1995 FORD WINDSTAR — Complaint #483409
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about SERVICE BRAKES, AIR:DRUM:CHAMBER filed July 7, 2004
NHTSA complaint #483409 (ODI reference 10080551) concerns a 1995 FORD WINDSTAR and was filed on July 7, 2004. The owner reports the failure occurred on February 4, 2004. The vehicle had 78,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to North Carolina based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as service brakes, air:drum:chamber, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: yes, fire: no, injuries: 2, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same FORD WINDSTAR cohort independently describe similar service brakes, air:drum:chamber failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 1995 FORD WINDSTAR shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
I ASKED THE SELLER AT FORD TO COMPLETELY SERVICE THE VAN BEFORE I WOULD BUY IT. HE SAID HIS MECHANIC WOULD. I CHECKED THE VAN OUT TWO WEEKS LATER, LOW ON OIL, NO BRAKE FLUID, TRANS FLUID VERY LOW, NO WATER HARDLY AT ALL IN RECEIVER, THEN THE STARTER WENT OUT, REPLACED IT NO GOOD, REPLACED SWITCH, NO GOOD, BRAKES GONE OUT, CAN'T KEEP FLUID IN SYSTEMS, ENGINE LIGHT CAME ON, EMISSION PROBLEMS, MECHANIC STALLS FOR THE HOUR AMOUNT, AND STILL CAN'T FIX/TEST II CODE. INSIDE LIGHTS DIM WHEN EXTRA. LIGHTS COME ON. IT'S A [XXX] PIECE OF JUNK AND THEY SOLD US A LEMON. I PAID OVER $4,000.00 CASH FOR IT, AND ALL THEY WANTED TO SO WAS SELL IT FOR MONEY. WHAT CAN I DO? IT HAS 72,000 ETC MILE AND NOW HAS 82,000. WE ARE BOTH DISABLED WITH TWO KIDS. WE HAVE BEEN SCREWED. I CAN GET THE FORD INFO ON THE FORD WINDSTAR 95 3.8 IT RATTLES, WATER RUNS OUT OF THE EXHAUST PIPE AND THE CONVERTER. I WANT TO SUE THEM, I CALLED THEM AND THEY SAID THE HELL WITH YOU, YOU BOUGHT IT AS IT WAS. FORD PRODUCTS ARE THE WORS
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 483409 |
| ODI Number | 10080551 |
| Date Filed | July 7, 2004 |
| Failure Date | February 4, 2004 |
| VIN | 2FMDA5147SB |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.