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2003 LINCOLN AVIATOR — Complaint #633189

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NHTSA Complaint about PARKING BRAKE:CONVENTIONAL:MECHANICAL filed August 5, 2007

NHTSA complaint #633189 (ODI reference 10198535) concerns a 2003 LINCOLN AVIATOR and was filed on August 5, 2007. The owner reports the failure occurred on July 17, 2007. The vehicle had 55,209 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to New Jersey based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as parking brake:conventional:mechanical, 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. 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 LINCOLN AVIATOR cohort independently describe similar parking brake:conventional:mechanical 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 2003 LINCOLN AVIATOR shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2003 LINCOLN AVIATOR
Component
PARKING BRAKE:CONVENTIONAL:MECHANICAL
State
New Jersey
Mileage
55,209 mi

Complaint Description

REPLACEMENT OF REAR BRAKES BY DEALER RESULTED IN DISCOVER OF PARKING BRAKE PROBLEM AND REPLACEMENT. THE PARKING BRAKE UNIT IS LOCATED BEHING THE BRAKE ROTOR AND CANNOT BE VISIBLY CHECKED DURING ROUTINE SAFETY INSPECTIONS. THE BRAKE COMPONENTS WERE CORRODED TO THE POINT OF DISINTEGRATION AND THE BRAKE PADS HAD SEPARATED FROM THE UNIT. THE VEHICLE IS OUT OF WARRANTY BY A FEW MONTHS AND APPROX. 5000 MILES. I RARELY USE THE PARKING BRAKE AND THE DEALERSHIP STATED THAT WAS PART OF THE PROBLEM AND PROBABLE CAUSE OF FAILURE OF THE PARTS. BASED ON CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEALERSHIP MECHANIC, AND OTHER AUTO MECHANIC ACQUAINTANCES, THIS IS APPARENTLY A COMMON PROBLEM WITH THIS MAKE VEHICLE. IN AN EMERGENCY THE "EMERGENCY BRAKE" WOULD HAVE FAILED AND LIFE AND PROPERTY WOULD HAVE BEEN ENDANGERED. THE EXPLANATION THAT NON-USE OF A SAFETY COMPONENT CAN RENDER IT USELESS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO ME, ESPECIALLY SINCE THIS PART CANNONT BE VISUALLY INSPECTED DURING ROUTINE SAFETY INSPECTIONS.A COMPLAINT WAS

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 633189
ODI Number 10198535
Date Filed August 5, 2007
Failure Date July 17, 2007
VIN 5LMEU88HX3Z

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.