Built Ford Tough? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Hardknock · 01-27-2005, 06:39 PM

Apparently there's a fire risk with the cruise control of thousands of pickups....

Article

merkerguitars · 01-27-2005, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBC

Ford Motor Company — the second-largest U.S. automaker — has announced a voluntary recall of hundreds of thousands of its popular pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles due to a fire risk.

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Ford is recalling the vehicles because their cruise-control switches could short circuit and start a fire under the hood while parked, the automaker said Thursday.

“This is a ticking time bomb ready to go off and something needs to be done,” Bob Garcia, owner of a Ford F-150, told NBC News. Garcia's pickup caught fire nine hours after he parked it at his home. The fire destroyed his truck and part of his home before firefighters arrived.

‘Significant’ recall
The recall involves approximately 792,000 vehicles, including F-150 pickup trucks, Ford Expeditions and Lincoln Navigator SUVs from the 2000 model year that are equipped with a speed-control switch. Also included in the recall are certain F-150 SuperCrew trucks that were built through August 7, 2001 and are equipped with speed control.

One Ford source tells NBC that the recall is “significant.”

What do I do now?

If your Ford pickup truck or SUV is equipped with cruise control and is one of the models mentioned in the recall, Ford recommends you take it to a dealership where the feature can be deactivated. When new speed-control devices become available, owners of affected vehicles will be notified by mail.

Contact information:
• Customers may contact Ford's Customer Assistance Center at 1-800-392-3673.
• To read Ford’s recall statement, click here.
According to Ford, vehicle owners have reported that the cruise control on their vehicles has malfunctioned before they shut down the engine. The mechanism that shuts off the speed control may overheat, eventually causing a fire, Ford said.

“We're getting flame literally falling on other plastic components,” said Florida mechanic Larry Perry.

Perry says even when the engine is turned off, power flows to the switch, causing it to overheat and start a fire. “All it takes is a little more heat, a little more flame, you've got a vehicle you can’t put out.”

Ford says it knows of 63 alleged vehicle fires and of one alleged injury associated with a fire. No deaths have been reported, but the instances of fires appear to be increasing, the car company said.

Ford will notify owners of the vehicle recall in February, and dealers will deactivate the cruise control switch for free. Once the company has an adequate supply of replacement switches, it will send another letter notifying owners that they can get their switches replaced.

Ford said cruise control will be disabled once the switch is deactivated.

“We recognize this may be an inconvenience, but we believe this preventive action is in the best interest of our customers’ safety,” the company said.

Bread and butter
The F-Series has been a huge seller for Ford, setting industry records. By some estimates, the F-150 makes up half of the company's pre-tax profits for auto sales. By all accounts, it's Ford's bread and butter.

The truck line retained the title of best-selling vehicle in the United States last year. The company sold 939,511 F-Series trucks, setting a new industry record for full-size pickup sales. Ford set the previous record with 911,597 in 2001.

“Ford is hoping to act quickly enough so as not to have a repeat of, say, the Ford Explorer rollover problem that is very fresh in everyone's mind,” said Frank Marcus, technical director of Motor Trend Magazine.

RELATED STORY

Ford F-Series the best-selling vehicles of 2004

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the defect in November after receiving 36 reports of fires. All of the incidents occurred when the vehicle was parked and the ignition was turned off. No injuries were reported.

Ford said it worked closely with NHTSA throughout the investigation.
NBC News' Tom Costello and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ugg again?

GetRdone · 01-30-2005, 09:35 PM

I usually just ASSUME its gonna break if its a ford, nuthin but bad luck with those cars. The only one thats worked for us is our mustang itb car, and that thing breaks alot too.

bendsley · 02-02-2005, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hardknock

Apparently there's a fire risk with the cruise control of thousands of pickups....

Article

Hardknock: You need to go here and read.
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=45061

L. Just posting a link is not a satisfactory post.

H. When posting articles and bits from other websites, it's imperative that you do all of the following:

1. Link the passage in your post.

2. Directly quote the passage in your post using the vBcode quote tag. Just linking the passage is very bad form.

3. Include your opinion along with the quote.

Scorps · 02-02-2005, 12:49 PM

Ford always has fire problems..they had a problem back in the 90's with there windstars

GetRdone · 02-02-2005, 06:26 PM

id prefer there were more fords on fire than one the road

Scorps · 02-02-2005, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GetRdone

id prefer there were more fords on fire than one the road

ROFL

Hardknock · 02-03-2005, 12:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bendsley

Hardknock: You need to go here and read.
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=45061

L. Just posting a link is not a satisfactory post.

H. When posting articles and bits from other websites, it's imperative that you do all of the following:

1. Link the passage in your post.

2. Directly quote the passage in your post using the vBcode quote tag. Just linking the passage is very bad form.

3. Include your opinion along with the quote.

Excuse me! damn. Sorry if that hit you wrong

krwlz · 02-03-2005, 05:21 AM

Fuckin fords... Anyone surprised yet? Why does it seem recalls keep getting bigger, and more frequent, for ALL auto manufacturers?

GetRdone · 02-03-2005, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by krwlz

Fuckin fords... Anyone surprised yet? Why does it seem recalls keep getting bigger, and more frequent, for ALL auto manufacturers?

cuz all auto manufactures just wanna make more cars, faster, for less money.

irseg · 02-14-2005, 11:25 PM

The really shitty part is, those trucks are not the only Fords with fire-prone cruise control systems. The details are vague, but I'm pretty sure this recall involves the fail-safe switch that deactivates the cruise control when it senses brake line pressure.

That stupid thing burned up a few months ago on my '93 Lincoln Mark VIII while it was sitting in my garage. I parked it and everything was fine, 2 hours later I went out and the garage was full of smoke. It had burned up the wiring for the brake switch too, which meant the brake lights didn't work and I couldn't shift out of park. It cost over $500 to have fixed because the master cylinder had to come out to get to the damaged areas, plus a lot of wires needed to be repaired. The mechanic said he had seen it happen several times, and I found several message board posts where people mentioned this same exact problem. That switch always gets power even when the car is shut off, which makes it that much more of a hazard.

I did have some advance warning, as the cruise control had stopped working about a week prior to the switch burning up. I didn't think much of it at the time, since I don't use it very often. I certainly didn't expect it being broken to nearly burn down my car and house! So if you have a Ford, you should use the cruise control periodically (leaving it shut off won't do anything to prevent this problem!), and get it checked out if it craps out.

I also had a problem with my '88 Thunderbird--it began having some really weird electrical problems (half the interior electrical stuff dead, displays flickering, gauges jumping around, etc.). I poked around and found the ignition switch was melted and charred in a few spots; the warped plastic was making the contacts shift around which is why it was acting up.

The best part was, there had been a recall on those cars for that reason--the fix was an updated, beefier ignition switch. I looked up the part number on my burned-up switch, and sure enough it was the "improved" replacement version. The brand new switch I picked up at the Ford dealer had the same part number, too.

I like Fords, but their electrical systems leave a lot to be desired.

Boo · 02-15-2005, 02:11 AM

I have had numerous Fords, Jeeps, Subarus and Toyotas. It seems that they ALL have had a recall or more. My father-in-law is a tried and true Chevy man. He is always taking his vehicles in for recalls too. It is not a Ford thing.

I have learned to take my 10 year or less old vehicles to the dealer for service. They perform more informed service AND they complete all outstanding recalls. It has saved me money over the years in wasted labor charges. If a small shop would have completed some of the work I am sure the number of hours taken to troubleshoot the problems would have out weighed the cost of utilizing the dealership.

My wife works at a dealership and the stories that she hears from people that take their cars to small shops are almost gastly!

I wonder how many people own Toyotas from the mid 90's that can get a FREE motor (or how many people have paid a shop to rebuild theit Toyota motor when it would be covered at the dealer). Only a dealership can identify this type of covered service and complete the work.

GetRdone · 02-15-2005, 11:12 AM

ooh ooh, ill take a free motor! See we have a 89 celica with alot of miles on it, if only i could convince a dealer to put a 3s-gte motor in it. Not gonna happen.

Nimisys · 02-15-2005, 07:42 PM

yep, everyone has recalls, it just that with shared platfroms, and shared components a potential recall can affect far more vehicles than in the past. also the number of issues that need to arise to trigger a recall is decreasing. GM issued a recall ont eh windsheild wiper motor/module on the envoy/trailblazer/reiner/bravada/ascender because a dozen crashes resulted form the wiper system losing interment settings. on all the vehicles produced on this platform (close to 1.7 million total IIRC) a very very small fraction of a single percentage was enough to trigger a recall.

Gm is currently mailing out flyers to specific c/K platform owners over a potential shearing of a pinch bolt for the steering shaft (the shaft is square shapped so even if broken it should maintane stearing ability)... customer with an affected vehicle are being offered free tows into the dealer for the bolt to be replaced. this was triggered by maybe a half dozen failures. basicly the rule of thumb with recalls is to bring in any vehicle that maybe affected, even if the percentage of failuers is limited to fractions of a single percentage.

01-27-2005, 06:39 PM	#1 (permalink)
Hardknock Republican slayer Location: WA	Built Ford Tough? Apparently there's a fire risk with the cruise control of thousands of pickups.... Article

02-15-2005, 02:11 AM	#12 (permalink)
Boo Leave me alone! Location: Alaska, USA	I have had numerous Fords, Jeeps, Subarus and Toyotas. It seems that they ALL have had a recall or more. My father-in-law is a tried and true Chevy man. He is always taking his vehicles in for recalls too. It is not a Ford thing. I have learned to take my 10 year or less old vehicles to the dealer for service. They perform more informed service AND they complete all outstanding recalls. It has saved me money over the years in wasted labor charges. If a small shop would have completed some of the work I am sure the number of hours taken to troubleshoot the problems would have out weighed the cost of utilizing the dealership. My wife works at a dealership and the stories that she hears from people that take their cars to small shops are almost gastly! I wonder how many people own Toyotas from the mid 90's that can get a FREE motor (or how many people have paid a shop to rebuild theit Toyota motor when it would be covered at the dealer). Only a dealership can identify this type of covered service and complete the work. __________________ Back button again, I must be getting old.

01-30-2005, 09:35 PM	#3 (permalink)
GetRdone Psycho	I usually just ASSUME its gonna break if its a ford, nuthin but bad luck with those cars. The only one thats worked for us is our mustang itb car, and that thing breaks alot too.

02-02-2005, 12:49 PM	#5 (permalink)
Scorps Lost!! Location: Kingston, Ontario	Ford always has fire problems..they had a problem back in the 90's with there windstars

02-02-2005, 06:26 PM	#6 (permalink)
GetRdone Psycho	id prefer there were more fords on fire than one the road

02-03-2005, 05:21 AM	#9 (permalink)
krwlz Fledgling Dead Head Location: Clarkson U.	Fuckin fords... Anyone surprised yet? Why does it seem recalls keep getting bigger, and more frequent, for ALL auto manufacturers?

02-14-2005, 11:25 PM	#11 (permalink)
irseg Junkie Location: Florida	The really shitty part is, those trucks are not the only Fords with fire-prone cruise control systems. The details are vague, but I'm pretty sure this recall involves the fail-safe switch that deactivates the cruise control when it senses brake line pressure. That stupid thing burned up a few months ago on my '93 Lincoln Mark VIII while it was sitting in my garage. I parked it and everything was fine, 2 hours later I went out and the garage was full of smoke. It had burned up the wiring for the brake switch too, which meant the brake lights didn't work and I couldn't shift out of park. It cost over $500 to have fixed because the master cylinder had to come out to get to the damaged areas, plus a lot of wires needed to be repaired. The mechanic said he had seen it happen several times, and I found several message board posts where people mentioned this same exact problem. That switch always gets power even when the car is shut off, which makes it that much more of a hazard. I did have some advance warning, as the cruise control had stopped working about a week prior to the switch burning up. I didn't think much of it at the time, since I don't use it very often. I certainly didn't expect it being broken to nearly burn down my car and house! So if you have a Ford, you should use the cruise control periodically (leaving it shut off won't do anything to prevent this problem!), and get it checked out if it craps out. I also had a problem with my '88 Thunderbird--it began having some really weird electrical problems (half the interior electrical stuff dead, displays flickering, gauges jumping around, etc.). I poked around and found the ignition switch was melted and charred in a few spots; the warped plastic was making the contacts shift around which is why it was acting up. The best part was, there had been a recall on those cars for that reason--the fix was an updated, beefier ignition switch. I looked up the part number on my burned-up switch, and sure enough it was the "improved" replacement version. The brand new switch I picked up at the Ford dealer had the same part number, too. I like Fords, but their electrical systems leave a lot to be desired.

02-15-2005, 11:12 AM	#13 (permalink)
GetRdone Psycho	ooh ooh, ill take a free motor! See we have a 89 celica with alot of miles on it, if only i could convince a dealer to put a 3s-gte motor in it. Not gonna happen.

02-15-2005, 07:42 PM	#14 (permalink)
Nimisys Crazy Location: San Diego	yep, everyone has recalls, it just that with shared platfroms, and shared components a potential recall can affect far more vehicles than in the past. also the number of issues that need to arise to trigger a recall is decreasing. GM issued a recall ont eh windsheild wiper motor/module on the envoy/trailblazer/reiner/bravada/ascender because a dozen crashes resulted form the wiper system losing interment settings. on all the vehicles produced on this platform (close to 1.7 million total IIRC) a very very small fraction of a single percentage was enough to trigger a recall. Gm is currently mailing out flyers to specific c/K platform owners over a potential shearing of a pinch bolt for the steering shaft (the shaft is square shapped so even if broken it should maintane stearing ability)... customer with an affected vehicle are being offered free tows into the dealer for the bolt to be replaced. this was triggered by maybe a half dozen failures. basicly the rule of thumb with recalls is to bring in any vehicle that maybe affected, even if the percentage of failuers is limited to fractions of a single percentage.