Just bought an 06 explorer and then I starting looking on the internet about the 06 and found thousands of complaints on the radiator and how Ford will not do anything about it. I have had Nissan and Toyota vehicles with pretty much nothing ever wrong with 190K. Now yesterday I looked under my Ford SUV and noticed some antifreeze leaking from the radiator after I have seen all these posts. Not happy at all. Sounds like I am going to have to fix this problem and then sell and never buy ford again. I gave them a chance and this is how they treat their customers not backing their own vehicles. Toyota would not to that.

Nothing is worse than paying 400 a month for a vehicle that is unusable, with no warranty, and potentially an unfixable recurring problem. We are at our wits end with this car and Ford. Someone asked in an earlier complaint if anyone was ready to sue. From all of the complaints from this site and others, I am of the opinion that this issue must be addressed by Ford and yes, our family is ready to sue. We have been avoiding the inevitable because $1300 for a new radiator is a lot for our family budget to stomach. As I mentioned now the car is not even drivable so we are at the point where there is no choice. We purchased the car used in December 09 at approx 65k miles. Within the first month we noticed the large cooling noise and from their the cooling system issues just compounded. After throwing away about $800 to address other cooling issues, I think I would rather let this car off a cliff than ever look at or drive it again. I now despise Ford due to their lack of accountability and overall sh** vehicles. Never again!

2006 Ford Explorer. My wifes SUV that she drives everyday to work. No issues with it until it came up with an over heating problem. It was discovered that the radiator was leaking. The ford dealership wanted almost $1000. I found someone to do the same job of a lot less. The owner of the radiator shop said he sees this all the time. I'm surprised that Ford has not had a recall for this issue. It is almost that they know there is a problem but are not taking care of it. I would like to see the government get involved and push them for a recall.

This vehicle is 5 years old and is now on it's 3rd radiator!!!!!

I took it in to the dealership approx. 2 weeks ago because I was losing coolant and they claimed that they pressure tested it but couldn't find a problem. Because they found some coolant residue on the thermostat housing they replaced the housing, gasket, and thermostat for approx. $370.00. Two weeks later I'm still losing coolant and take it back in claiming that I can smell coolant around where the cap is. They pressure test it again and find a leak and advise me that they need to replace the radiator for $1150.00. WHAT A JOKE!!!!!....that is the second radiator in two years and 30,000KM.

There should be a Class Action Lawsuit as there are 1000's of 2006 Explorer owners that have experienced the same thing countless of times over and over.

I purchased my 2006 Explorer brand new from Galpin Ford in North Hills, CA and I also used to own a 2002 Ford Explorer that I bought from the same dealership that had the same issue. When the problem started, my vehicle was only a few miles out of warranty and they wouldn't fix it, so I took it to Midas because they were a whole lot cheaper. Now two years later, I was told by Galpin Ford that I needed to replace the radiator again and my vehicle is only 4 1/2 years old with just over 91,500 miles. I called Ford Motor Company and they claim that this is an isolated incident an unaware of any other owners with the same issue and I let them know that I did not believe them. They told me to pay to have it repaired again and then submit all of the receipts to them so they could submit it to Ford for an investigation. Ford is full of sh*t and does not stand behind their sh*tty ass autos!

The radiator on my 2006 Ford Explorer started leaking at about 45K miles. I took it to the dealer and they confirmed the radiator had a crack and gave me a quote on a replacement of about $600. I called a month later and the cost went up to more than $800.

So I went to an independent car repair service center and the mechanic told me there was a bulletin out on 2006 Ford Exp. radiator problems and that Ford would have to receive a number of complaints before they recall the vehicle for replacement of the radiator. I’ve never had to deal with any mechanical problems previously and just want to know what my options are. I’d like to contact the District Manager, but it sounds l will be wasting my time based on previous complaints I have read.

Any suggestions?

Update from Mar 25, 2011: Ford replaced radiator for $350

Ford should recall for this!!! No way can Ford expect any return customers with this below sub-standard defect. 61,000 mi. and radiator is leaking!....whos idea was it to make it out of plastic? Im making this complaint 4 yrs after the model was built and it was never recalled and I'm soooo sure they still wont. I bought this used with 40,000 mi. on it in july of09. My bad for not researching better, but NEVER wouldve thought a radiator defect would be an issue on any Ford product. :( QUALITY IS JOB#?.......... its not 1 ...not even in the top 5 !

So here I am again with another issue with my 2006 explorer. A few months ago I was on here adding a complaint in reference to the infamous transmission problem that makes you think you've been hit from behind. I came to this site to see if and how common coolant leaks on the explorer are and I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see that common isn't the right word.......expected or inevitable maybe. As loyal customers who saw ford through its darkest moments, maybe complaining just is not enough for a now profitable company to do the right thing. I suggest all those with these problems contact the advertising/marketing depts of Honda, GM, Toyota etc. and offer to do a series of commercials showcasing real Ford customers and their problems/frustration. Let tens of millions in repairs now cost Ford hundreds of millions in worldwide sales in the future. If Ford doesn't care about the customer why should we care about Ford. Who's with me.

Read my post #99. I just went to the Ford dealership and got them to run a history on my VIN number and it seems that the radiator had already been replaced at 32847 miles and I'd forgotten about it. So, that makes the original, the first, and second replacement. If I replace this radiator it will be the fourth one in this vehicle almost matching the six I put in the 1997 Explorer that I owned.

I've written a letter to Ford Motor Customer Relations dept and sent along copies of the information that I've gotten from the dealership. I will mail it tomorrow via registered mail requesting a receipt for the letter. I've also requested a written response to my letter. Let's see what they do. Anybody ready to sue?

Please refer to my previous post where I posted that I had to replace the radiator on my 2006 Ford Explorer XLT on 06/07/10 at 75885 miles. Well, now this radiator is leaking as well. It's been less than six months on this OEM radiator. I took it to the dealer yesterday and requested to talk to the district service representative. The lady behind the desk took my telephone number and e-mail address and said that he would get back with me. She called back later and asked for the VIN # of this vehicle and the 1997 Explorer that I had replaced the radiator in six times.

I have not heard from the service representative as of yet. Now, here's the kicker. When the radiator went out the first time, I had 75885 miles on the vehicle and the extended warranty ran out at 75,000 miles. It cost me just over $800 to have the radiator replaced. Now, the replacement radiator is warrantied for 12 months / 12,000 miles. Now I've got 88,805 miles on the odometer, a total of 12,920 miles. The warranty period on this radiator is expired as well. This is why I want to talk to a service representative. If Ford Motor Company cannot make a radiator any better than this, I'm going to get rid of the vehicle and buy something else. But, then I'd just be sticking someone else with the problem.

This is not a new problem and I'm sure Ford is aware of it but they aren't doing anything about it. Since it's not a normally safety related problem, I don't guess the NTSB is going to get involved but somebody needs to do the research and if warranted bring a class action suit against them on this problem. Every car with a water cooled engine has to have a radiator. Radiators are not something new on the market and there's no excuse for not being able to build a decent radiator for an automobile. The problem is that Ford has discovered a way to make their radiators cheaper and when they fail, the customer is usually stuck with the repair cost. Yeah, I'm mad as hell about it. We'll just have to wait and see what the district service rep has to say.

Update from Feb 23, 2011: I got a response to the letter that I wrote to Ford Customer Service division. This is what they said:

You recent letter has been received and reviewed.

Customer satisfaction is the primary ofjective of Ford Motor Company and we make every attempt to ensure that our owners are satisfied.

We are willing to consider individual requests for assistance beyond the normal warranty provisions. However, we must place limits on our post warranty assistance. We regret to advise you that your vehicle is beyond those limits and we are therefore, unable to assist with the cost of any repairs.

We appreciate your writing and wish that our response could have been more favorable.

Now, all I asked them to do was replace the replacement radiator and give me an extended warranty on the radiator only. The radiator had been installed less than six months ago and was the third one in the vehicle. It was guaranteed for 12 months or 12,000 miles. It had just over 12,920 miles when it started to leak as well. In my letter I explicitly said the radiator, I did not ask them to fix or repair anything else on the vehicle. Just to fix the radiator that I had experienced ongoing problems with since the vehicle reached just over 32,000 miles.

For a company that earned $6.6 BILLION in profits last year not to stand behind an $800 radiator, it doesn't sound like a company that is truely focused on Customer Satisfaction to me. I have written them another letter assuring them that they had sold their last Ford Motor company vehicle to me. As bad as I hate to, I'll be buying Japanese from now on. They have problems too but at least they recall the vehicles and fix them. I saw where Toyota was recalling 100,000 vehicle for some kind of bad spring that would cause engine failure (valve springs maybe). They said that they had recieved about 70 complaints on it. How many complaints has Ford gotten on these Explorer radiators? How many engines and transmissions have been destroyed by the bad radiators. The engine and the transmisson rely on the radiator to keep them cool. Yet, no recall from Ford on this. Adios, FoMoCo

I bought my 06 Explorer used in October of 09 with @22,000 miles on it. In November I noticed the first leak. I called the local dealership and they had me bring it in , they checked it and replaced it under the 3yr/36000 warranty. I'm thinking great my problem was fixed.

Fast forward ahead to jan 2011 I noticed it leaking again. This time I had to go to my mechanic and find out its leaking again. He replaced this one at a cost of $350. Thats when I came across this site and find out that this is a common problem with these radiators.

WTF put me on the list of pissed Ford owners

Now on to my next issue. Airbag light that's on

After owning our 2006 Ford Explorer since 2007 the Radiator is going to be the death of us. The problem occurred back in 2008 we had a "small pin hole leak" in the Radiator at about 60,000 miles. We knew Ford had problems and were hoping for the recall. We added stop leak and since the leak was so small at the time it seemed to solve our problem till now. About a week ago I started to smell antifreeze again and then everything went downhill. We are currently experience sub zero temperatures and with my five year old in the backseat I lose my defrosters, instantly fogs up the windows at 7 pm at night. The temperature gauge for the engine stacks all the way till hot stays then for a good minute then drops to all the way cold. The heat kicked back on once I got home but didnt' help with the fact that I couldn't see out the windshield. Then this morning (I only have a less than 2 mile drive to work) my engine temperature goes all the way to high again. I'm just not convinced now that the thermostat is blown... it was -7 out this morning, is that even possible. Of course the thermostat blows 2000 miles after the powertrain runs out. We are proud ford owners. We own the explorer and a brand new 150. Plus my business has 8 Ford Econoline vans and a Ford 8000 truck that is a die hard... I think we have done enough business with you for you to fix and recall a COMMON problem. At least so I know that my family will be safe and my defrosters and heat will work when it's -7 out and that is a SAFETY issue.