My 2003 Lincoln Town car was slowing (foot off gas, coasting) down off-ramp from freeway because the stop light at the bottom of the off-ramp was red. When I began to apply the brakes to come to a complete stop, the car lurched forward violently as the front brakes locked completely, causing the car to slide to a stop. I could not move the car forward or backward in gear, and could not get it to coast in neutral. The car could not be manually pushed from its resting spot and I had to have it winched onto a flatbed tow truck and taken to the Lincoln dealership. The repair manager told me after investigation that the lining inside the brake lines leading to the calipers had been slowly flaking off into the brake fluid. When sufficient amounts had collected in the fluid they acted like a check-valve, allowing fluid into the calipers to actuate the brakes but would not allow the fluid to return and the brakes could not release. The repair consisted of replacing both front brake lines and both caliper units, costing over $600. Only moments before the brakes locked my car had been at speeds of 55 - 65 mph on the freeway. Had I needed to apply the breaks while at those speeds, the results would have been devastating; my car would have been sliding out of control in heavy freeway traffic and likely would have led to severe injury or death of my family members or other drivers/passengers. The Lincoln dealership searched for recall and/or safety bulletins from the manufacturer and could find none. I'm infuriated by this ~ it is an apparent design and/or manufacturing defect, admittedly seen several times before over recent years by the mechanics at my local dealership, yet nothing has been done to address it. I suspect that it's not a "severe" enough situation yet because there have been no deaths reportedly linked to the catastrophic failure I survived.

- Omaha, NE, USA