Hi Everyone,
Let me introduce myself - I am one of potentially thousands of unlucky owners of Ford Edge with power brake booster failure. Even though Ford has issued an extended warranty, they still have failed on several fronts to treat this issue right!
First of all, in my belief they should have treated this as an immediate recall and not just an extended warranty as this relates to a failure of an important safety component and can potentially lead to very major consequences.
Second of all - the extended warranty covers only certain production date ranges, while the real scope of owners impacted by a faulty part is much larger.
I was unfortunate enough to have a vehicle that was produced just outside of the dates covered by 13N02, but this is not what has lead me to write this post and ask for your help. This is about how Ford handles this situation and leaves customers on their own.
In my case, my car is still under 60k miles, and I am still on my original set of braking pads, visiting service and oil changes every 5k miles - this should kind of tell you how I treat my car. It was a major surprise to me when one day pulling close to a traffic stop I pretty much lost my brakes and almost hit a car in front of me. Luckily I was rolling at only about 20mph when I started pressing on brake pedal, but the car pretty much did not respond to my typical braking efforts. At that moment I had to press the pedal almost all the way in for the braking to happen. Man, was I caught by surprise! All the symptoms I have are exactly of those described in a brake booster failure - there is a hissing noise at brakes application and even a whistle if tapping on brakes fast and hard enough, there is a spongy brake feeling at times as well as sometimes it is hard to press the brakes pedal or it can go all the way in - and all of this happening at random (well, not exactly random but I will leave technical details aside as this post will double in length - in short it has to do with vacuum buildup, temperature, engine rpm and few other factors). Neither dealership nor Ford hotline representatives wanted to do anything about it and cover this issue for me, just like for many others. Now I do understand all parts have their engineered resource time and can't be functional forever, however there is absolutely no justification for a booster to fail this early, with the way this car got treated and in the environment it was operated. I live in the south so there are no winters here and freezing temperatures or snow/road chemicals could not have caused the rubber elements in the booster to fail. Neither I was ever diving like a mad man! From my memory, I've only activated ABS once in my life and that happened on a large puddle. The only explanation I can come up with is a faulty part which Ford fails to admit to, protecting their income stream so that they can payout bonuses to management.
My concern is that this is not as minor of a problem as Ford claims it to be as with my specific case it almost lead to an accident! I remember reading a post from another member on this forum who also had a very close call because of this issue.
Now, with this long post I WOULD LIKE TO REQUEST FOR YOUR SUPPORT! If you, like me believe that this issue is much more serious than Ford claims it to be and you are unhappy with the way Ford Motors Company handles this situation, I would like to request you to file a formal complaint with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration! It can be easily done online and will take less then 10 minutes of your time! All you'll need to provide is your vehicle's VIN number and your contact details.
You can file your complaint via this link: https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/
I have already filed for myself, but this issue will not get any attention from federal authorities and Ford unless there are at least few of us reporting it.
Thank you and safe driving!
