Tl* the contact owns a 2012 ford explorer. The contact stated that the heater failed to blow hot air which prevented the windows from defrosting. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 167. Updated 6/11/15*cn also, the thermostat was replaced, the vehicle had to be jump started. Updated 01/26/16.
2012 Ford Explorer engine complaints
Page 4 of 4: complaints 71 to 92 of 92, newest first, as owners wrote them.
On december 27th 2014 I purchased a used 2012 ford explorer with 42,990 miles on it. Since then we have noticed under accelerating, you can smell the exhaust fumes in the cabin. Any harder than 50% acceleration and with the rear AC on, it is an almost instant smell. After a few roads trips it is predictable and we try to avoid repeating the issue. It has not been to our lcal dealer because they "haven't heard" of this issue before (called 2 different dealers). I can not afford to be without the car, pay for a rental car, my $100 extended warranty deductible, and get the, "we don't know what the issue can be from." I have heard and read allot of semi fixes, but wish I could get a strait answer before taking to the dealer first.
While I was driving my 2012 ford explorer xlt, it lost all power for the 4th time. When I pressed the throttle there was no response. Indicator lights said awd off and displayed a wrench icon. I coasted to the side of the road. When this happened the first three times I turned the car off, restarted it and all was fine for a few minutes, before this happened again. This is quite a dangerous situation to be in. I have also seen several complaints of the same problem from several other ford and lincoln owners. I believe this is a serious safety issue, since stalling in the middle of anywhere is not safe and can lead to accidents without warning. Also my check engine light is now light and I will be taking it to the ford dealer to get it fixed. It is going to cost me an arm and leg, but hopefully it ends up being a safety recall and ford reimburses down the line.
Investigation of intermittent "service engine" light eventually LED to a determination of a faulty evap purge valve pulling fuel into the evap canister. Technician said he would not drive the car, as this is a fuel leak and unsafe condition. Dealer acknowledged safety issue, cites 1st time this has been seen, and not covered by any extended warranty or maintenance program. Paperwork provided cites "a faulty evap purge valve can cause excessive engine vacuum to be placed on fuel tank, drawing fuel/air from the fuel tank through the evap system and into engine. This can cause drivability concerns as well as rich/lean concern."
After a month of owning the 2012 ford explorer we noticed a very foul exhaust smell from inside the cabin of the explorer. We would smell the odor under acceleration, especially when rpms reached 3,000 plus. This particular odor smell under the above conditions have been observed ever since. We did not think anything of the smell until we began researching it recently and came across several sources indicating this could be harmful to our health.
The throttle box has gone bad. The car stalls randomly when taking off from a start and requires a new throttle body at only 47k miles. This is part of the powertrain, but not covered by the warranty. Ford had lots of problems with throttle bodies in earlier models and it seems they haven't fixed it yet.
I was driving approx. 35mph and all of a sudden the wrench light on the engine came on I lost all power to the accelerator. I had to coast to stop, turn off the vehicle, start it back up and proceed. It has happened 4 more times since the original date. One of those times was when I was crossing an intersection and was almost broadsided. This is very dangerous and is happening with no warning or pattern. I have looked online and it seems to have happened with many ford explorer owners. I am reading it has to do with the powertrain control module.
My car is less than 3 years old. At the time of the first incident, I was driving about 25 MPH and my car just suddenly stalled. I saw an "awd off" message on my dash. I tried to accelerate to pull over to the side of the road, and there was no response to the foot peddle. I hit the brakes and killed the engine. I was able to restart the car and continue on to work. I just assumed that I had someone hit the gear into that mode. But it happened a 2nd and then a 3rd time that same week. I brought the car in to the dealership around the middle of august. Before I brought the car, I searched the internet for other related complaints from ford owners. I found a site at www.cargurus.com and found out that there are many other ford owners with the same complaint. One owner said that his dealership replaced the "throttle body assembly" and he has never had that problem again. I brought this information to my dealership and I paid them $99.00 for this service call. They were not able to find out what was wrong, but they did do some sort of service notice that I had not yet done on my car. They hoped it would take care of the problem and it did for about a month. But this week, it happened 5 more times. Yesterday was the first time that it happened twice within a few minutes. This time the check engine light came on. I have the car at the dealership right now and I am hoping that they will find the throttle body assembly is the issue. If not, then I am concerned that this will happen again and that I may be rear ended on the interstate while I am trying to coast to the side of the road. Ford must know that this is a problem. There are too many complaints about the "awd off" error code. I do not intend to pay for this repair!! My car is out of warranty now. I don't think that I should be paying for any car/engine repairs on such a young vehicle.
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 ford explorer. The contact stated that the wrench warning lamp illuminated and the vehicle suddenly decelerated. The contact depressed accelerator pedal repeatedly but the vehicle failed to accelerate. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer for inspection, diagnosis and repair. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 68,000.
While driving at a constant speed of aprox. 35 MPH on a city street, the vehicle suddenly and dramatically lost speed. The accelerator pedal / motor speed ceased responding and the engine started to run very roughly. The car went into "idle" and I was forced to stop in the middle of the road. The event was completely unexpected. I had no warning and not enough power to get off the road. An orange "wrench" warning light appeared on the dashboard. I turned off the vehicle and was able to restart with normal operation. I immediately had the car towed to the dealership service department where they replaced the left valve cover. I drove the car with no problems until 14 days later when the same problem re-occurred. This sudden and unexpected loss of vehicle control seems to be a significant safety concern. God help me if this happens while I'm on the freeway...
I am experiencing an odor of carbon monoxide inside the car. I live in el salvador central america and have found in the internet that there is a recall for this problem the agency in my country does not responsabilize on this I have small children and we cant be smelling this exhaust fumens and strange odors inside our car.
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 ford explorer. The contact stated that the low engine oil pressure warning light illuminated. The contact mentioned that the failure recurred intermittently. The vehicle was taken to the dealer however, the failure could not be duplicated. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 17,000. Updated 8/28/14*cn updated 09/15/2014
I have been smelling exhaust into vehicle cabin, looked at forums, & found 62 pages of complaints by explorer owners, on www.explorerforum.com, called dealer, took vehicle in for 2 days, under tsb-128-12-12-4, service work, still have same issue months later, still waiting for ford to correct problem. At present time a law suit has been filed in florida, article found in sun senntial newspaper, at www.sun-senntial.com video shows co at 139 acceptable level should be 100.
In september 2013, I was driving down a neighborhood road at about 15-20 MPH when a wrench symbol appeared on the screen and the vehicle began slowing to a stop. The gas would not work during this time and I turned off the engine. It did restart without problems, but did it again a little later. I took it in to my local ford dealership, where I leased the car from. They looked at it and said they couldn't find anything wrong, but could not get codes because the engine had been turned off. I was told to bring it back if it happened again. It happened 2 more times in october. Both times were at night over a weekend when the dealership was closed. Again, they looked at it and said they couldn't find anything wrong, but reset the "system" and I was told to bring it in if it happened again. No problems until the night of may 3, 2013. I was driving outside of mckinney, tx, with my cruise set at 74 when it happened again. This really scared me because I had just come off of I-75 where they are doing construction and there are concrete walls on either side of two lanes with no shoulder! Since you cannot control the speed, and the only way to make the car work is to turn the engine off, wait a few minutes, then restart it, I have no doubt that we (myself and 2 children) would have been in an accident. It is a very busy area with speeds up to 75 MPH and lots of semi-trucks. I spoke to the service manager and gm of paris ford who both agreed to a loaner car until mine could be fixed, and took it in for the third time. Apparently, the only loaner car they had was unavailable, so I could take my car back and drive it until they had a loaner. We decided that was enough. I didn't feel safe driving it and did not want to take a chance of anything happening to myself or our children. We turned it in the dealership and after paying $251, it is now back with them. This car is dangerous!
On friday april 18, 2014 my wife an I prestarted the car to go to dinner, after only 2 minutes the car shut of. Upon review of the issue the low oil pressure light came on, the stability control light came on, as well as he service engine soon light. The mileage at the incident was approx 45,500 but the complaint says 44,000 because this is the second time it has done this, and the first time for the stability control light to illuminate. After dinner we came home and attempted to restart the vehicle, everything seemed normal, it started it drove, but subsequently we had it towed to ford, so they could address the problem.
On monday 10march2014, my 2012 ford explorer started and immediately stalled out, when I look at the dash it had said it had low oil pressure. The vehicle was towed to cavalier ford in chesapeake, va where it has been determined that the high pressure fuel line and high pressure fuel pump have to be replaced. During further trouble shooting it was discovered that henderson ford in bay st. Louis, ms had installed a fuel injector into the engine without properly ensuring the cleanliness of either the injector or the point of insertion. It has been determined by cavalier ford that henderson ford improperly installed a replacement part, and allowed me to drive over 1,000 miles with this problematic part in place!
On monday march 10, 2014 I started the my 2012 ford explorer and drove it to work approximately 2 miles and shut it off, after 25 minutes I returned to the vehicle and attempted to start it. The vehicle started and then immediately shut off and said low oil pressure, I proceeded to remove the key and open the hood. I checked the oil and all was within range, no issue immediately noted, I closed the hood and attempted to restart the car. Upon the attempted restart the car took a substantial amount of time to finally turn over, I immediately shut the car off and figured it needed to refresh itself and waited a moment. After restarting on the third try I then attempted to drive it all indicators had turned off. While driving the vehicle it refused to accelerate over 35mph, I immediately reported the issue to ford and the vehicle had to be towed to cavalier ford in greenbrier, va.
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 ford explorer. The contact stated that while driving approximately 20 MPH, the vehicle stalled as the wrench warning icon illuminated. The contact merged to the shoulder and was able to restart the vehicle. The vehicle was not taken to a dealer for a diagnostic. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The approximate failure and current mileage was 40,000.
I was driving when the steering wheel jerked. The steering immediately became very hard to operate and the engine appeared to lose power. Indicator lights came on about the same time the steering jerked. The lights said "service advance trac" and "terrain management system fault". I had to pull of the road and just trying to make to left turns to pull into a parking lot took all the strength I had in both arms. My turn signals would also not work. I even tried turning the 4 wheel drive knob, as I noticed that the lights were not working on that as well and nothing would light up or show up on the dash screen. I turned off the car while I pulled out my owners manual to look up information on these indicators. After letting the car sit for a while, I restarted the car and the indicator lights were still there. I called ford road side assistance and had the car towed. I also was put in a rental car. Then today the ford dealer told me that since my car had 47, 627 miles on it that this problem wasn't covered under warranty. They told me only if it happened in first 36,000 miles. They also said I would have to pay $1865 for a new rack and pinion steering or they would clear the code and I could chance it to see if it happens again. They said it was common and most times you just need to let the car cool down and restart it. This is very upsetting- they knew this was a common problem and then I investigated this further online and found many other people reporting the same issues. Some in just the first month of owning the vehicle. This is the same thing that happened to me with this vehicle and the engine fan not working causing the car to overheat in the first 6 months of owning it. Later I got a recall on it. This is very frustrating- I have a car that is 18 months old and I have to put $1865 into it to fix a common problem/defect. This is a serious defect!
When using the passing gear ,to pass a vehicle ,toxic exhaust fumes get sucked in the cabin ,took the vehicle to the ford dealer ,and was told that it has been happening to the ford explorer,and that ford motor company knows ,but does not know what is causing it ; this happens only when using the passing gear to pass another vehicle ,the fumes are so bad inside the cabin that the window has to be open to the let the fumes out . This a hazard and health issue .
Overheating large amount of fluid leaking under car and steam or smoke coming out of tail pipe? Tow truck was called car towed to local dealer. My 2012 ford explorer has been in shop 3 different occasions for same thing: no heat , no air conditioning, overheating, my ford sync recall???
Tl* the contact owns a 2012 ford explorer. The contact was driving 60 MPH when burning fumes were emitted into the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to the dealer who diagnosed that under heavy acceleration, the gills allowed exhaust fumes to be emitted into the vehicle but they were unable to provide a remedy for the problem. The manufacturer was contacted who did not offer any assistance. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure mileage was 4,500 and the current mileage was 6,309.
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