NHTSA Complaint #11551741 — 2020 FORD EXPLORER

This car is putting my life in danger! It feels like the gears are slipping in the transmission. When I accelerate, there is a metal grinding noise and the car has no power. Most recently, I was doing 70 mph on the highway when I went to pass someone and I lost power to the transmission. I heard an awful metal grinding noise. I could smell the metal grinding. The vehicle didn’t engage the gear again and I was forced off the road. Thankfully I made it to the shoulder. I had to wait 15 min to restart the vehicle. Today, I went to turn off the vehicle and it wouldn’t let me. It gave me a dash warning that read “ transmission not in park” and “Park Not Available, Apply Park Brake Before Exiting”. The light on the gear shift for park was flashing. I couldn’t turn off the vehicle. Then I couldn’t start it again for a while. The vehicle also shifts hard out of reverse or into drive frequently. The four-wheel-drive transfer case was replaced with less than 5,000 miles on it. Vehicle has never operated the same since and has gotten worse. I’ve taken it into the dealership more than half a dozen times for this issue. They can never replicate it. There are codes in the computer from the failures in the gear shifting, but the dealership says they can’t fix it because they can’t replicate it. I’m literally afraid for my life to drive this vehicle at this point. I’m not paying thousands of dollars to replace a transmission that has been bad since we bought it new. I have 65k miles on this very expensive vehicle with a transmission that has failed from the beginning.