1. I entered the vehicle which had been parked for approximately 90 minutes. I turned the ignition key to start the vehicle and at the moment I turned the key the driver side, seat/window side air bag deployed. The vehicle was not in motion, not in drive gear and was not struck by another vehicle. Also, there had been no warning lights staying on indicating a possible problem with the air bag system. 2. the side air bag struck my left shoulder and upper back. It was painful, but did not injure me. After a few minutes, I started the vehicle and nothing else happened so I drove a short distance to my home without further incident. 3. I took the vehicle to a local Lincoln Mercury dealer and they determined that four wires in the main warning harness under the driver's seat were damaged, had shorted out and caused the air bag to deploy. The vehicle is a 1999 Lincoln Town car with 74,000 miles on it. They said all warranties were expired and there were no extended warranties on the vehicle and it is my responsibility to pay for the repairs. Additionally, the warning harness( part # xw1Z14A005aa) is no longer made and not in stock and may not be available. The estimate for repair is $3,500 parts and labor. If they repaired the wiring harness, I would have to sign a release of liability stating if the repaired air bag system failed to deploy or deployed when it should not because the wiring harness was not replaced the dealer would not be responsible. I contacted the Ford customer relationships center and they said they had no history of this problem or recalls of this nature for this vehicle and that repair would by at my expense.

- Columbia, SC, USA

As the car neared the end of its warranty, I had several failures. The air conditioning failed at 45000 mi., two coil packs failed under warranty. I was driving the car about a week before the final failure and it just lost all power. I barely got it to pull by holding it in low gear. It would barely move but I got it to a parking lot and left it for about an hour. When I returned it started up and drove just fine. I took it to the Lincoln Mercury dealer and they could find nothing wrong. About a week later my wife started to drive the car (cold) and almost got run over trying to leave the driveway. I was walking one block up the street and she pulled in and asked me to look at the car. It was running very rough just as before so I told her to take it back home and park it and take the other car. She did this, locked it and left. It had only run about 4 or 5 minutes. As I walked around the block I heard a car alarm going off and as I approached my house I saw the car on fire sitting just outside the garage, luckily I called the fire dept and they came and put it out but it was destroyed. The car was maybe one month out of warranty so I called the dealer, the regional Ford rep and a retired Ford rep I know. And none of them would talk to me, return phone calls( in the case of the regional Ford rep) I called detroit to the executive offices of Ford and a lawyer told me it was not their problem and to file a claim with my insurance company. He would not even send someone to inspect it. The insurance company paid off and I tried to get them to investigate to find the problem but I don't know what they did. The fire was obviously electrical but I don't know more. The car was a 1999 Lincoln Town car so the present recall doesn't cover enough cars.

- Charlotte, NC, USA

Consumer has a limousine which is experiencing electrical problems. The circuit board that controlled all the lighting and air conditioning in the rear of the vehicle failed. The manufacturer stated that the circuit board was upgraded. The connector heated up which could have caused a potential fire.

- Green Brook, NJ, USA