I had opened my hood to check the fluid levels and the two gas supports that hold it up failed and the hood almost hit me in the head. Had I not been paying attention it would have came down on my head and caused serious injury.
1996 Ford Explorer body complaints
Page 2 of 3: complaints 11 to 40 of 63, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Vehicle is an SUV with a rear liftgate / hatch that raises upwards when open. On this day I was loading some item is the rear of the vehicle when the liftgate suddenly fell and stuck me on the head. The liftgate is normally supported by a gas type strut on each side. There are ball type pins attached to the liftgate and the body for these gas struts to attach to. The upper pin on the right side of the lift gate snapped off and allowed the liftgate to fall. It appears it was rusting through, however there is no other rust on any portion of the liftgate. Only one gas type strut will not support the weight of the tailgate. In only two days I have found four other people who have experienced this same problem with 1995 & 1996 explorers.
1996 ford explorer rolled over in and accident. Consumer requesting information on risks for ford explorers. *kb the consumers daughter was driving when the vehicle rolled over. After the accident, the consumer learned of problems with the ford explorer's roof strength and unstable wheel base. *jb updated
Sudden tread separation on left rear tire of ford explorer caused loss of control and on-road rollover. Tire was a cooper eldorado radial zr1, size p23575r15, dot# 3dhlekn2900.
On or around the date indicated, a gentleman from staples office supply was loading a chair and desk into the back of my ford explorer when the hatch collapsed. Luckily, I was standing there and caught the hatch before it fell on his head and back and possibly really injured him. Apparently, the left hydraulic arm of the hatch sheared completely off the bracket welded to the vehicle. Upon inspection, both sides are completely rusted and the other arm could shear off at any time. Nowhere on this vehicle is there rust and these welded brackets are in the interior seal of the rear hatch and are in no way exposed to water. We were able to unhook the arm totally with the little pins holding it in place. Then the hatch wouldn't close properly once the arm was removed. (I was told this was probably due to the change in weight distribution.) I called ford (national 800 number not the local dealer) and asked them about it. The customer service woman immediately told me that they had no complaints on that and that there was no recall so I would have to pay for it. I took the vehicle to a body shop which gave me a quote of $468 to weld new brackets on (both sides will need to be replaced to prevent future injuries). The hydraulic arms themselves work fine. Upon viewing your site, I see there was a recall the year after the car was made dealing with the right side hydraulic arm and improper welding. (recall # 97v137000) I basically just want it fixed and want them to fix anybody else's so nobody else will get hurt. What if a mom is unloading groceries with her kid and the door comes crashing down on them??? How many injuries or deaths will it take for them to fix something like this??!!
The federal safety agency campaign 97v074000, 97v137000, 97v070000. Ford issued a throttle, liftgate, and door assembly recalls. This vehicle was not included in the recalls, but the consumer was experiencing the same problems as those vehicles that were recalled. The vehicle identification number was outside the remedy scope.
After the discovery of some small rust on my passenger doors I took it to ford to be fixed. They ended up discovering my frame is rusted along the bottom of my doors. I am now very concerned about safety with this vehicle. It has only 97,000 which for a SUV is not much.
Bought ford explorer in 1996, new. Filed a complaint with bbb regarding problems. Nothing was achieved. In november of 2002 was in an accident where the vehicle rolled over, my seat belt did not lock, nor did the air bags deploy, which resulted in severe injuries to myself. Broken neck (c-2, tbi tramic brain injury and broken bones. I beleive the failure of the seat belt, roof stability and airbags malfunction caused my injuries. The driver and other occupant received no serious injuries. Nothing was done to correct the failure as you can see in the numerous law suits againist ford motor co.
While traveling at 50 MPH 10:30p.m., without cause vehicle slid across highway to the left, rolled and flipped, and collided with a tree - vehicle landed on its side with roof in to the steering wheel: all windows broken and windshield shattered. Roof actually caved in on teenage driver -fatality from multiple brain injuries.
Consumer states that the door behind the drivers seat has a lot of play in the handle. Consumer can't open door. Please provide any further information. Mr
When shutting off engine automatic door locks engaged. Driver's rear door lock was replaced in september 2001, passenger rear door lock was replaced december 19, 2001.
Support frame that holds car together on front of vehicle was severely cracked. Consumer took vehicle to dealer, and they were not going to do anything. Consumer felt that the entire front end of vehicle could fall off. Then, car would flip over, and passenger could be injured or killed. Vehicle was rolling death trap. Frame should never break, it could be bent, but not broken. Please provide any further information.
Power door locks are not working, therefore the doors do not open from the inside. This could be extremely dangerous if trapped inside. Shouldn't they always open manually? Isn't there a law providing safety for door locks?
Inside handles on left and right rear doors are broken. Doors cannot be opened from inside. Dealer has been notified.
This firestone wilderness/at tire, p23575r15 was looked at by a garage when tread sepration was noticed.*ak consumer states first faulty tire resulted in a blowout, 2 others were noticed at a garage with tread separation. Consumer states inside passenger door handles on both left and right do not work.
While driving interior lights comes on and off without manual operation. Problem occurs within electrial system which causes door locks to malfunction. Please give any further details.
Front bolts and/or rivits in the front frame may be loose causing squeaks, clicks and movement of the frame, it is felt through the steering wheel when making tight turns. Nlm
Door locks will lock and unlock for no reason, dealer stated there is no way of testing the locks, consumer is concerned that if there is an accident, the locks might lock.
Was driving and engine check light came on & stayed. Been to dealer. Had sensors replaced, but problem came back. Temperature gauge had failed to register. Fuel guage was not working, and stablizer bar had broken and was replaced. Also, power locks failed to release. *ak the sensors were being replaced over and over again.
Passenger's door in rear will not open from inside. Consumer feels this is unsafe.
I bought this SUV used and I thought I was getting a great vehicle, boy was I wrong. It has been one thing after another with this SUV. Please check all of my complaints this is an interior problem, these things cannot be caused by evey day use. The problems I am having are, back seat door handles are broke, the spare tire release broke the first time it was used, the air bag light went off and caused an inconvience to my family, the tires have been replaced and the alingment hasen't been right sense I've owned it, the back seat doesn't work properly, it will not release to fold forward, and the motor on the hatch hasen't worked properly from day one of my ownership. Please help me with this matter. Thank for all you do. Margie hulsey. Ml
Design of console causes rearview mirror placement to be too low. This creates a blind spot for driver when trying to merge right. Vehicle was taken to dealership. Dealership seems to recognize that this is a design flaw. Ford has agreed to look into this matter. Please provide any furhter information.
Consumer applied the brakes for an upcoming turn when the vehicle rolled over and went down an embankment, the rollover resulted in 3 people sustaining injuries.
The driver lost control of the vehicle and proceeded to skid into the southside of the roadway into a ditch and collided with a utility pole, there were 2 fatalities(texas officers accident report, bridgestone/firestone, p235/75r15, radial atx m/s, vdhl1pm435, left rear). Nlm
As reported on 9/5/00 (before the tire recall hearings on 9/6/00) to senators richard shelby and frank lautenberg and house representatves w.j. "billy" tauzin and fred upton: I recently read in the times that the explorer tire that blows out most often is the rear driver side tire, which makes me wonder if there is a design defect in the vehicle. Upon closely examining my 96 explorer (which didn't come with firestone tires, by the way), I found that the body leans to the left (driver's side), resulting in a vertical sag of about half an inch on that side. I confirmed that the sag is not related to vehicle loading - the sag persists with both vehicle and gas tank empty; or to weakened springs - the chasis stays level, only the body sags. Also, the vehicle has not been in any accidents that could have caused this. Since then, over the last couple of weeks or so, I have been closely observing explorers and other SUV's on the road and in parking lots. The results of my admittedly not-so-scientific survey are as follows: (1) about 50% of the older explorers on the road show a similar sag to the left. (2) none of the explorer's observed showed a sag to the right. (3) less than 5% of the other SUV's observed showed any sag, which was equally likely to be to the left or to the right. I thought I should pass on this information to you, for whatever it is worth, before the tire recall hearings in the senate tomorrow. Sincerely, ramesh dhingra.
Consumer was traveling about 65mph on highway and heard a loud noise tread separated from left rear tire, and damaged the left rear quarter panel, knocking off the chrome cover off, and bolts broken and bent the rear quarter panel.
Consumer was traveling on the highway about 70mph and then she felt vibration, and all of a sudden tread came off of the tires and damaged vehicle. Also, tail light was broken, as well as fender well and the bumper. The original atw tires were on this vehicle. Consumer had them replaced.
Right front and left rear door handles on the inside of the vehicle broke, making it impossible to get out of vehicle. Dealer has seen vehicle.
Front and rear door handles fail - unable to open doors from inside.
The broken interior door handle may have been broken for a long time but, because of the child safety lock feature being activated it wasn't noticed until the child safety lock was deactiveted only to find that the door handle would not open the door. Upon disassembly, I found the plastic cam that unlocks the latch of the door to be cracked off rendering the handle useless. As for the transmission, the premature and expensive failure should become a recall item for ford as I have found that many owners of this type vehicle are experiencing problems of great financial consequence and possible tragic health consequence.. I'd say a disporportionate number of explorer owners are encountering similar transmission failures. The life threatening condition of a bad transimission could have LED to a lock-up or unexpected rapid deceleration at highway speeds which could have rolled the truck. Internal components were badly scarred and irrepairebly damaged. Initial symptons were hesitation on accelleration at shift points ford issued several service bulletins to address these symptoms but never recalled the defective product.
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