cdynaco

None of that is beating a car to ****. These machines are very capable to handle some play time. They aren't sewing machines.

Some Mustang drivers are afraid to take the engine to redline on a regular basis. Always boggin it. Those carboned up grandma engines are the one's that I would run from.

Moejoe_989

I babied the car, until some older guys told me "hey young kid this machine can take some abuse, don't be a complete wuss with it"

I still don't want to be a downright idiot and drive the thing into the ground.
I guess that was my point about those seals under my car. Maybe they're just sweating, or a slow leak? I took it into the dealership today and told them to check the bleeder valve, my pinion seal, and my rear axle seals especially near the differential.

They said it's most likely a warranty issue.

Are they're any miracle sprays to put on my rusty undercarriage? Maybe some WD-40 and Break Cleaner, then wipe it all down and hit it with the paintable undercarriage stuff?

High heat paint on my exhaust??

It's really just to 1) clean it up
And 2) since I'm not underneath the darn thing it's just a proactive approach to prevent rusting.

Opinions?

kylerohde

So I'm almost to 60,000 miles and figured it was time to write a long-term test type review of the car. Here it is, for anyone interested: http://www.kylerohde.com/2014/04/04/...0-mile-review/

David Young

Nice. I read the whole thing

FordService

Bring it in as soon as possible, Rog13GTCS. Then, PM me with your VIN, dealer, mileage, full name, and best daytime number so I can escalate it for you.

Hey Matt’s 95 Stang,

I recommend you speak to your service manager, as he is in the best position to look into this for you and can check into any warranty, assistance, recalls, or customer satisfaction programs that may apply to your vehicle.

Also, remember most repairs done at a Ford Dealer come with a 24 months/unlimited miles warranty. You can schedule an appointment online here.

Deysha

Buggywhips

Making an appointment in the morning for the following:

Dash rattle
Squeak going over bumps
The "ignitor Tick" after initial oil change (5k miles)

2014 GT with 6300 miles

Icemann07

I bought my 2011 v6 Premium Stang over a year ago and I've had the yellow wrench light come on so many times and so many different reasons for it. I think this is my 1st and last Ford. I tried to buy American but the product sucks money *****! It just hasn't been very reliable.

2014GHIGGT

That's a shame. It does suck when you get a vehicle that has a troubled history. It can happen to any car now a days. All vehicles are sharing similar electronic components coming from the same places. Having been in the service industry for a long time I have seen lemons ranging from Audi to Volvo.

I would agree that not all that long ago Ford was having difficulty with quality (maybe back from the mid ninety's to about 2004 ish'). This was right before Mulally got involved as Ford was in bad finanial shape. To be honest the only reason Ford did not require government bailout money was because they had financial troubles prior to the mortgage meltdown and took a huge low interest loan when money was cheap and available. Had it happened at the same time as GM and Dodge, they would have been bailed out too. As I digress.

When Mulally got involved he first understood Ford needed to do two things. First was reduce its expenses and become a lean modern company and second was to build a quality vehicle.

Since that time Ford has done a really good job at enhancing quality. IMO. I know of too many people driving everythign from F-150's to a Fiesta with no trouble at all. That said I can't condemn an entire manufacturer. Again as I digress.

With social media being what it is today, and with so many high quality manufacturers to choose from, no car manufacturer can afford to make garbage like they did back 10-15 years ago. They would simply go out of business. People are much less tolerant of poor quality today. That dog doesn't hunt any longer.

Clevor

My question is for the Ford rep: will my local dealer replace the control arms and fix the Pony Projector if neither has gone out yet??? I know it's not like it's a recall, however I bet I will get this response:

1. Have no idea what you are talking about.
2. No, it has to fail first before we do the upgrade.

I have a 2013 GT Premium with so low miles, none of these have failed yet. Obviously, I would like to take the car in and have it dealt with beforehand.

I'm pretty sure Ford wants to save money and only replace if they go bad. But what if the failure rate is near 100%? What's wrong with taking it in now?

Clevor

I hear you about the shortcomings on the interior. I would like to think the reason the door panels are all plastic on my 2013 GT Premium is to save weight. The doors are so large, plastic is very light compared to upholstery.

On the other hand, my 2000 Honda Accord daily driver has leather interior. The entire inside of the doors have Nappa leather on it, even the armrests. Plus it's genuine Nappa leather, not bonded leather.

Boy, I'm glad my car has the optional leather Recaros. When optioned in a Premium vehicle, you lose the power adjustments, but after hearing about all these power seat failures . . .

kylerohde

That's mostly accurate but not quite. Ford was ok financially but knew a huge investment of capital was needed to revamp the company the way Mulally wanted and to survive the recession they knew was coming too. So they leveraged every asset they had to get the $23.6 billion in loans from the private sector. Good recap here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/bu...anted=all&_r=0

Thanks for reading!

2014GHIGGT

Regardless of how how that article was written your statement about ford being OK financially is inaccurate.

Ford went through drastic cost cutting measures and shut down many plants

Ford sold off Volvo, LAND Rover, jaguar, Aston Martin, etc

Ford had all kinds of union issues and restructured all of the deals.

Ford still needed to borrow a poop load of cash after all of this divestiture

Ford was bleeding billions of dollars each year ($14.9 to be exact in 2009 according to the article you site)

I love Ford but they were lucky they borrowed money when they did and they were lucky they had financial issues before the economy melt down of 2008.

Companies don't mortgage everything that are OK financially

I read the article and by all accounts it paints a picture of a company that had significant financial troubles prior to borrowing a pile of cash. What led you to believe ford was "ok financially" from reading that article?

We'll have to agree to disagree here.

kylerohde

Ok financially probably wasn't the right term...but neither is "lucky". They had the foresight to get ahead of the problems, secure the financing, and focus the company so they could make it back to where they are today.

2014GHIGGT

Yeah. The crap hit the fan early for Ford. They were first to run into financial trouble. It's that simple. When their day of reckoning came, cheap money was still available.


You are correct. It's never lucky for a company, especially one as large as Ford, to run into financial trouble. From a timing standpoint it worked out better for them. Mullally was brought in to fix the mess. Foresight had nothing to do with it. If those loans didn't take place then Ford would be a much different company than it is today.


There was some talk about 8 years ago of Ford buying all of its shares back and going back private. That would have been interesting. Personally I bought a bunch of their stock when it was at almost $1 per share. That was pretty much junk bond status. LOL. I am glad they pulled it together and Mullally righted the ship.


Ford already pulled the plug on Mercury. The biggest rumor out there is that Lincoln may go next. The Lincoln re-launch is not going well at all. Honestly I do not think that would be a bad thing. Ford keeps some options standard to Lincoln only which drives me crazy. For example the 3.7l in the MKZ. I believe another Fusion sport with a 3.7l would be a good thing. I don't see many Lincoln's on the road. In fact I do not know of anyone that owns one. 20 years ago I knew of many folks driving around in MK VII's, Town Cars, etc. Lincoln had that market cornered for a long time and let it go.

rhrh

I'm really sorry to hear that. I think it's just some of our luck that the car we buy goes bad, We had a Tiguan not long ago, and it was a great car but not the most reliable. However my friend who still has one hasn't had any issues and plans to keep it. It's just our luck of the draw and it's hard to get past that it was just the one we had have so many issues, but sometimes that is the case. It was hard to go American, but it has gone well without issues and I plan on getting more American cars. I hope you don't have any issues in the future!

kylerohde

If you haven't, you should read "American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company" - one of the more fascinating non-fiction books I've read in a while. Amazing amount of detail about all that went on at Ford from the Nasser days through Mulally's first couple years on board.

2014GHIGGT

Was Nasser as much of an idiot as I believe he is? I'll have to check the book out.

kylerohde

Absolutely.

djarmy2004

2011 GT All Stock minus K&N filter in factory air box. I just got the car with 81000 mile and my windshield washer sprayer was broke. Took that whole system apart and all i hd to do was plug the **** things back in. The tires were replaced as they are brand new.

wanted33

Clevor, the short answer is "no". Not all cars had these problems depending on the build date, and the vehicle will have to exhibit the defect before they will replace anything. The pony projectors on my '13 went bad fairly quick. It's my understanding Ford has fixed the problem. I'll find out soon as I'm having mine replaced again tomorrow. As far as the LCA's, that problem cropped up at around 5000 miles on mine. I waited until Ford had the fix (adding a heat shield) before I had them replaced. It's been 6000 miles since they were replaced, and knock wood the problem hasn't returned.

Hopefully your's won't have either problem. Good luck.