5.3

fairly significant
Crashes / Fires:
0 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
17,595 miles

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problem #1

Oct 262006

Freestar 6-cyl

  • Automatic transmission
  • 17,595 miles
We rented a Ford Freestar from a local rental company. Today, my 10 year old daughter, who is 59 inches tall and weighs 71 lbs., was sitting in the middle row behind the driver's seat. She was appropriately restrained in the lap-shoulder belt only. I had to stop suddenly. While I would characterize it as an abrupt stop, it was not severe and there was no impact. I heard a "breaking" sound. My daughter exclaimed that her seat belt had broken. I pulled over to inspect it; and found that the upper shoulder belt anchor had become detached (unbolted) from the vehicle. I could not find evidence of breakage. The bolt seems to have simply come out. Of course, this failure created considerable slack in the shoulder belt which I believe would have caused the vehicle to exceed NHTSA's head Excursion limits. The Freestar was manufactured in October, 2005. By the way, no one was hurt and I plan to contact Ford tomorrow. I am a certified child passenger safety instructor and former child safety seat design engineer.

- Indianapolis, IN, USA