On October 25 2007 I purchased a Ford Focus sedan 4 door car with more or less 400 miles on the odometer. A couple of days later I noticed that when my daughter which is 5 foot one, 112 lb was riding in the passenger's seat, an indicator light lit indicating me that the airbag is turned off ( written on the plastic), telling me that at this moment the airbag would not deploy in case of a collision. This feature is supposed to activate when children are seated in the passenger seat in order to avoid deployment injury. I went to my dealer 4 times expressing my complaints around this safety issue. Each time they told me that the unit would be reset and ultimately they even exchanged a seat cushion, all of this with no avail. Confronted again with this problem with my wife as a passenger (5ft 3 and 114lb) I returned to the dealer and they reproduced the situation I was explaining with a local thin passenger. As a result of this visit I contacted Ford customer service and filed a complaint on 11/19/2007. Ford advised that I would receive a follow up call in a couple of days. Today 11/20/2007 Ford called and told me that according to their engineers, the behavior of the light was "as designed" and as such I could do nothing about it. Let me state that Ford explanation is ridiculous and a severe breach in auto security with liability issues. Bottom line, occupants in the front passenger seat ( in this case my daughter or wife) could be subjected to lethal injuries as a result on non deployment of the air bag due to a faulty mechanism which interprets erroneously that small adults are children even in the case of normal small adults. I find this situation completely unacceptable and awareness, if not a class suit should be initiated against Ford. As a customer, I'm frustrated and feel at risk using this new vehicle.

- Orlando, FL, USA

The contact owns a 2007 Ford Focus. The vehicle was involved in a crash and after it was repaired, the passenger side air bag light illuminated intermittently. She returned to the dealer twice in one week and they repaired the air bag sensor three times. The contact stated that the light would dim for two days, but then illuminate again. She believed that this was a safety hazard and the dealer advised her not to drive the vehicle until it was repaired. The failure mileage was 8,300 and current mileage was 8,900.

- Bucrus, OH, USA