Front Suspension Control Arm problems of the 2002 Ford Focus

This is our first year driving this Focus in the snow, we bought it in 2011. We had a snow fall on 11/1/2012 and we took the car out for a drive. Any speed above 35 mph and the rear of the car floats (wiggles) back and forth up to a foot. It is completely unstable on snow or ice. I did some research online, and Ford apparently knows the problem,: defective rear upper control arms, since they did a silent recall on these in 2006. Nhtsa should investigate this since there are many more Focus's out there like ours, and Ford should have to recall and replace the control arms on all of these units from 2000-2004. I have over 35 years of winter driving experience and I have never had a vehicle (even the old rear wheel drive models) behave so dangerously on snow and ice, even with all season tires on it. I contacted Ford motor company and they said there is nothing they have to do since the car is out of warranty. Here is an attached article I found on line. October 03, 2006 Ford motor company told dealers that they may need to replace the rear upper control arms on Ford Focus models. The models include: 2000 through 2004 Focus sedan, wagon, zx3 and zx5 series. Ford will check the rear camber and, if possible, make an adjustment. If an adjustment to the vehicle's rear camber is necessary beyond the negative end of specification, then the dealership will need to source replacement rear upper control arm(s). " this is considered a "silent recall" where upon Ford may not notify owners of this condition. .

The contact owns a 2002 Ford Focus. The contact stated the rear bearings seized and needed to be replaced six times. On one occasion the contacts rear passenger wheel broke off causing the contact to replace the control arm. The dealer did not diagnose the failure, but stated the failure occurred frequently with that model year vehicle. The failure mileage was 60,000 and the current mileage was 85,000.

Dt:the tires on the consumer's 2002 Ford Focus 2002 were showing severe signs of wear after only 17000 miles. The first set of tires were replaced at 5000 miles due to wear. After about 12000 miles the same wear pattern reappeared. These tire were rated as 60000 mile tires. The vehicle is currently on it's third set of tires. One of the tire was taken to a Ford dealership for inspection. The dealer found a service bulletin #. 03-13-5 on Ford's computer that covered all models of Ford Focus 2000-2004 that experienced inner tire wear. The upper control arms of this model were engineered incorrectly creating adverse camber to the rear tires. The remedy was a restructured control arm:upper arm kit. The newly restructured control arm :upper arm kit would only be sent to those who were eligible under the bumper to bumper warranty,3 year, 36,000 miles. Consumer felt the vehicle was bought with a factory defect.

Rear inner tire wear. The control arms on top was defective, causing the tire to rub against the body and rear to swirve when riding over a bum or pot hole.

Vehicle's control arm broke causing steering to fail. Please provide additional information.

My father owns this vehicle, but he bought it for me for safety reasons, I am a 16 year old female. Traveling at normal highway speed on a dry, two lane highway with no traffic at night my 2002 Ford Focus lost control due to the front control arm fracturing. My right front tire ended up totally unattached to the control arm and only staying attached to the vehicle by the hold of the tie rod. My vehicle swerved into the median and into the oncoming traffic (thankfully no traffic was around). Being by myself with no cell phone I waited until someone stopped on the side of the road. A police man, officer strom from the titusville police dep't stopped and noticed the skid marks and verified the front wheel had in fact come loose of the control arm and caused the accident. The tow truck operator, herb daniel's also verified the fracture in the control arm. I was not physically injured, but it was pretty emotionally traumatizing. My dad looked up information on the internet the following morning and found that accidents similar to mine had been reported before and no recalls had been made. We have video footage to show the skid marks and scene of the accident. At this point our main concern is to keep this type of accident from happening again and to make sure the new part that will be added to the car will not be defective.