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I am in dire need of guidance, opinion or just plain perspective. I have a 2013 Ford Fusion Titanium Energi which overall all has been a fair vehicle. Several recalls, had to replace the rear brakes at about 20k miles, replaced original tires by the time they had 25k miles on them but nothing crazy. Three weeks ago the wife is leaving for work and decides to take the Fusion, all things are working normally as she leaves the neighborhood until she starts down a hill which ends at a stop sign at a very busy highway near our house. As she started down the hill she went to apply the brake only to find that the brakes were completely gone, the power steering was not working and the parking brake (emergency brake) had also been disabled. Seeing as how the car has a CVT there was also no way to shift into a lower gear to slow the vehicle down. In a nut shell every mechanism built into a car to bring it to a controlled stop failed at the same time and by the grace of God she was able carry across the road without the 18 wheel truck coming down the highway hitting her.

 

After she called me I got to the site and checked out the vehicle to determine that in fact the car had no brakes, no power steering and no way to engage the parking brake, engine was running but there were more things showing errors on the dashboard than I can count. Called Ford who sent a truck to tow it into the dealership (Billy Howell Ford) where they diagnosed the problem and told me that the wiring harness had gone to ground in the dashboard which caused the computers to stop communicating and basically disabled everything (great feature). They then informed that this was not covered by warranty and I would have to pay to get it repaired which I told them NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

 

I contacted Ford and opened a case while trying to work through the dealer as well and after three weeks have received no support and nothing but aggravation. Ford has said that the car doesn't qualify for buy back because it is a 2013 which I have explained several times that I am not asking them to buy it back but just work with the dealer to give me what I owe on it in trade because I don't want anyone in my family (or anyone's family) ever driving that vehicle again. Ford has also said that I don't qualify for any incentive programs which my reply has been how can you not work with me to get out of that vehicle given the catastrophic failure that it suffered and appears to be evident in the model.

 

So three weeks has gone by and the are looking at the car to repair where the wiring harness has gone to ground and they find that it also caused the anti-lock brake relay to fry so they are telling me that it will take roughly $2,000 to fix the car of which I need to pay. I am at a loss because I have a car that suffered a catastrophic failure and I can't get Ford or the dealer to accept any ownership or responsibility and a vehicle that should (in my opinion) never go back on the road.

 

If anyone has any experience dealing with something like this or advise I would greatly appreciate any you can offer.

 

Seriously frustrated,

Kevin Griffin

 

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Wow, a $2000 repair on a ~4 year old car. I bet that has never ever happened in the history of the world.

 

I don't understand. You have a problem, you have been offered a solution, you are out of warranty but you don't want to pay. There's absolutely no reason to believe that the repair won't fix the car like it was new and there's absolutely no reason Ford should be expected to pay for a repair out of warranty.

 

And if you just push harder on the brake pedal, the car will stop.

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Sorry for your misfortune, but I agree with the sentiments above. That's life, and sometimes it sucks. Very glad to know that everyone made it through safely. I can't say it wouldn't scare me away from my car, too.

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That was a bit of a late-night rant on my part above, but the bottom line is that your car doesn't need to be treated like a criminal. Just because it did something very bad one time doesn't mean it can never be made right again. It doesn't need to be sent of to jail for years in the hopes that it might one day reach enlightenment and correct it's evil ways. The root of your problem sounds like nothing more than about a 1/4in of wire that's rubbed through. Fix that and everything will be back to normal again (well and fixing the module that may have been ruined by the outcome of that root cause).

 

Agree that filling with NHTSA is the proper course of action, but you still shouldn't be expecting anything from Ford. Your warranty is very specific and Ford has no responsibility or ownership beyond that.

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