This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
I bought this car from private seller. On the drive home I turned on ac and noticed a surge so I turned the air off. After getting the car home I filled the tank as it was almost empty when I purchased the car. The car began to surge forwards and backwards at an idle, and then began to surge while driving. Check engine light came on and codes indicated it was a misfire, so did a tune up (changed spark plugs and coils) only to have the issue get worse. The car is now almost stalling and surging hard. Car is very slow to accelerate and feels to have no power while attempting to get up to even in town speeds(25-30mph) car is undrivable safely at this point and I have not even owned 2 months. Surging happens at idle, low speeds, freeway speeds, and surges violently when trying to accelerate.
I just bought the vehicle via private seller. No issues were reported by seller. I filled vehicle and entered the freeway. A few moments later the vehicle started jolting while at a high rate of speed. I pressed the accelerator, the vehicle did not respond. The vehicle continued to jolt off/on. I exited the freeway due to feeling unsafe to continue on the freeway. Upon exiting the ramp, the vehicle stalled. I had no control of the vehicle as the breaks did not seem to work and the power steering was out. I pulled the steering wheel, as hard as I could, to the right to the shoulder of the road. Once the vehicle came to a stop. I put the vehicle in park, restarted the vehicle and continued driving cautiously. Driving at a slower rate, 35-40mph, the vehicle started to jolt again and had difficulty accelerating. After several days of this issue, I cleaned the battery terminals to ensure there was a good connection. I thought the issue was resolved. At this point I had half a tank. A couple days later, I was on empty. I filled up the vehicle for the week. My vehicle is now jolting and surging again. I was almost home, when the vehicle shut off, I lost power steering again and the breaks were not working. I again pulled the steering wheel, as hard as I could to the right, to get off the road as an oncoming car was just ahead. Once the vehicle came to a stop, I put it in park, restarted the car, entered the driveway and parked it. Today the vehicle is still jolting, surging and has a delay when pressing the accelerator. I am scared to continue driving this vehicle! I have no control after the vehicle stalls. I am scared the vehicle is going to stall, at a high rate of speed, and I am not going to be able to get off to the shoulder, turn the wheel fast enough to avoid a collision or maneuver a curve when if it stalls. I am scared I may hit a pedestrian due to no breaks.
The accelerator pedal is unresponsive and the vehicle will move very slowly at first, then unpredictably lunge forward at higher speeds. Occasionally the pedal will immediately respond with rapid acceleration when lightly touched, causing the tires to spin out while taking off from a stop. Altering the way pressure is applied to the accelerator has no effect. This has been happening for over 3 months without any check engine indicators, and only recently when the vehicle had trouble idling did a check engine light come on. The vehicle has been well maintained and lightly driven.
My car wouldn't accelerate on getting on the interstate and would only go up to 40 mph - hard to get in from the ramp with other oncoming cars. It started surging and bucking. When I got off the interstate at the next interstate it again surged when I was going 20mph. Very scary for me. When I stopped at the stoplight it stalled and I had trouble starting it. I put my hazards on for the rest of the trip home. I have been scared to drive it. I took it to the Ford dealer and they said it was the throttle body and estimated $700 for the part and $200 for labor. I have had surging issues this past summer when I used the defrost or air conditioning but not anything this bad. I did call the Ford company and have a case number - they would not help with the part or labor. I spoke with a manager...
While idiling the car will surge. This happens more in hot humid weather. Have had the trottle body checked and cleaned and this is still happening. If not for the fact that I have been able to apply more pressure to the brake I could have had a accident. This I have found to be a ongoing issue with these cars. This has happened while at stoplights, parking, driving at low speeds. The surging has happened several times today and seems to be getting worse.
- Adrian, MI, USA
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My mom's 2006 Ford Freestyle, surges forward when using the air conditioner or defroster. There has been many times it has done this almost rear ending the vehicle in front of hher.this has been going on since beet and my deceased father have own it.(2010?) her instrument panel goes bonkers now, and sometimes the car won't start and the panic alarm goes off when we get out of the car.
My car will try to surge forward while at a stop with my foot on the brakes. It will happen while driving, in parked position, and while no gas or brake pedal is pressed. This happened in a pick up line and I could have hit a child if I hadn't hadn't my foot in the brake and done all I could to not move forward. Sometimes I'm in reverse and this happens and it's like I put my foot down hard on the gas. There seems to be a connection to the ac unit, because when that is on it is making a loud sound. I went to carmax 3 years ago (in 2015) with this issue and they replaced the throttle body. Now they are saying it needs to be replaced again. There is clearly an ongoing issue with this part in the car and it is a major safety concern. Sometimes after the surge, my car will 'die'. this happened in the middle of 6 lanes of traffic while stationary at a red light. When it turned green, I couldn't go because my car had just surged and died with my foot on the brake pedal.
I'm writing again. I've had a throttle body issue twice. The customer satisfaction program that Ford did was a temporary fix. Ford knew this. Ford dealership mechanics have told them it doesn't solve the issue. Less than a year after I had to the C. S. P. on my car I was stranded on side of road only to find out it was the throttle body I could have it cleaned and reprogrammed again at my cost which was nearly the same cost to replace. I had it replaced at my cost. In my situation the 1st time my car lunged forward toward wall of my home. I had to use both feet and all my weight to stop it. The 2nd time I lost power and control. All while trying to get out of heavy traffic. I could not get my car off the road and in a safe position. After this problem my ac will not work unless accelerating. And my motor went out. All this before I hit 100,000 miles. I've called Ford and filed complaints with NHTSA. All to no avail. Ford is replacing the same part for other vehicles at a full recall and no cost to the consumer my VIN# is not assoc. With recall. I feel Ford and NHTSA is ignoring the complaints from consumers this is a major safety issue. I feel that we consumers that have this problem need to file a class action lawsuit against Ford & NHTSA. Neither is addressing this serious safety issue. Ford needs to take responsibility & NHTSA needs to force them to. Continuing to ignore this issue is going to cause hearings on capital hill & a bad name for both. I will be following up with my state representative & my congress person. I intend to see that both Ford & NHTSA stop ignoring the thousands of complaints regarding this serious safety issue. If you investigate you'll find newer models than mine have the same issue. Same part same part number, mine and others of my year are not recalled while the others are & replaced. Someone better take this serious.
This makes the second time I have complained about this problem. It seems that Ford has no plans to rectify the "throttle body" issue although there are many that have voiced the same concern with their vehicles. This issue is a severe safety risk. I have had several incidences, all involving surging, followed by a sudden loss of power. There have also been instances of sudden loss of power upon acceleration after idling at a stop sign or red light. This happens randomly and there is no warning beforehand. Once, I was passing a truck and pulled into the passing lane and the Freestyle completely lost power. I was "hanging" in the passing lane with no power and no way to avert a collision had there been oncoming traffic or traffic behind me. Thank goodness, I had time to brake and force the Freestyle onto the shoulder. This also happenes at stop signs and red lights when I accelerate. Very dangerous.
I was backing out of angle parking space. As I backed I bumped concrete pole. As I put car in drive to go forward the accelerator stuck wide open. I had no control of speed. I sped forward approximately 20 feet and crashed into the back of a parked pick-up. Police were called. I was only bruised and sore. I did see a dr. And will continue to do follow up. My insurance co. Totaled the car. It was very damaged on the driver side. Someone could of been killed in this accident. My description does not adequately describe the seriousness of this incident. Police and others could not believe I was not severely hurt. If theses cars are not recalled it is only a matter of time until someone dies if they have not already.
My vehicle has been surging (the gas) when I am at a complete stop for about a month and this week the car began to lose power while driving. The motor seemed to rev up, but the car didn't go anywhere very quickly. I took the car to a mechanic and he did a "3 part induction" on the vehicle. I am hoping that this will cure the problem since when I put "3 part induction" into the search engine in the computer I came up with a Ford Freestyle problems page with quite a few other people with the same issues. So I spent $150 for a cleaning and if that does not work I understand that I'll need to spend over $1,000 for replacement of the parts. I have also recently had brake issues. I just had my brake rotors and pads replaced 6 months ago for almost $600. Took the car back the other day because so much brake dust on the wheels. Back brakes are getting too hot and grinding.I was told the the hoses and the calipers on the back are both bad. They want $800 to replace them - then since the brake pads have a lifetime warranty they will replace them again. Going broke over here.....
I was driving my car and the wrench indicator came on, my car would not accelerate. I've taken my car to the repair shop and was infromed there is a known issued with Ford Freestyle 2005-2006 and the cvt transmission. I reviewed and it appears Ford knows this is an issue, but refuses to recall/repair it. I will be seeking legal action if Ford does not pursue a recall on this vehicle and it's known issue with the cvt transmission.
When it had the air condition on I kept jumping. I was scared it was going hit another car. Then I was on the expressway going 60 trying to pass a semi to get over and to get off and the car lost all power (shut off)omg panic. Started it up about 10 times before I got it back home.
I would be sitting in line at school to pick up grand daughter with air on, let off brake to move forward and car would surge this continued, but fortunately I wasn't picking her up as often. I could not turn air on. My Freestyle now only has 58,947miles(approx.). sometime in 2012 I received a letter from Ford offering to clean the throttle body. I had it cleaned then it sounded like a truck and smelled like gas. The last few months it dies on the highway. I'm afraid to drive on busy roads. I had my car diagnosed, they say it is the throttle body which is messing up the computer. I have contacted Ford distributor to no avail. I am trying to get funds together to take care of this problem. I understand this is not an isolated case. The problem might be that Ford only sold Freestyles for a few years.
I was pulling into a parking space and car surged. It went up over the curb ind into some shrubs and pushed over sign.second occurence was Saturday July 6th 2014. I was in a parking deck and the car surged on and off as I was attempting to find a parking space. We avoided multiple mishaps by shifting from drive to neutral and hitting the brakes hard. The situation was very hazardous because of crowded vehicle and pedestrian traffic. This vehicle needs an immediate recall. [xxx] information redacted pursuant to the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)
As outlined in the class action lawsuit against Ford filed in California, our car experienced a "sudden and unexpected cvt transmissions failure". this resulted in a "sudden loss of forward propulsion and delayed acceleration" when merging onto a 40 mph street. The check engine light, the wrench light and the traction control dash lights came on and the engine experienced high RPM's with little forward movement. We took the problem to authorized Ford dealer who recommended repairs to the computer system costing us $2,000 even though it knew about the systemic transmission defect the Ford general manager stated in a phone call this morning (6 13 2014) his service department has had two other Ford Freestyles in their shop presenting the exact issues as our car. Following Ford protocol resulted in a "final" diagnosis of transmission failure. Point being, the local Ford dealership admittedly had prior knowledge of the cvt transmission failures yet did not relay that information to us at the onset of the systemic defect. The vehicle sits in our driveway. It is not safe to operate as we elected not to replace the defective cvt transmission at a quoted cost of $5,000 plus installation.
There is a recall on the thottle body on the engine toke to a Ford dealer had it repaired to what they wanted to fix afterwards it made matters worse now car will stall out when stopping or taking off or stopping to make turn almost been hit in the side a dozen times or more and almost rear ended same amount I feel that now it is become a true safety issue and talk to Ford dealer that did the work and they said only thing they can do is replace it at 700 dollars when it was there refix that made madders worst.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Chowchilla, CA, USA