Consumer Complaint Detail

WORKHORSE / W20 / 2001

Recalls
0 Injured
Investigations
0 Death
Complaints
No Fire
Components - Details
NHTSA Complaint Number: 005038550 Incident Date: Sep, 10 2005
Consumer's City: SCOTTS VALLEY Consumer's State: CA
Vehicle Transmission Type: AUTO Manufacturers Name: WORKHORSE CUSTOM CHASSIS
Model Name: W20 Model Year: 2001
Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No Component's Description: Electrical system:ignition:switch
Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No Persons Injured: 0
Vehicle's VIN#: 5B4LP57G913 Date added to File: May, 23 2021
Date Complaint Received: Sep, 13 2005 Complaint Type: IVOQ
Incident Reported To Police: No Purchase Date: May, 15 2005
Was Original Owner: No Anti-lock Brakes: Yes
Number of Cylinders: 8 Date of Manufacturer: -
Was Vehicle Towed: - Description of the Complaints: I own a 2001 safari trek, built on a 17000 gvw workhorse chassis. i was traveling at the posted speed limit (70 mph) in the center lane of highway 99 in fresno ca. my cruise control disengaged (the first sign) and i reset it. several minutes later, the engine lost power, the gauges failed, and the emergency brake came on. luckily i was able to bring the motorhome to a complete stop, all the way off the road. as it turns out, the ignition switch failed internally, causing excessive resistance and heat in the pink power wire which feeds the chassis part of the vehicle. the main problem, besides suddenly loosing power, is that the emergency brake comes on automatically when then vehicle is put into park. when the ignition switch failed, the power to the emergency brake failed, and it came on, full force, at seventy miles and hour! if i had been tired, or the road conditions been rainy, curvy, icy etc, things may have turned out very, very bad. if i had been traveling slower, or had a lighter vehicle, i and my family might have wound up stopped in the middle of the freeway. i wound up literally hot wiring the vehicle to get home, and the problem recurred two more times because the connection that i had to rig up, kept coming loose. from my experience, it only takes a very short ,intermittent loss of power to trigger the emergency brake. i am an ase certified automotive technician, and would appreciate your assistance in resolving this issue. personally, i am going to re-wire it somehow to prevent this from happening again. *jb