Car towed to dealer. Dealer said $649.00 plus tax. To make matters worse, they don,t have the part and it may take up to 2 weeks to get one. I checked the web. Ford has replace 1.6M of these under a customer satisfaction program. I called Ford Customer Complaint Service. They opened a case for me. Said my vehicle was not part of the program. They did say they will try and help expedite the part and maybe provide some financial help. The Ford Customer Service Manager is to call me by cob tomorrow. The part is obviously defective or they would not have replaced 1.6M on other vehicles. We shall see what happens.

My car was less than 3 years old, but out of warranty due to mileage at 46,000. It suddenly, without any warning, lost power in the middle of the road. It displayed the AWD Off message with a wrench icon before I turned it off. When I restarted the engine, the message and icon had disappeared and the car seemed fine. Until it happened a few days later....3 times in one week. At that point, I took it into the dealership, armed with a print out from the cargurus website to show them that it was the throttle body. They charged me $100 to check it on their computer. It showed nothing. They said that I would have to bring the car back when it displayed the error code!!!! So, my life was put at risk several more times before the message finally stayed on!!!! I almost got run over by an 18 wheeler on the approach to an interstate with no shoulder on the road to pull over!!! I was scared to death! FORD knows about this problem, yet the dealerships continue to tell people to bring the car back when the error code shows up on the car!!!!! THIS IS DANGEROUS PEOPLE !!!!! I am happy to report that once I got it fixed, it has not happened again. But as you can see, 2 years after the fact, I am STILL very upset with Ford Motors for not addressing this issue with all models. They apparently cover the fix for some models, but not mine. This is wrong.

Update from Apr 1, 2017: I was SO happy to read the post about the law suit and I hope to be a part of it! I want to get my $$$ back for the repair of my car for this exact problem. My 2012 Ford Explorer's throttle body went out when it was less than 3 years old and was just out of the mileage warranty. It happened at least 5 times before I was able to get it to the shop with the code showing on the dash so they could fix it....even though I went in there after the FIRST experience, after reading about the problem on cargurus.com .....the dealership acted like they had no idea what the problem was....and I was totally ticked off !!! I thought I was going to get killed in my car!

The first time my car stalled I was driving in rush hour traffic, stopped at a red light, when light turned green my car wouldn't move. I had no control over it. Had to just coast through the intersection and stop at the side of the road (no shoulders) put my hazards on and endure the one finger salute by all the annoyed drivers who thought I just decided to relax at side of the road in rush hour traffic eye roll. Second time it occurred it was about a 100 degrees of Texas heat and I was at a clients home was pulling out of their driveway and my vehicle just died no warning (but there never is) while in middle of the road, thankfully it wasn't busy and no vehicles were coming, because it could have turned out to be a disaster for me. Third time I had just crossed a 4 lane busy highway and my vehicle died on the spot. At first I thought it was bad gas, because in our area one of the gas stations had an issue with wrong gas put into their tanks and I though perhaps it happened at the gas station I went too, so I went to our local garage had the mechanic keep my vehicle for a few days, but he couldn't diagnose the problem. NOTHING came up on the diagnostics and he filled the tank drove the vehicle for a few days and nothing happened, he called Ford and was told they hadn't heard of any similar issues occurring. I wasn't taking any chances so took it too the dealer. First they fixed the Fuel pump saying that was the problem and than they came back and said they were wrong that wasn't the problem, but that it was the Fuel lines. So far I've not had any issues since and hoping and praying it never happens again, because it is a scary thing driving down the highway and your vehicle suddenly stops without warning and you are stuck on the road with a vehicle barreling down on you and you can't do anything about it, but pray!!!

Thank God for sites like this! Online research will show that Ford has been aware of this issue for SEVERAL YEARS! In fact, it was reported that in 2013 the NHTSA did an investigation and found serious stalling issues affecting some 1,600,000 vehicles. Ford surprisingly escaped a recall by agreeing to replace the identified component via a warranty extension up to ten years.

This is a serious hidden safety issue that most Ford owners do not know about, until it happens to them. Hopefully, they will not learn about it via a serious accident. Fortunately, mine occurred as I was in the right lane of a four lane divided highway with a wide shoulder. While traveling one evening at about 55 MPH, the car suddenly began to shake and totally lose power. Pressing the gas pedal did absolutely nothing! Fortunately, no one was on my tail, and I was able to slowly coast off the roadway. A bright yellow wrench appeared on the dash along with an intermittent “no key detected” message. After stopping, the engine continued to idle while in Park, but pressing the accelerator had no effect on engine RPM. I then turned off the ignition and was able to immediately restart and complete the trip back home without any issues. I have a video taken while idling which shows everything I’m describing and intend to upload it onto youtube for others to see.

Now for the rest of the story. This very same scenario occurred two weeks earlier, while accelerating from a stop light. Fortunately, there too, I was able to coast to a stop off the roadway. I immediately drove the to the local Ford dealership that has done all my service since new. They immediately hooked up their diagnostic gauge, but found NOTHING! I did learn that this issue has affected other Ford makes and models, but the 2012 Explorer was not one of them. I left the vehicle with them for a couple of days, but they found nothing. They suggested that if this were to happen again, I should not restart, but have the car towed back in. Apparently, restarting clears the system memory.

Ford’s ELECTRONIC THROTTLE BODY (ETB) IS THE CULPRIT! The cable that had in the past connected the accelerator pedal to the carboerator has been replaced with an electronic signaling system. Here’s the scary part. We’ve all had issues with electronic components that malfunction periodically...computers, routers, tv’s, etc. The first step that typically works is to unplug and restart. This is inconvenient at times, but we’ve learned to live with it. However, now that these very same electronics are operating our vehicles, when malfunctions occur without warning, this can be more than a simple inconvenience, it can be deadly. What good is that extended warranty after the vehicle’s been totaled? The NHTSA needs to do its job and demand that Ford replace all ETB’s immediately.

Certainly, not happy having to drive a potential ticking time-bomb, I was determined to get to the bottom of this critical issue. Despite the fact that my 2012 Explorer was not on the official list of Ford’s affected vehicles, my local dealership did the right thing and replaced it at their expense. I understand it took approximately 45 minutes to complete.

I purchased a 2012 Ford Explorer in Feb. 2012. Other than having to replace the shocks at 60,000 the car has not been in the shop for major repair. However, 2 weeks ago the car began to stall, the little wrench icon / warning light would come on and there was no power to the engine. I had to pull over several times and restart the vehicle. I was thinking maybe it was a bad tank of gas, then last week it happened 6 times in less than an hour and the main check engine light came on. I took it to Ford and the diagnostic shows an issue with the throttle body. I have been advised this has been happening "a lot" and that the part is on back-order. It's already been in the shop a week as it cannot be driven (I had young kids in the car when it happened on the freeway and in the middle if busy intersections when the power drops) and they are saying it will be several more days. I've done some additional research and once again this appears to be a known Ford defect (see this article: http://www.fordproblems.com/trends/electronic-throttle-body/ ). I have escalated the issue to Ford corporate as this type of issue, if repetitive, should result in a recall before someone gets hurt. They have been unwilling to accept responsibility for their paint peeling on the aluminum hoods (a defect they have known about for more than a decade) so I'm not holding out too much hope that they'll do anything here. Of course it started happening 4,000 miles after the extended warranty expired...

Radio would go out, lights would dim, and car would cut off in the middle of traffic. Replaced the battery and problem still persist. Took car to dealership on 9/26/15 and had the alternator replaced. The technician replaced the part and then came to tell me that the problem had not been fixed and that they could not find the cause of the problem after keeping me in the shop literally all day long. They were sure to still charge me $300 odd dollars for the diagnostic and alternator replacement and the car still is not fixed. He further stated that I should have not been scheduled on a Saturday to have this type of service performed because they don't have the proper people working on Saturdays to perform the job required. UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!

To date the car still is not fixed and I am getting the same error reading on a daily basis. I have since learned that there are several owners of this type of vehicle who are having the same problem. The dealer has not issued a recall but states that it's either the electrical box itself or a wire in which case neither one is covered. In my opinion these are pre-existing problems. There is no way that the owner of the vehicle can damage these items, nor are they damaged by normal wear and tear on a vehicle. It is also very strange that several owners are experiencing the same problem.

My car is less than 3 years old. At approximately 48,000 miles, I experienced my first car stall with an error message of "AWD off"....this totally freaked me out! I coasted to the side of the road and killed the engine. You have no control over the car (acceleration) while this is happening. I was able to restart it and just figured that I had somehow knocked the console into the "AWD off" mode. A few days later, it happened again.

After it happened a 3rd time in one week, I brought the car to the dealer. I paid $99.00 for them to tell me that they didn't know what was wrong. I even brought in a list of similar complaints from www.cargurus.com that I gathered from other car owners who experienced the same thing. It seems that the Ford Edge also has this problem. One person mentioned that his dealership found that it was the "Throttle body assembly" in their vehicle. It was replaced and they never had that problem again. Even after giving this information to my dealer, they didn't change out that part. They mentioned that there was another service issue that had not been done on my car, so they addressed that and hoped that it would correct my problem.

I left the dealership and the car did fine for almost a month. I even took a long 8 hour trip out of town and had no issues. But this week it has happened 5 more times!!! Yesterday was the first time that it did it twice within 5 minutes. After the 2nd stall, the check engine light came on.

The car is at the dealership right now. I hope that they finally figure it out. I feel that Ford needs to address this engine problem ASAP !!! They HAVE to know that the problem exists, yet they have not recalled the vehicles. This could cause a serious accident on the highway when someone rams you from behind while you are trying to COAST off the side of the road!!!! FORD NEEDS TO WAKE UP !!!!!