The Detroit News reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) “said it’s opening a preliminary investigation into 360,000 2005-2006 Ford Taurus sedans over complaints of stuck throttles because of cruise control cable detachment. NHTSA said it is has received 14 complaints from Taurus owners that said the engine revved as high as 4,000 RPMs after shifting into park or neutral. Some complaints said owners had trouble stopping the vehicles – and one owner said the vehicle had traveled partially through a red light before it stopped.”
Here are more details from the newspaper article:
Ford didn’t immediately respond to a request seeking comment. NHTSA didn’t identify any crashes or injuries related to the issue in its statement.
In a complaint filed Feb. 15, an owner from Hickory, N.C., said “while coasting uphill and approaching my left turn the (2006 Taurus) began to accelerate. I made the left turn while applying a good amount of force to the brake pedal for fear that I would hit mail boxes and homes.”
The owner of a 2005 Taurus told NHTSA in November that when stopped at a light the car started to rev “and could not hold on brakes enough to stop moving. Went through red light, around two cars as speed reached about 70 miles per hour. Both feet on brakes. Could smell them burning,” the owner wrote. “Please someone make Ford wake up about this problem before someone is killed. I wouldn’t feel right trading it in, for fear of someone else getting killed.”
In both complaints, the owners said the problem was a disconnected cruise control cable.
Another owner of a 2005 Taurus videotaped the ride home – as the engine revved to 4,000 RPM.
