| Components - Details | |
|---|---|
| NHTSA Complaint Number: 007127371 | Incident Date: Oct, 25 2007 |
| Consumer's City: ORLANDO | Consumer's State: FL |
| Vehicle Transmission Type: AUTO | Manufacturers Name: Ford Motor Company |
| Model Name: FOCUS | Model Year: 2007 |
| Vehicle Involved in a Crash: No | Component's Description: Air bags:frontal:sensor/control module |
| Vehicle Involved in a Fire: No | Persons Injured: 0 |
| Vehicle's VIN#: 1FAFP34N27W | Date added to File: May, 23 2021 |
| Date Complaint Received: Nov, 19 2007 | Complaint Type: IVOQ |
| Incident Reported To Police: No | Purchase Date: Oct, 24 2007 |
| Was Original Owner: Yes | Anti-lock Brakes: No |
| Number of Cylinders: 4 | Date of Manufacturer: - |
| Was Vehicle Towed: - | Description of the Complaints: On october 25 2007 i purchased a ford focus sedan 4 door car with more or less 400 miles on the odometer. a couple of days later i noticed that when my daughter which is 5 foot one, 112 lb was riding in the passenger's seat, an indicator light lit indicating me that the airbag is turned off ( written on the plastic), telling me that at this moment the airbag would not deploy in case of a collision. this feature is supposed to activate when children are seated in the passenger seat in order to avoid deployment injury. i went to my dealer 4 times expressing my complaints around this safety issue. each time they told me that the unit would be reset and ultimately they even exchanged a seat cushion, all of this with no avail. confronted again with this problem with my wife as a passenger (5ft 3 and 114lb) i returned to the dealer and they reproduced the situation i was explaining with a local thin passenger. as a result of this visit i contacted ford customer service and filed a complaint on 11/19/2007. ford advised that i would receive a follow up call in a couple of days. today 11/20/2007 ford called and told me that according to their engineers, the behavior of the light was "as designed" and as such i could do nothing about it. let me state that fords explanation is ridiculous and a severe breach in auto security with liability issues. bottom line, occupants in the front passenger seat ( in this case my daughter or wife) could be subjected to lethal injuries as a result on non deployment of the air bag due to a faulty mechanism which interprets erroneously that small adults are children even in the case of normal small adults. i find this situation completely unacceptable and awareness, if not a class suit should be initiated against ford. as a customer, i'm frustrated and feel at risk using this new vehicle. *tr |
