Complaint 1765408

Complaint Summary

VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL

Owner Narrative

The wiring harness going into the back of what I believe is the throttle position sensor has a 180° turn in the wiring in a very short distance. There are four wires involved in that portion of the wiring harness. The wiring is also next to the hot, cooling system hoses coming out of the firewall. These factors caused the wiring to crack prematurely creating surges in the idle and the vehicle speed to be uncontrollable due to shorts/arcing in the electrical wiring. An extremely dangerous situation. My daughter ran into a bullard because she started the vehicle, put it in drive, and it took off on her. Vehicle would drive at 20 to 25 miles per hour on its own without stepping on the gas pedal. After two or three attempts, I was able to satisfactorily fix the wiring. Please note that the attached pictures do not show the original condition of the wiring. I attempted to use liquid electrical tape on one of my first attempts but that soon cracked as well. You will see that in one of the photos. I may have original pictures of the electrical wiring on my desktop computer and will gladly submit those at a later time if I can find them. This failure in the wiring should be easy to identify in any 2008 Ford Explorer.

Owner-submitted narrative on file with NHTSA. Complaint narratives are self-reported and have not been verified.