Consumer Complaints
| Fail date | miles | occurences | Purchase date |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEATS | |||
| 06/15/2011 | 175000 | ||
| 1997 ford explorer and began to back out of my parents driveway on the way to work. i used the electrical seat mover button to move my seat back a few inches and within only 10 seconds smoke was in my face. i jumped out of the car, turned the car off, and ran in my house. i got water to try and extinguish the smoke and opened my back door and looked under the seat and there was intense sparking which turned into flames and within minutes my entire vehicle was engulfed in flames. fire and police came and extinguished it after flames reached about 20 feet. there was property damage, with along losing the entire vehicle (engine was somehow in fine shape), but luckily, it happened when i was in my driveway and not on the highway as i am alive. i sent ford 40 pictures, police report, video of the incident that we caught, title of vehicle, etc. it has caused me an incredible inconvenience in my life, i now walk a mile to a subway station which takes me to a train station which then gets me to work. knowing it was an older car, but a popular one at that, i figured that ford would reimburse me with a used car and the property damage, especially given how lucky that no death or injuries resulted. they informed today they wouldn't give me a dime because they don't deem that a defect through their analysis (though the car sits like a toxic wasteland in my driveway with no one from ford even inspecting it). they came to their decision within one day of having my materials. | |||
| 08/01/2006 | 0 | ||
| Front drivers side seat tilt lever broke off, passenger side bent. there are other reports of the same thing happening to other owners. | |||
| 05/01/2001 | 40000 | 1 | |
| Both seat tilt levers bend and then break off after attempting to straighten them once too many times. new design strengthens the brackets. if the brackets break off and there is a small child in the back, adults will not be able to remove small children quickly during an emergency since they can't tilt the seats forward out of the way. *tr | |||
| SEATS - FRONT ASSEMBLY - RECLINER | |||
| 08/01/2003 | 1 | 09/01/1998 | |
| Broken front seat latch on 1997 explorer sport frod motor co acknowledeges part defect (refer techinacal service bulletin 98-25-15) but does not feel that they should replace part becuse a recall was not ordered.*ak i have seen articles on the web about this being a warranty repair but ford will not honor on vehicle | |||