Steering Wheel problems of the 2003 Ford Taurus

Front drivers side coil spring broke and punctured the front drivers side tire.

While exiting my driveway the left front spring coil let go puncturing the tire and rendering the vehicle inoperable. Had to have vehicle towed to repair facility for replacement. Ford motor company had a recall on this component on some other of its vehicles, but I was informed my vehicle was not in the recall. It seems to be an ongoing problem. When are they going to admit the problem and fix it, when someone has a serious crash or dies?.

Drivers side front coil spring in the strut broke and slashed the adjacent tire. This was noticed when the car was beginning to be backed out of a parking spot. We had to replace both strut assemblies for safety sake, replace the damaged tire as well. We opted to replace the other three tires due to wear. Also, the garage recommended we replace the ball joints and lh side tie rod end. The front end was aligned as well. Total cost $1871. I am outraged that there is a recall for 1999 thru 2001 Taurus cars but nothing covering up to and including 2003's. I also think it is ridiculous that the cutoff to repair this problem occurs when a car exceeds 100000 miles. This is a known design defect and all Ford Taurus cars should have been recalled and repaired. My daughter was lucky this failure occurred in a parking lot and not when going 65mph! severe injury and death could have been the result and other people may have been involved! I implore NHTSA to force Ford to engage in a retroactive recall for all affected Taurus cars. It is inexcusable to have a design defect of this magnitude on the public highways. I can understand a broken spring can occur, but the complaints clearly show that the spring then slashes the tire, causing an immediate blowout and potential loss of control of the vehicle.

The suspension coil spring fractured and punctured the tire next to it, causing the tire to explode.

I heard from an acquaintance that there were several issues posted on the NHTSA website regarding the failure of coil springs on the Ford Taurus. I too experienced the complete loss of control of my 2003 Taurus while driving in heavy traffic due to coil spring failure. With the initial jolt and subsequent dragging of the car to bring it to a safe area to bring the car to a stop, I actually thought I had hit a person or large object. When I got out of my car I found the the front end of the car sitting on top of my tire. My mechanic actually took pictures of the car as he could not believe the amount of damage that had occurred. I had to replace the struts, springs, sway bar links, lower ball joint and axle shaft. All of this at 61k miles!! for a cost of $1300. 00. In closing, my 2003 Ford Taurus has been involved in 2 serious malfunctions posted to the NHTSA website which could have easily resulted in serious injury or death to myself or fellow motorists if I was not able to react quickly and control the car with a complete collapse of the front end or complete loss of power with the transmission failure (ref #fbn24-10467). Both of these issues occurred within 4 months (5k miles) of each other (66k - 71k) and cost in excess of $4,000. 0 to repair. Given the number of coil spring complaints received by the NHTSA and the open investigation (NHTSA action number: ea08018) , I would think either Ford or the national highway transportation safety administration take responsibility and issue a notification of these serious issues with this car (and the other year/models listed in nhsta action # ea08018)) and the steps to remediate those issues before the issue causes serious injury or death.