I am the second owner of a 2006 Ford Freestyle. My family and I loved this car until the dreaded wrench and engine light came on!! I was driving on the street one day with a car full of kids everything was fine and dandy until the wrench light came on. The car lost power all of a sudden and the car went in to "limp mode" the car started to surge, shake and jerk. We were able to make it home ok but the car was not driveable after that.

I was told by a local mechanic it might be the throttle body? I changed the throttle body and did an oil change to both transmission and motor but the problem was till there! I checked the glove compartment and found an invoice from a Ford dealership where it showed it was taken in for a similar issue and the first owner was not charged anything.

I called Ford and they told me they were gonna charge me $160 just to run a diagnostic test! ugh!!

I purchased this vehicle used and it had been purchased from an auction. I was told about the "slipping" problem with the transmission. I didn't think that it would be that bad at first, until I started driving it. It will hesitate when taking off from a stop and will stall and hold up traffic and is VERY annoying and DANGEROUS!!!! I am aware of a recall for this issue, but am not sure how to go about having it fixed. This problem could be potentially deadly!

Update from Oct 23, 2018: It also makes a loud popping noise when driving.I don't know if this is related to the transmission problem. ....???

I have the same surging, power loss, wrench light stalling that most of you are having. I was a diesel mechanic for years. A new transmission or throttle body is just a really expensive band aid. Ford doesn't want to recall these vehicles because there is no permanent fix. Its a bad design for a cvt. Nissan did the same thing years ago. Maybe some of these complaints can find their way to Ralph Nader. GM found out the hard way. Let's get all Fords designers, engineers and technicians who collaborated on this car in one big room, then go look in the parking lot for their Freestyles. Any bets? If you decide to have the tranny rebuilt you can save a lot of money by ordering the parts yourself. Good luck to all and see you on the side of the road.

this problems has been going on for years and I have learned to deal with it but with our kids driving now I won't allow them to drive my car. The car stalls when i accelerate or just out of the blue the wrench light comes on. when it stalls the RPMs surge and i have to pull over and turn the car off and restart to reset everything and then i continue on. it seems more frequent during the summer and i don't know why. This makes it very dangerous when I am getting on or off the freeway or passing another vehicle. It is identical to complaint #305

Ford Engineer is not responding to my request for them to send corporate engineer to come look at this car and figure out if the transmission was damaged when the engine was pulled. Maplecrest Ford of NJ claims they did not do this damage and now they claim they never heard from me when I left the dealership in Aug. Can a transmission be damaged when an engine is pulled? Could the torque converter have caused the timing chain to break and blow apart my engine..? Or did the torque converter get damaged by the Maplecrest when they pulled the engine?

CVT transmission started making noise at about 50,000 miles, followed by surging... I took it to my local Ford dealership MULTIPLE times and every time they said it was nothing and the transmission couldn't be serviced. Just past my 100,000 mile warranty it got too bad to drive and it cost us $5900 to replace the transmission.

One year later the new transmission started making the same noise, took it back to Ford and after 4 weeks of them having the car (w/out giving me a rental) I got the car back with yet ANOTHER new transmission. They said if I got 100,000 miles out of the transmission there shouldn't be a problem. I was told by a local transmission shop the transmission shouldn't even need servicing until it was at 100,000 miles.

We've had Fords for years but this car has killed it for me. They need to recall EVERY Freestyle they made for the CVT transmission. I still owed $10,000 on the car when I had to replace the transmission the 1st time, if it had been paid off I would have trashed it and moved on. VERY FRUSTRATING!!!

Ford needs to stand behind this transmission if they want us to buy American cars.

While backing out of a parking place, the car lunged and I had no control. Finally the brakes did work. Considering we didn't hit the people behind us was a plus. We barely made the 20 miles home. Took it to Great Lakes Ford and the problem was repaired. After doing research on the pc I discovered other Freestyle owners had the same problem. I contacted the NHTSA and the Ford Motor Company. Believe me, they were NOT interested. I wonder if they would have been if I had killed a few people in the parking lot. Contacting them sure was a waste of my time, but it still irks me, believe me. Further research indicated a lawsuit has been filed and I'm still trying to find out whom I contact. Anyone have the answer? Help would be appreciated.

This piece of crap has been doing this on and off for 3 years (40k miles).
I'm going along fine and then, it acts like it got thrown into first gear. The rpms sky rocket when I give it gas and my speed declines. AND/OR, when I shift park to reverse, drive to park, reverse to drive,etc, it lunges.

I have had SO many close calls for accidents because of these issues. I have lost so much time and paid a ton extra in fuel having to go on roundabout back roads in a major city from fear of highway driving and being thrown into first gear. I am afraid to drive my car at all times because you never know what it'll do next!!

I am NOT spending thousands of dollars in repairs in Ford dealerships when I have had multiple mechanics tell me people have this problem with Freestlyes all the time, have expensive dealer repairs and it happens again---it's just the way this model is.

WHAT A RIP OFF of $23k cash on a year off model at time of purchase!
Ford has lost a customer and I am disgusted that this company won't recall this model knowing that, since it is a 6 passenger vehicle, most people are driving around with children. Their lives are being endangered because of flaws in the model like this!

Now that I have to drive continually, not just once a week for church or on holidays--now that I'm a working single mother, not a stay-at-home mother, I am selling my Freestyle to a used dealership and being done with it and Ford.
I will never buy any Ford model nor let my children purchase a Ford new or used.
It won't matter that they don't stand behind their vehicles----I won't stand behind Ford!!

About 3 months ago my car started surging a low speeds, both while going forward and while backing up. This lead to some really close calls and more than one instance of almost wetting myself. However, the problem was so sporadic that there was no point in taking it in for service since I knew they wouldn't be able to reproduce the problem and would just tell me to come back when I had a service light on.

Then one day I had just gotten gas and was pulling away from the pump (trying to squeeze the cars around me of course) when it suddenly lurched again. This time the lurch was significant enough that the car actually stalled out on me. I restarted the car and started to drive it home. As I was driving I noticed that I had completely lost all low end power. I would compare it to performing a 2nd gear start in a car with a manual transmission. I got the car home, parked it, and started doing some research. I also contacted the local Ford Service Center and they said it was probably just a throttle body problem ("only" a $750 fix). However, I have read enough other people with a similar experience who have replaced the throttle body, only to have to replace the transmission shortly thereafter.

In my research I also found that the NHTSA has an open investigation against the Freestyle (NHTSA Action Number: PE11018) for this exact problem. I think its time that Ford owns up to their mistake.

I have a 2006 Ford Frestyle, and was driving home on open highway, at 55 mph, when the transmission lost power, the wrench light came on, and acted like it was not wanting to pull the car. Fortunately, there were very few cars on the road, so got off out of the way, stopped the car and let it rest for a few minutes. Re-started vehicle, wrench light was off, and it drove all right. Back home, I did research, and saw that while there might have been transmission problems, there were also problems with throttle body, so I took it to the dealer, who verified that it was throttle body. Replaced for $600.00.

One week later, car does same thing, and took it back to dealer, who then says that it was a mistake, and really was the transmission after all. Will cost $5800.00 to replace, as they just pull out old one and put new one in. Will try to find used one instead, and if I get it fixed, will sell vehicle ASAP. I have drove Fords for 30 years, but will not any longer, maybe a foreign car with a longer warranty will do the job better, or at least hold up longer.

I bought my 2006 Ford Freestyle BRAND NEW from the dealership. It was going to be our family car until our children were grown. It always had a problem of surging then dying, Thank GOD no one was ever behind me or they could have been run over, and I have 3 small children!!! It recently with only 74,000 miles on it started making a terrible noise. I took it back to the dealership and was told that I need a new transmission- price $5,400!!! That is unacceptable!! It only lasted 5 years and 74,000 miles. I just have to drive it till it dies, I only hope noone ever gets in my way while it is surging! Of course I just paid it off too!

FORD SHOULD BE ASHAMED!! My husband is currently serving over seas in the ARMY so I have enough to worry about with out my still new car dying! Thanks a lot for this, SLEEP WELL TONIGHT FORD WHILE MY HUSBAND WATCHES OVER YOUR FREEDOM, tomorrow I will drive my children around in the car you so cheaply made and hope that we arrive safely.

pulled into a parking space and had my foot on the brake.the car lurched forward at a fast rate of speed jumping a concrete barrier and ran smack dab into the concrete wall of the building! front of car is messed up as is the part of the building i hit.it nearly scared me to death. car taken to body shop for repairs. called the national hotline safety board and submitted a complaint.called ford motor company customer relations and they took down the information,told me to take to a dealership for a diagnosis. i did that this past summer when the car lunged out into an intersection,they said it was the alternator and i bought a new one.the car whines and the wrench light comes on .i am afraid to drive this car and will sell as soon as i can.in the meantime i just hope this whining does not indicate my transmission is going out at 34,000 miles! don't buy this car as i really think it is extremely dangerous.

About 7 months ago I stopped to help someone who ran off the freeway in a snow storm. When I restarted my 2006 Freestyle and accelerated to enter the freeway, the car took off on its own. After shifting to neutral and pulling over 3 times, I finally tapped the gas pedal and it flipped back up and the car slowed down. This problem happened 3 more times during a 1 month period before I got it into the shop. They gave me the same old song and dance...."we could not duplicate the problem".

Shortly after that, the engine light came on. The dealer wanted $130 just to tell me what the problem was. About 3 weeks later the "wrench" light came on and the car would lung forward each time I accelerated the first time. I would let off the gas pedal and it still lunged forward on its own. I believe there is a serious issue with these cars and that Ford needs to step up to the plate and take care of the issue. Just like with Toyota, it is very frightening to have little control over your cars acceleration.