2001 FORD FOCUS — Complaint #558708
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE:CARBURETOR SYSTEM filed October 14, 2005
NHTSA complaint #558708 (ODI reference 10139751) concerns a 2001 FORD FOCUS and was filed on October 14, 2005. The owner reports the failure occurred on November 10, 2004. The report was geocoded to Wisconsin based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as fuel system, gasoline:carburetor system, 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: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. No VIN was supplied by the filer, so this complaint contributes to model-year trend data but cannot be tied to a specific vehicle.
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 FOCUS cohort independently describe similar fuel system, gasoline:carburetor system 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 2001 FORD FOCUS shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE FAILURE: CHECK ENGINE LIGHT CAME ON HAS NEVER GONE OFF SINCE, HIGHLY INCREASED RUNNING NOISE, ENGINE HESITATION THAT AT HIGHWAY SPEED IT CAUSES THE WHOLE CAR TO JERK FAILURE: I TOOK THE CAR IN AND THEY TOLD ME I NEEDED A NEW HEAD THAT FORD HAD REDESIGNED A NEW ONE AND IT WOULD COST $1000. THE ONE I CURRENTLY HAVE DEPOSITS CARBON AND WILL KEEP DOING SO UNTIL IT EVENTUALLY GIVES OUT. THE THING THAT IRKS ME IS FORD OBVIOUSLY KNEW THERE WAS A DESIGN FLAW IF THEY DESIGNED A NEW ONE, THEREFORE I FEEL THEY SHOULD BE COVERING THIS. CORRECTIONS: NONE, CANNOT AFFORD. WILL HAVE TO DRIVE IT UNTIL THE CAR GIVES OUT.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 558708 |
| ODI Number | 10139751 |
| Date Filed | October 14, 2005 |
| Failure Date | November 10, 2004 |
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.