This has happened to me a couple of times already. I was driving behind my boyfriend we where headed to his house, and my car started accelerating at a fast unusual pace. He stopped in front of me at a stop light, and as I was pressing on my brakes there was a couple of loud clunks coming from inside my engine. I was just riding my brakes, luckily the car was able to slow down and come to a stop. When the light turned green, it was behaving normally. I've looked this up, and noticed that this was a recurring problem with almost all models of ford taurus. Yet there is no recall? I hope you realize how dangerous this problem actually is, and I hope that something is done about it soon.
2004 Ford Taurus brakes complaints
Page 2 of 2: complaints 11 to 26 of 26, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Driving down a side street going approximately 15 MPH. The vehicle started racing and speeding up. I applied the brakes and could feel the jerking of the car fighting to speed up. I pulled over and put the car in neutral which caused the RPM meter to race. I pushed hard on the hard accelerator and let off and that stopped the RPM's from racing. This has been happening more and more over the past few months. One time, I had to turn the car off and when I started it up it was still racing. A combination of pressing hard on the accelerator (in n) and turning the car off seems to help. There is not always a place to pull over, this is an accident waiting to happen. My mechanic had no ideas why this is happening so I researching solutions myself.
Car continues to accelerate at moderate rate when foot is not on the accelerator. I was still able to stop the car easily using foot brake, but when stopped the car was revving at a much higher rate than usual. Not clear yet whether the problem is getting worse.
I was driving and coming to a complete stop, when the car began to accelerate itself. I brake, that didn't help much. It stopped the car, but did not stop the engine from abnormally revving itself up. I pushed the gas and it was okay, but still at a higher RPM than normal. Again, 5 mins later, while sitting in traffic it revved up again. It was at about 2500 RPM, coming from a dead stop. I freaked out and tried to put the car in park thinking that would help. When I put it in park, it revved itself to about 4000rpm. I turned it off. I turned it back on a short while later and drove to a parking lot and kept it parked.
Tl* the contact owns a 2004 ford taurus. The contact stated that the brake lights failed to disengage. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not contacted about the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 75,000.
I took the vehicle to southgate ford on march 15, 2013, to have them analyze the check engine light which came on during the week. I drive only a few miles per week but didn't want to take a chance with this warning. Southgate ford turned me away on friday afternoon to return on monday, march 18th stating: "they are too busy and the check engine light is of little concern and to return on monday". Within 2 miles of leaving the dealership heading north on fort street, I was unable to bring the 2004 ford taurus to a stop at a red light. The taurus engine raced and roared at over 4,000 rpms and reached speeds between 45 and 50 miles per hour. I tried to brake with one foot and then two feet. The brakes could not bring the taurus to a stop and it felt like the brakes were pushing back toward me. I swerved to the left to avoid hitting the car in front of me and crossed over the median to southbound fort street. I attempted to reach a parking lot to avoid oncoming traffic as the engine continued to race and roar. The brakes could not control the car. I missed the entrance of the parking lot by a few feet and hit the curb. The impact of hitting the curb threw my body toward the passenger side of the car. The car continued to lunge forward until it hit the brick building in the lot at approximately 47 miles per hour. The air bags never deployed in this head-on collision with a brick building. I have sustained bruising from my left ear down to my knees and mulitple fractures in my right wrist. Please do something to not let this happen to anyone else. How many people have to die to have recall notices issued?
I was driving and had turned into a store parking lot. I made a turn down a row to park and as I ran over a grate, going no more than 25 MPH, the car began to accelerate. The RPM's went up to about 40 MPH. I could feel it. My foot was not on the gas. My daughter and I were horrified. I pulled into a parking spot as far away from the other vehicles as possible. The car was roaring so hard. I called my mechanic because I had just had the vehicle inspected. The mechanic told me to quickly pat down on the gas (then release) while the car was safely in park. I did it and it and it stopped it. I could feel it immediately stop the acceleration.
We were driving into aurora, il on hwy 88. Suddenly, the engine began speeding and we had to apply the brakes and ride the brakes to keep the speed at 45. We were in a work zone, there was a lot of traffic, and the car was hard to control. We pulled into an oasis/rest area where we turned off the car and restarted it. We would push down the accelerator and the revving would drop off some, but it continued to be a problem. When we returned home, we took the car to our mechanic, who did fuel injector cleaning and flushed the transmission; he also found that the accelerator line had disconnected the cruise control. We thought the problem was fixed. Today, it happened again. We googled it and discovered the federal safety agency's investigation of sudden, unexplained acceleration in the ford taurus model. My wife is now afraid to drive this care or have me drive it. Please advise.
Tl* the contact owns a 2004 ford taurus. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic for an unrelated repair where it was detected that the rear driver side brake adjuster was fractured. A temporary repair was performed on the vehicle. The failure recurred three times. The component was replaced after each recurrence and once by the dealer. The third recurrence of the failure was repaired by an independent mechanic. The contact planned to notify the manufacturer of the defect. The approximate failure mileage was 82,981 .updated 05/23/12 *bf updated 06/25/12
Brake line failure.. Needed to replace brake lines due to chaffing.. Reinforced rubber brake line under driver is chaffing in the 45 degree turn at the crossmember. I caught it b4 any accidents but just barely. This could result in sudden brake failure causing sever injury or death and should be at least investigated...
My son and wife were in the vehicle when it accelerated out of control. My son hit the brakes hard and found it difficult to keep the car below 30 MPH. He noticed the tachometer was racing 3,000 RPM even though he was applying the brake hard. He was able to pull over into a convenience store and shut off the engine. This was the only time this happened although I often felt the car was going too fast (@ 20mph) when starting up with no foot pressure on accelerator. Car was towed to dealer and repaired 2 days later. Mechanic said the 'air intake valve' was dirty (carbon deposits) and replaced. He also noted car was reprogrammed by the computer. Car performance I believe, was due to malfunction of computer or microprocessors which caused too much fuel to be injected into the engine.
Tl*the contact owns a 2004 ford taurus. While driving 45 MPH the contact had to suddenly apply the brakes to stop the vehicle and the master cylinder failed. The contact took the vehicle to the dealer to have the master cylinder repaired. The dealer stated that too much pressure caused the master cylinder to malfunction. This is the second time in a year the the contact had to replace the master cylinder. The contact is concerned that when the master cylinder malfunctions a crash could occur. The failure mileage was 48,000.
When it has snow or slush on roadway, I loose my braking ability and have gone through an intersection because I was unaware of this fault. I also asked the ford dealership where I purchased this vehicle about this and they didn't have an answer. I also asked my local ford dealership and they also didn't have an answer. Neither researched this as to my knowledge. This could have disastrous results if traffic was heavy. This is primarily in the winter when snow/slush is on roadways and temperature would be around freezing. It happens with low mileage 10-12 miles at the most.
Brakes were "worn out" after 24,000 miles. In fifty years of driving I have never had to have brakes replaced even after 100,000 miles of driving because I am a very conservative driver. The service agent at the dealer admitted to me that ford had changed the quality of the brake pads and they had a lot of repairs because of that.
Under normal driving circumstances... Usually at speeds over 40 MPH the ABS system light turns on and after this the brake pedal will shudder heavily when coming to a stop. This is intermittant. When the car comes to a stop and is turned off and then restarted the ABS light goes back to normal status (not on). Usually driving on slower surface streets will not activate the light at all.
I purchased a new 2004 taurus wagon with ABS and optional traction control in march,2004. I have had three instances wherein at low speed (5-10 MPH) and on either wet road , gravel or other rough surface, and on attempt to brake, I have experienced brake failure and/or the engine simultaneously accelerates. I have had to place the car in neutral to overcome the forward surge. On one occasion I failed to stop at a stop sign. I had presented the vehicle to the dealer in april, 2004. At that time the dealer (smith cairns ford,yonkers,ny) claimed the brake rotors were uneven. Subsequent to that repair, I experienced the same problem only this time the "ABS"and traction control" warning indicators activated. The dealer replaced left front wheel traction control sensor. The same problem occurred again on july 8, 2004. The dealer has been notified and I am awaiting advice from the service manager as to when the company service rep. Can inspect the vehicle.
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