Ford Freestar Reviews from North America - Page 6 of 7

Many states have a lemon law. We have it here in Ohio, invoke that law if you have one and get away from it.

I completely agree with you about this vehicle. My Dad was involved in an accident (a car ran a red light and hit his 99 Chrysler T&C), and while his van was being repaired, they gave him a Ford Freestar as a rental, with less than 20,000 miles on it. At the time I owned a 2003 Chrysler Town and Country.

I was going to run some errands, and my Dad offered me to take the rental for a drive. First thing I noticed getting in was that everything felt extremely cheap. The doors were about half the thickness of my Chrysler, and felt like you could bend it if you shut it too hard. I also did not like the controls for the back windows. You did not have the option of opening one window, the control worked both.

But the worst part was the acceleration. I was pulling out onto a very busy street, and was expecting the acceleration of my Chrysler van... Boy, was I wrong. The response time was so slow I thought for sure we were going to get hit by the oncoming car. Chrysler's have their share of problems as well, but comparing those vans side by side, the quality difference and acceleration power is very evident.

Follow-up 1: Have had the van about 2 months/4000 miles now and still love it. I did have 2 problems.

1) Rear vent window motor burned out and needed to be replaced.

2) One day, upon start, the AdvanceTrac light was flashing and the car would not go over about 25mph, bucking and kicking the whole time. I turned the AdvanceTrac off and it was fine. After sitting for a few hours, the car was back to normal. Took it to the dealer and they found some 'strange' codes, but were not able to 'fix' anything - just reset the computer. Has not done anything bad since.

3) I have this strange whistling noise, like Morse code. I can't pinpoint where or what it is. At first I thought it was from the rear and a sign the fuel pump was going, then I thought it was in the front and could be the water pump. Not sure and the dealer says it's normal belt noise - not. We'll see on this one.

Over all I still love the van and hope it will last a while. I realize the Windstar/Freestar gets bad reviews, I am just hopeful I got a good one.