Other brake problem on the 2004 Ford Taurus
2 crashes 1 injury 3 of the 18 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 brake problem gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Ford Taurus report other brake problem at a median of 85,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 75,000 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles, from 17 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 6th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 25,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 175,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 152,901 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
18% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22,674 miles | 75,000 miles | 87,000 miles | 131,000 miles | 175,575 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, 2 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 $300–$1,800 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 19 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2014, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 110,000 miles.
By volume the 2001 carries the most reports, with 51; the 2004 has 18. 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.
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.
Brakes were "worn out" after 24,000 miles. In fifty years of driving I have never had to have brakes replaced even after 100,000 miles of driving because I am a very conservative driver. The service agent at the dealer admitted to me that ford had changed the quality of the brake pads and they had a lot of repairs because of that. *tr
My son and wife were in the vehicle when it accelerated out of control. My son hit the brakes hard and found it difficult to keep the car below 30 MPH. He noticed the tachometer was racing 3,000 RPM even though he was applying the brake hard. He was able to pull over into a convenience store and shut off the engine. This was the only time this happened although I often felt the car was going too fast (@ 20mph) when starting up with no foot pressure on accelerator. Car was towed to dealer and repaired 2 days later. Mechanic said the 'air intake valve' was dirty (carbon deposits) and replaced. He also noted car was reprogrammed by the computer. Car performance I believe, was due to malfunction of computer or microprocessors which caused too much fuel to be injected into the engine. *tr
Tl* the contact owns a 2004 ford taurus. The vehicle was taken to an independent mechanic for an unrelated repair where it was detected that the rear driver side brake adjuster was fractured. A temporary repair was performed on the vehicle. The failure recurred three times. The component was replaced after each recurrence and once by the dealer. The third recurrence of the failure was repaired by an independent mechanic. The contact planned to notify the manufacturer of the defect. The approximate failure mileage was 82,981 .updated 05/23/12 *bf updated 06/25/12
Also reported on the 2004 Ford Taurus
Other speed control problem
Cruise control failure
Other powertrain problem
Other engine problem
Other electrical problem
Other body or interior problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 18 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 brake problem happen on the 2004 Ford Taurus?
Across 17 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 85,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 75,000 miles and a quarter after 130,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other brake problem on the 2004 Ford Taurus?
18 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 2.2 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