Thanks G Pappas,
I searched throughout the forum, and found lots of people having the same problem. Does that mean there is a design flaw in the car? I rarely hear other cars having similar problems with the EGR. Does ford/mercury warranty this flaw to a certain extent?
Since like you said, the problem might lie anywhere in the EGR system, I don't think I will attempt to fix it myself. So what is a fair cost for a shop to diagnostic the problem and fix it? Please let me know. Thanks.