NHTSA Complaint #11523160 — 2014 FORD TAURUS

Water pump failure causing a major leak. Because the vehicle is designed to have the water pump run on the timing chain and the oil pan right underneath the water pump, the coolant leaks right into the oil pan and coolant enters the engine. I was driving on a back road and had to abruptly pull over on the side of the road because the driver assist screen said “engine coolant overheating.” This was the first and only time this message appeared. There was smoke coming from under the hood. Numerous mechanics that I’ve spoken to said that if I drove it any longer, there’s a good chance the engine could blow. So now I’m looking at a $3,000+ repair for this. Realistically, any other make and model (that was designed with common sense) with a failed water pump should cost $500-1,000. And won’t run the risk of ruining your engine on top of it. I spoke to several Ford dealers and third party mechanics. Every one of them knew exactly what I was talking about like they had seen this many times before. The third party mechanics refused to fix it because it’s an 11+ hour labor None of them said there are any pro’s to having the water pump connected to the timing chain. But there are many con’s to this design. Sounds like negligence on behalf of the engineers who designed all the 3.5L and 3.7L V6’s in the Fords. Luckily, I was going between 20-30 mph on a backroad when this occurred. Otherwise, this could have ended very badly and I’d like to prevent this from happening to anyone else in the future.