Knight

Ford did do a Service bulletin for this. It ended now but anyone that had problems were able to get reembursed or have a new one with aluminum crossovers installed.

too bad my car never had it done before i bought it... it is one thing that worries me that could happen...thats why i'm going to make sure i have enough room on the Credit card for a typhoon lower intake incase this happens to me.

jsaylor

I wouldn't say it is that simple by any means. I can think of more than a few huge Toyota quality issues, involving engines, which never managed to get a recall, or even a TSB in most cases, despite the fact that they affected an extremely large number of vehicles. One could argue that Toyota got away with it because they are, well, Toyota...and that has some merit. But in most cases I would say an auto maker is far better off monetarily, and in terms of perception, to issue a TSB ,at most, and sit on it than to issue a recall. The press hardly notices 'em relative to the hooplah recalls produce and it prevents the auto maker from performing the fix on every car.

GM has been doing this where they can for some time now and is no doubt saving loads of money in the process. In fact when the TSB's proved too expensive to honor they have often found "reasons" to no longer honor those. Class action lawsuits often result, but even these seem to get no more bad press than a recall. And if the same cost more to endure than a large scale recall there can be little doubt that the auto makers wouldn't subject themselves to them...which they regularly do.

Sadly, what I'm really saying is that doing the right thing doesn't pay off for a brand in terms of money or perception. But that indeed seems to be the case.