2.2
hardly worth mentioning- Crashes / Fires:
- 0 / 0
- Injuries / Deaths:
- 0 / 0
- Average Mileage:
- 70,100 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
The NHTSA is the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints can be spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem. See the Back button — blue bar at the very top of the page — to explore more.
The contact owns a 2003 Mercury Mountaineer. While driving at various speeds, the vehicle suddenly shut off. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic who diagnosed that the fuel pump was faulty. The fuel pump was replaced, but the failure continued. No further information was available. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 113,000.
- Denver, CO, USA
On the baltimore-Washington parkway (295 N ) northbound, changed lanes to the left and accelerated. The gas peddle was pushed to the floor, stayed there and would not release. I stood on the brakes, but only somewhat slowied the acceleration. The vehicle continued until we reached about 80mph and coming close to rear ending the vehicle in front of me. I went off on the shoulder and turned off the ignition key to get the vehicle stopped. The brake overheated brakes. I could not see a problem. This was not caused by a floor mat. The pedal was stuck to the floor. I wiggled and pulled and it come back up with a pop. In daylight the next day, I inspected the pedal and pushed it down. It again went to the floor and stayed there. I slid under the dash and found that the horizontal pin that holds the pedal to the floor bracket had backed out sideways from right to left, allowing the pedal to go somewhat sideways and the motor for the adjustable pedal assembly had caught on a metal bracket keeping the pedal from returning to the up position. I removed the pedal assembly and inspected the problem. This is poor engineering and there should be a recall.. there are no clips or pins to hold the pedal pin in place ! ! ! the assembly relies on slight interference between splines on the pin and splines inside where it goes through the pedal. What happened was, that over a period of time, from the pedal wiggling, the pin backed out.from use, on its own. Again, this not sufficient to keep the pedal assembled. It need clips on both ends or cotter pins on both ends of the pin assembly. A concern is the use of plastic bracket to mount the pedal to the floor. In my past experience, the mounting brackets had been made of metal. Plastic fatigues faster than metal and is prone to cracking and breaking.
- Westminster, MD, USA
- Lake Charles, LA, USA