Other powertrain problem on the 2006 Ford Freestyle
9 crashes 2 injuries 11 of the 350 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When other powertrain problem gets reported
Owners of the 2006 Ford Freestyle report other powertrain problem at a median of 77,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 63,000 miles and a quarter after 100,000 miles, from 322 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 44,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 125,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 80,531 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
5% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 44,460 miles | 63,000 miles | 77,126 miles | 100,000 miles | 124,991 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 9 a crash and 2 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $400–$4,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 3 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2007, at a median of 70,000 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 86,000 miles.
By volume the 2006 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
I have two big problems with my ford, first I've had it for a year and a half and replaced the front and rear brakes four times. The rotors were supposed to have been replaced before I got the SUV. For over a year I haven't had no help by ford, during the same time I've had a loud knocking noise from either the engine or transmission, they wouldn't even look at that problem. For being a 2006 there is so many things wrong with it and spend double in gas I'm very unsatisfied with my freestyle. *tr
While curbside at the airport my 2006 ford freestyle started to accelerate by itself. And nearly plowed into the car and pedestrians in front of me. When the acceleration subsided I repositioned my feet (left foot brake, right foot on floor) because I thought my foot was on both the brake and the accelerator. A minute or so later the car did it again, I put the car in neutral and turned it off. When my passengers were re loaded I started the car and while leaving the airport noticed the car was very sluggish. I took it to the dealer that day. After more than two days, lots of phone calls (about what might be the problem "but we're not sure") and a lot of negotiation between the dealer and the extended warranty "provider" it was determined that the electronic throttle body was the culprit but "the part was on nationwide back-order" in fact "we have another freestyle out in the back that has been waiting for a month". The tune changed considerably when the dealer found out that I was not only considering a legal path for resolution, but my wife was a "consumer cop" for the state where we live. The parts (2)were "found" in california…
I have a 2006 ford freestyle. A light came on indicating a problem with the drive train. The car would not shift or accell. I took it in to the dealer and found it needed a new throttle assembly. We were told it was on back order for 6 months, then after complaining they said that part had been discontinued and a new part with an adapter kit was available. It seems that the dealers that had the part did not want to part with them and we got the impression that this part which is a safety issue was failing on a lot of the cars. We were told that the original part manufacture was no longer doing business with ford and that is when they had to find someone to make a replacement. The original part had a cooling tube to it and the new one does not. It seems from what I have been hearing that this should be a recall item, especially since it is due to the safety of the car. We had purchased an extended warranty on this vehicle and when we took it in we were told that this specific part was excluded which made me wonder why unless there have been other cases like this. *tr
Also reported on the 2006 Ford Freestyle
Other speed control problem
Other engine problem
Other fuel system problem
Complete transmission failure
CVT failure
Air conditioning failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 350 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other powertrain problem happen on the 2006 Ford Freestyle?
Across 322 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 77,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 63,000 miles and a quarter after 100,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other powertrain problem on the 2006 Ford Freestyle?
350 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 10 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed