Vehicle lost power and commenced to make a hissing noise while driving 60 mph. Vehicle was taken to the repair shop, and mechanic replaced two vacuum hoses that disintegrated from the excessive heat coming from the catalytic convertor. The dealer was not notified.

- Jupiter, FL, USA

The vehicle has had the brakes replaced on average every 6,000 miles. The catalytic converter has been replaced at 40,000 miles, the head gasket at 20,000. The cutting out, engine failure has been happening since head gasket was corrected. Ford has responded to a written letter, at which time I was accused for forging my husband's signature (later I was told he was just kidding). This vehicle is unsafe transportation for my 3 children. When moving out into traffic, we are in danger of a collision if the engine fails, as it often does. Please feel free to contact myself or my husband with any questions. Barbara smith. ****dimsii IVOQ entry posted after 12/12/02 cut-over to artemis****724221.

- San Bruno, CA, USA

I was driving from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania at night. In Ohio, I noticed a significant loss of power, and "whooshing" noise from under chassis, gradually getting worse over a couple of hours. At that point, the check engine light also came on. After arriving in pittsburgh (and after christmas holiday) I took the car to a muffler shop. As I expected, one of the catalytic convertors was clogged. On diagnosing the PCM fault codes, they discovered that the rubber hoses connecting to the dpfe (differential pressure feedback egr) sensor was nearly completely melted away (because of the increased exhaust backpressure from the cat failure"?"). I was preparing the car for another long-distance trip on 6/10/02 when I discovered that the plastic air intake plenum and the wiring harness in that area were damaged by heat, as well. The area of damage is right in the area of the metal tubes coming from the exhaust system that the rubber hoses to the dpfe sensor connect to. About 8 of the wires had their insulation completely burned through (about 1" in length). Many of the rest of the wires had embrittled insulation, or the insulation was melted together (there seem to be about 50 conductors in the wiring harness at that location). I'm really quite surprised that no fuses blew, since the bare wires were all adjacent to eachother (on the back side of the wire bundle, out of sight if you're not looking closely). I hadn't detected any electrical failures at the time, or during the intervening 6 months, but this was clearly a fire hazard. I have some reasonably clear digital photographs of the damaged wires (taken while I repaired the insulation on all of the conductors with vinyl electrical tape). I'll be happy to email them to you if you're interested.

- Blue Mounds, WI, USA

Consumer contacted the dealer. Oil was changed when dealer noticed oil leaking onto the exhaust manifold. Dealer also noticed oil leaking from the catalytic convverter, causing a possible fire hazard.

- Wooster, OH, USA

Consumer saw brake fluid leakage on the garage floor. He had to continue adding brake fluid. Service put vehicle on rack saw the leak coming from the brake line on left side of master cylinder/ down and across. Underneath/at the cross of the catalytic converter to the right front wheel cylinder fluid leaked right above the catalytic converter. The shield was not protecting the brake line from catalytic converter.

- Soxpm, IL, USA