1994 Ford Thunderbird problems
Owners have filed 426 complaints with NHTSA about the 1994 Ford Thunderbird. Transmission is the most reported problem area, at 22% of complaints. Next are brakes (21%) and engine (14%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 426 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Transmission 22% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 27 and 12
- Injuries and deaths
- 22 and 4
- Typical mileage
- 80,000 miles 23 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 0 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 1 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 1 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 4 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 7 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 5 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 0 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 0 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 0 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 4 |
| 200k+ miles | 1 |
What the data shows
Of the 23 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 80,000 miles.
Safety-related details: 27 complaints mention a crash; 12 complaints mention a fire; 22 injuries reported; 4 deaths reported.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 1994 ranks 1st most-complained-about out of 12 model years of the Ford Thunderbird with enough data (222 complaints in that window).
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
Fire developed from the thunderbird which was sitting in the carport attached to the house, the fire advanced from the car to the house and killed both the consumers wife and her father, consumer believes that fire was due to a defective ignition switch.
Vehicle at 12:00 position at 15MPH, both airbags deployed and drivers airbag caught drivers coat on fire and burned him. Tt
I noticed immediatly after buying this car that the transmission slipped that was 11/98 it took several calls to the dealer and a coarse of a year for them to finally fix it. Second time I brought in to shop replaced whole transmission that was 12/99. Now in 6/03 the transmission is starting to slip again. Also had recall letter about head gaskets, ford refused to work with me on replacements, had to be replaced out of my own pocket.
I have a 1994 ford thunderbird that the climate control suddenly started working erratically and will not work right. I have seen a recall in the 1996 model for the very same thing regarding the climate control. This is a very serious problem with being able to defrost the windows in the car so I can see. This could possibly cause a accident due to this. There is no way of controlling the temperature.