Ford Territory floor mats recalled

By Tim Beissmann | May 20th, 2010

Ford Australia has recalled almost 5000 sets of Ford Territory floor mats because the driver’s side mats can bunch up and interfere with the accelerator pedal.

The affected Ford Genuine Accessory Carpet Mat set is black with silver “TERRITORY” embossing and a rubber spike backing material. It has been sold through authorised Ford dealers since June 2009.

Ford has received complaints from two owners this year that had trouble stopping their vehicles fitted with the floor mats. In one case in March a female driver chose to get out of her vehicle while it was still travelling at around 10km/h after having trouble bringing it to a stop with the bunched up floor mat.

In the other the floor mat reportedly interfered with the accelerator pedal and the driver was forced to pull the car off to the side of the road before bringing it to a stop.

Ford Australia spokesman Todd Nissen said the company investigated the two incidents and found that only the black floor mats were defective.

“The vehicles themselves aren’t being recalled, it’s the mats that are being recalled,” he said.

“When we received the reports we started looking into things because we wanted to make sure there were no issues with the pedals, we wanted to make sure the vehicles are as safe as they can be.

“We looked into that and determined that there were no issues with the brakes, no issues with the accelerator pedals, but these particular black mats could be prone to bunching up so we determined that the best thing to do would be to recall the mats.”

Mr Nissen said Ford Australia was currently working with dealers to communicate with the 4990 owners of Territory models with the defective floor mats. He encouraged affected owners to book in with their Ford dealer for a safety recall service as soon as possible and in the meantime insisted that the driver’s carpet mat should be removed from the driver’s footwell area.

“We apologise for the inconvenience and we want people to have faith in the safety and the performance of the vehicles.

“The main thing is we certainly don’t want people to be inconvenienced by this, but we also want to make sure that we’ve done the right thing and are looking out for their safety as well as their vehicles,” he said.

Valet Dabess

hahahahaha when we reminice about cars the 2000′s will be know for when floor mats stuck to the accelerator pedal

ABMPSV

So you like if somebody else got a problem. You know it could backfire!

Simo

another “sudden acceleration” issue? Must be a trendy thing for carmakers to do these days. i wonder who is next.

If genuine floormats can cause such problem to the cars then what about those cheap aftermarket floormats from your local supercheapauto??

Andrew M

Yeah, the aftermarket mats are worse.

I think Ford is doing this in the interest of good customer service, and before the story gets out of hand and people start to speculate that it is something like the Toyota saga.

I think many people would be quite impressed that Ford is fixing a problem with something as simple as a floormat that may only be annoying at worst

AUSTRALIA

LIKE THE FALCON WHEN YOU GET FLOOR MATS PUT IN WHEN BUY THE CAR, DONT THEY CLIP IN WITH TWO CLIPS AT THE DRIVES SEAT END. NOT REALLY FORDS PROBLEM THE FLOOR MAT KEEPS SLIDING FORWARD. YOU DONT SEE ANY KMART FLOOR MATS BEING RECALLED FOR THE SAME PROBLEMS????

Simo

yes all the genuine floormats i’ve seen came with clips or some kind of mechanism to stop it from sliding forward or backward so the mat really shouldnt cause any issues to the pedals. i once said toyota used the floormat recall as an excuse to cover up their faulty acceleration before the massive recall so who knows ford might be trying to hide something with this recall too?
http://www.lukehimself.net Luke

No need to scream.
Bob

Shhhhhhhhh….. Calm down
Mythfrances

turn your caps lock off. it so hard to read.

Josh

Such a common problem in aussie built cars, and yet my 5 year old Fiesta has the two clips that go through the matt to keep it in place. Waht, $5 worth of parts to avoid recalls like this?
Benjamin

My 06 Turbo Territory has the clip that holds the Driver floor mat in place, so don’t if not all Territory’s have it

Andrew M

Perhaps not.
They say its only a certain design of floor mats, and that particular one has only been on sale since June ’09.
Thats was about when the Terry update was wasnt it??

Perhaps they ditched the hooks??

Westy

My ’07 Territory has the hooks as well and the mat stays put as it should.

Tom22

Trying to avoid being Toyota number 2.
svd

I’m amazed that someone chose to get out of the vehicle. Didn’t the igniton switch work? At 10kph it would not be hard to stop the vehicle with ignition off as the brakes would have at least one application of the brakes where there would be sufficient vacuum for the booster to work. The steering would go heavy but could still be steered with some effort and the handbrake is there as a last resort.

Andrew M

If she switched it off the pedal feel would have still been funny because the mat would have still been bunched up under it

Andrew M

Whats the go with that woman that jumped out while the car was still going??
AWD

Turn the key off……..geez……are people stupid or what?

Shak

Maybe she couldnt. In some cars you cant remove the key till the trans is in park, for safety purposes.

ScottT

Sheeez!!!! storm in a tea cup or what!!!!!!!!!!!
David

Hard to believe this happens. Heavy rubber mats NEVER move. They should be standard in every car.
ohreally

kmart floor mats are still the best!
nick

I heard about this woman in March. She was travelling in the Burnley tunnel and got out. That’s right, a FREEWAY. How stupid can you be? The media were all over it for one night before they realised how stupid she was. Like everyone said, turning off the ignition at 10km/h is not at all dangerous.

My 09 Ghia (SY) had Ford floormats thrown in with it when we bought it a month ago. The driver’s one does have at least one hook from memory.
http://www.caradvice.com.au Jim Goose

the Territory needs more than just the bleedin floor mats recalled. They can simply be chucked out. How about dealing with the real elephant in the room……the ball bearings and suspension componants? I want to see the Terry succeed,but if theyre not built properly or fixed properly they’ll go the way of the Cortina,Magna and Valiant. Buyers WILL lose interest. A colleague of mine was told by Ford his suspension in his Terry needed $900 worth of work done(only had 40 000k on the odo).Was Ford going to pay for it?No…..he had to. Why would a 4WD with that sort of milage thats never left the bitumen need $900 worth of work done? It isn’t a good look.

The Oracle

Jim, I believe that Ford are now covering all replacements of lower ball joints to 150,000km. I’m not sure if they are compensating owners who had had to pay previously, though I think they should. The updated Territory released last year has a redesigned LBJ, though I think that when they are replacing the previous design, just using the old design parts and not the new design. Must be too expensive to use them and the other components required.
What I find strange is that Ford were prompt and pro-active about the floor mats and the brake hoses, but had to be dragged screaming and kicking to acknowledge the issues with the LBJs. Why is this?

Car Guy

Jim Goose…….yes you are a goose!!!! My Territory has done 92000k and hasnt had any suspension parts replaced or anything else for that matter. Its a fantastic car and has done many trips off road. I will be first in line to buy the new model next year.

http://www.caradvice.com.au Jim Goose

Well goodo…..obviously,you got an example that was built after Ford sorted the teething problems. Buy an example made in the wrong year,or late on Friday arvo,and they can be troublesome. I’m relaying what my colleague told me-his story,not mine.
Westy

Car Guy,

I have to agree. Our 2007 Territory has 65K on it and I haven’t had any suspension / ball bearing problems. It’s annoying when broad based comments are made without actually asking people who own them.
Westy

Oh and I should also add it is also an AWD and we still have our original tyres on it. So I think all in all we are VERY HAPPY with our Terry and will be also get in line to buy a new one.

Ben

Car guy, our territory is a very early model 2004 with just over 100,000km the amount of money that has been spent on it (at fords expense) is a joke, we have had a huge number of problems with the front suspenion and rear suspenion since day 1. After the warrenty period expired ford finally figured what was wrong and we rufused to pay so ford agin fixed it for free.. For our recent service the ball joints had to be replaced for $900, which is a joke considering ford knew about these problems all along give it another 10,000kms and you will be buying ball joints. Surprisingly we actually happy with our territory but the problems with them are there

nick

You get teething problems with just about any car that’s an early model.

Car Guy

maybe the company who makes the ball joints should be named instead of Ford copping the blame. I havent heard of or experienced any ball joint problems and i have quite a few friends who have a territory. one mate has a building company with 5 Territories and he hasnt had any issues with ball joints or suspension and they give the cars a hard time. Stop making a few faults sound like every one has a problem and admit you are just another paid Ford basher. Remember this is a mat recall not a Territory recall.
And another thing , if they are so bad why are they still out-selling many new model SUV’s? Its basically a 5 year old model ……..shows how good it is really.

ben

Mate im no ford basher, we have had 4 fords and currently have 2 I had a BA XT recently which was a great car but got written off in the Perth Storm in March, so i purchased another a BA XR6 and i can’t fault it. But there is no doubting the problems we have had with our territory the problems were becoming so bad that Ford Australia themselves got involved and from what we have been told our car is not the only one that experienced these issues, its Fords fault for engineering the car with faulty ball joints, not the supplier they simply supplied the part ford asked for. I will repeat again im not a ford basher im blue oval through and through but im not the type of person that’s going to sweep it under the carpet just cause i like the company, cause at the end of the day it’s a company and the product we paid good money for was not acceptable on too many levels. But finally after 6 years i can say the car finally runs like it should of from day 1.

ben

Just to add the Ball joints are not the only problem we had with the car.

Lynchy

I don’t think Fords using a floor mat recall to cover up something else as some have speculated, I think you could probably take your floor mats in and exchange them without a need for the car to be left at the dealership. As far as the ball joints and suspension failures considering the amount of vehicles sold it’s a very small portion and it doesn’t amount to systemic failure, Ben obviously got a bad one and Ford have done the righty and replaced everything without charge.

I won’t congratulate Ford for recalling vehicles to fix manufacturing faults (like some of the Holden Fan club do when they issue a recall), so they should, outside of buying a house, cars are generally the second biggest purchase many people will make, they deserve to get a quality product and design problems should be fixed within warranty periods without question.

http://www.caradvice.com.au Jim Goose

My ’85 Mitsu Colt costed $600,but my new pushbike set me back $800! My unit set me back $270,000…..and my ex would have costed me more than all those put together,until I dumped her and put a stop to it!!!

Dale

You want be happy with your terry when you go to trade it in
nick

I heard about this woman in March. She was travelling in the Burnley tunnel and got out. That’s right, a FREEWAY. How stupid can you be? The media were all over it for one night before they realised how stupid she was. Like everyone said, turning off the ignition at 10km/h is not at all dangerous.

My 09 Ghia (SY) had Ford floormats thrown in with it when we bought it a month ago. The driver’s one does have at least one hook from memory.
nickdl

Bought a used 09 SY Ghia last month, the dealer threw in some new floormats which on the drivers side do have hooks. I find it very hard to see how this could happen but maybe the SYII models are the only ones affected.

I heard about that woman jumping out of her Territory. How stupid can you be. She was at the end of the Burnley tunnel and she jumped out. That’s right, a FREEWAY!!! The media were all over it here in Melbourne for one night before they realised her stupidity. As said earlier, it really doesn’t matter if you turn off the car at 10km/h.
Matt

She jumped out at 10kmn/hr instead of reaching down to pull the mat back towards the seat and away from the pedals?!?! God, no wonder she’s in a soccer mum mobile… no idea
Sarah

i’ve got an 09 turbo Ghia(hope we get to keep the turbo in the new line up) and had the mats chucked in. even though they had a hook attachment they slipped too much for my liking and removed the drivers side mat. Otherwise just love my Terry, great to camp in and a nice lot of power to get out of any tricky situation and lots of room.