AtWhatMileage
Brakes · 9 owner reports

Master cylinder or brake booster failure on the 2007 Ford Fusion

1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 9 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.

Only 7 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 9
With an odometer reading 7
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 0%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 2
Typical repair $450–$2,200
What it means when it happens Critical
Rank among this year's problems 23rd

When master cylinder or brake booster failure gets reported

There are 9 reports of master cylinder or brake booster failure on the 2007 Ford Fusion, 7 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 23rd most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 7 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 149,175 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, 1 a crash and 1 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 $450–$2,200 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.

This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 95,000 miles, and latest on the 2016 at 200,000 miles.

By volume the 2008 carries the most reports, with 66; the 2007 has 9. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.

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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

I took my car into the dealer to have my brakes checked. I was told I needed new brakes and rotors, after replacing brakes and rear rotors drove the car out , less than a quarter of a mile on the way home brake paddle went down to the floor.return to the dealer was suggested I need a master cylinder , the master cylinder was replaced was told that was not the problem. No one knew exactly what it was for two days, I was called and inform it was ABS valve module. Ford dealer had to order valve module one week later still waiting. Don't understand why there is no recall. (many complaints) *tr

100,300 miles NHTSA complaint 1172292 filed 2015-04-06

The first incident with my 2007 fusion brakes occurred june 23, 2016. I was going down a side street near my home about 20 MPH in the day time when I noticed a woman tumbling into traffic from her bicycle. I stopped suddenly to avoid running over her. I stopped to help her but afterwards as I continued on my way I noticed my brakes were very squishy. I had to press extra hard at each intersection to get them to stop. I had the brakes repaired at brakes plus. I was told the master cylinder needed replacement and the brakes flushed.

149,175 miles NHTSA complaint 1347529 filed 2017-01-10

My problem is exactly as described in the open investigation NHTSA action number pe16017 called "extended braking distance". After engaging the ABS due to icy and snowy conditions, my brake pedal became very "soft" and almost goes to the floor. The typical braking characteristics are changed dramatically, much greater force and distance are required to stop the car. This is very repeatable. Pumpint the brakes did not immediately help, but eventually the pedal did come back to the normal position. During the summer of 2017 I must have had the same problem without realizing it, the shop replaced my master cylinder but as of yesterday it's obvious changing the master cylinder did not help. I see this as a major safety issue, I will not let my daughter drive this car again until this is fixed.

93,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1431098 filed 2017-12-07

Also reported on the 2007 Ford Fusion

Airbag inflator rupture

419 reports median 101k

Other brake problem

88 reports median 100k

Other body or interior problem

73 reports median 69k

Other powertrain problem

50 reports median 82k

Other engine problem

44 reports median 92k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 9 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 9 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 master cylinder or brake booster failure happen on the 2007 Ford Fusion?

Across 7 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 150,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is master cylinder or brake booster failure on the 2007 Ford Fusion?

9 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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