrench and torque wrench
Firstly, engage PARK – not neutral. Park will ensure the vehicle can’t roll, as the drivetrain is locked. You should also engage the emergency brake, again to ensure that the car won’t move. Also make sure you chock the wheel furthest away from where you are working – i.e. if you are lifting the rear left-hand-side of the car, chock the front right-hand-side wheel. This is the safest way to ensure your car won’t roll while you’re working on it.
Secondly, prepare your jack. Whichever type you want to use (we go into detail on the two different types below) inspect the jack and ensure it’s safe. Check that nothing is broken and that it operates as expected. If you’re using a hydraulic jack, check that all of the seals are still intact and there are no leaks.
Next, position the jack underneath the jacking points. We go into detail on how to find them later on in this article. If you’re using the factory supplied jack, only use this on any of the jacking points. Choose the jacking point closest to the wheel you need to be working on. If you’re using a hydraulic jack, you can jack up on the jacking points. Sometimes you’ll need to put an axle stand on the jacking points – in this case you should choose a suitable location under the car to jack up from – make sure it’s a solid piece of metal and that there is no possibility of the jack slipping – somewhere like where the front control arm meets the subframe, for example.
Before lifting the car, loosen the lug nuts slightly. It’s a lot easier to do this with the car on the ground. Don’t loosen them all the way – just slacken them off a little bit so that they’re easier to remove when the car’s in the air.
Once the car is at a suitable height, support the car with a jack stand. This is a must if you are going under the car. A jack is designed to lift, and a jack stand is designed to support. A jack is not designed to support and you are quite literally risking your life if you go under the car if it is not supported by jack stands.
For extra safety, you may want to position the jack under a solid metal piece of the car’s frame – so that if your jack stand does fail, you have a failsafe. You may also want to put blocks of wood under the car, or if you are removing a wheel, put the wheel under the car so that if the jack stand does fail, the wheel will stop the car hitting the ground.
Using the factory-supplied jack
Let’s talk about jacking up your Mercury Grand Marquis with the supplied jack. As mentioned, you should use this only in an emergency – i.e. if you’re stuck at the side of the road and need to change out a flat tyre.
This jack is a single arm screw jack. You raise the jack by rotating the handle in a clockwise direction and the screw will rise, allowing you to lift the car. This jack comes from the factory and depending on the year of your Mercury Grand Marquis, could be in a number of different locations.
The most common location is in the trunk, underneath the carpet. If you lift the carpet, you will find the spare wheel well, and inside this will be a toolkit that includes this single-arm jack. If it’s not there, some models of the Grand Marquis have the spare wheel underneath the car. The factory-supplied jack will be stored with the spare wheel.
You should find the jack before you need to use it – and the reason for this is that (especially if you’ve bought a used Grand Marquis and haven’t checked yet) you don’t want to find yourself with a blowout and you go to look for the jack and it isn’t there.
Again – use this jack only in an emergency. Don’t rely on it to support the car if you’re doing a job longer than a few minutes (i.e. just to change out a tyre). If you’re planning on doing anything under the car, using the single-arm factory-supplied jack is extremely dangerous. Do not go under the car if it is supported only by the jack.
Using a hydraulic jack
This is by far the safer option – however the same rules still apply. A hydraulic trolley jack is designed only to lift – and while it does a far better job of lifting than the single-arm factory jack supplied with the Mercury Grand Marquis, it is not designed to support, so you must still use a jack stand to support the car.
A hydraulic trolley jack uses hydraulic pressure to lift your car. Ensure that you have closed the release valve by turning it clockwise. On some jacks you can do this just by turning the handle – other jacks you need to take the handle off and turn the valve somewhere else on the jack. Once you’ve done this you can pump the handle to sufficiently raise the jack, and therefore, the car.
To lower your car, simply position the jack under the jacking point, ensure the axle stands are removed, and turn the release valve anticlockwise to open it. Make sure you do this slowly, as the slower you turn the valve the slower the car will drop to the ground. Make sure you’ve removed everything from underneath the car – including anything you’ve put there to ensure the car stays in the air if your jack stand fails.
Jacking points
The jacking points on the Grand Marquis are located here:
Make sure you jack up on the solid pieces of metal close to the wheels. Don’t jack up on the sill as you’ll cause damage to the car.
You can also view a video on exactly how you can jack up your Mercury Grand Marquis by watching the video here. The video is actually for a Ford Crown Victoria but the jacking locations are identical on both cars.
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About the author
Marcus Brown is editor-in-chief of The FatMech and is a mechanic with ten years' experience based in London, UK. Having worked for major dealerships for many years, Marcus now works for a local independent garage and has experience working on nearly every make and model of car. Marcus also has a passion for writing and teaching, which is where the idea for The FatMech came from. In his spare time, Marcus enjoys playing golf, doing home renovations and gardening. He lives just outside London with his wife and son.