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.
1995 Ford Windstar van brake pressure switch caught fire. Occurred during fill up at gas station. I was able to extinguish the fire quickly as heavy blue smoke alerted me to the problem. Why wasn't this vehicle part of the recall for this same switch? my house could have burned down (garaged vehicle), as I understand the switch is electrically hot even with the car off!
Stopped at diner to eat lunch and within 10 minutes my van was in flames. Fire started underhood on driver side. Officials stated that cause was most likely due to defective electrical wiring at the brake fluid reservoir. Called Ford and go no help.
Vehicle caught on fire while parked in front of the consumer's home. Fire department was contacted and extinguished the fire. Fire inspector indicated that the fire was an electrical wiring failure.
While driving consumer noticed smoke coming from under the hood. He then pulled over, but before he could actually get out, other drivers noticed flames coming from underneath. Within minutes, the vehicle was on fire and was totaled.
Vehicle was ideling and started to smoke, consumer lifted hood and saw fire. Took vehicle to dealer, and they could not determine cause of fire. Consumer felt family was in danger.
I was driving from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania at night. In Ohio, I noticed a significant loss of power, and "whooshing" noise from under chassis, gradually getting worse over a couple of hours. At that point, the check engine light also came on. After arriving in pittsburgh (and after christmas holiday) I took the car to a muffler shop. As I expected, one of the catalytic convertors was clogged. On diagnosing the PCM fault codes, they discovered that the rubber hoses connecting to the dpfe (differential pressure feedback egr) sensor was nearly completely melted away (because of the increased exhaust backpressure from the cat failure"?"). I was preparing the car for another long-distance trip on 6/10/02 when I discovered that the plastic air intake plenum and the wiring harness in that area were damaged by heat, as well. The area of damage is right in the area of the metal tubes coming from the exhaust system that the rubber hoses to the dpfe sensor connect to. About 8 of the wires had their insulation completely burned through (about 1" in length). Many of the rest of the wires had embrittled insulation, or the insulation was melted together (there seem to be about 50 conductors in the wiring harness at that location). I'm really quite surprised that no fuses blew, since the bare wires were all adjacent to eachother (on the back side of the wire bundle, out of sight if you're not looking closely). I hadn't detected any electrical failures at the time, or during the intervening 6 months, but this was clearly a fire hazard. I have some reasonably clear digital photographs of the damaged wires (taken while I repaired the insulation on all of the conductors with vinyl electrical tape). I'll be happy to email them to you if you're interested.
Antilock brake light ignited on two occasions, filling with brake fluid fixed this problem. Now the anti lock brake light intermittantly comes on. When light is not activated, the antilock brakes are activated with every use of the brake, causing the brake pedal to become very difficult to depress. Once the brake goes beyond this point, the pedal will depress to the floor and pressure will push the pedal back up and pulsate. When coming to a complete stop the brakes will make a grinding sound from the right front. When the light is ignited and the antilock brakes are not operational, the brakes work normal, but still grind when a complete stop is made. There is a wire at the starter connection that works itself loose occassionally causing the engine not to start. When this occurs you need to jiggle the wire and tighten to get to start. This problem had been looked at and serviced in Sept 2000, but still occurs approximately every four months. The door ajar light and dome light intermittently activate. This seems to be false as all doors are closed. Again, some playing around with connections seem to fix this problem also. All problems seem to have occured after the vehicle reached 75,000 miles. We do have acquaintances who also own Windstar of the same year and have the same antilock brake problem.
Lehigh valley Ford replaced the recalled headgasket and the problems started then. The check engine light came on, I took it back to the same dealer they replaced the computer for $400. The check engine light came on again. They took in they replaced the computer again, but they said there was still a problem they decided to without asking to replace the main electrical harness. I picked my van up today, the nice people there asked to test drive for a week and then come back to discuss the charges. I have to admit that L.V.Ford are very good people to deal with but I don't feel it is fair to be charged anything after I found out that there was a recall on the same harness, and before replacing the headgaskit I did not face any problem with the van, I am not saying these problems related to that in any way.
This car has had constant electrical and transmission problems from the day we got it. Warning lights would go on at strange times, interior lights would not go off, transmission would not shift smoothly, warning bells would not quit. We tried to deal with Ford dealers in sringfield, Missouri (friendly Ford). They gave us the run around for four hours. We couldn't even get them to give us the regional service rep's name or phone number. We could never get to a person on the Ford "800" customer service line, even though we stayed on hold for one hour. Please help.
While driving temperature gauge went from cool to hot in seconds. There was smoke and a strange smell coming from under the hood vehicle had to be towed.
Right after parking the vehicle it caught on fire under the hood. Owner not sure what caused the fire. The insurance company is investigating the cause for the fire.the vehicle was totalled.
Owner received recall notice, took vehicle in to have the problem corrected and is still having the same problem with the electrical system. Consumer states door ajar lights come on dash, bell rings and interior lights come on.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Middletown, PA, USA