Customer Drops $73k on ’17 Ford F-450 and Quickly Regrets it!

By Jerry Perez - October 24, 2016

I’ll start with this: Fire-spitting exhaust pipes are cool… on a Ferrari. That begs to ask the question, why in the world is a $73,000 2017 Ford F-450 King Ranch pretending to be a Ferrari?

On a story originally broken by Jalopnik, we learned that a Canadian customer had recently spent a ton of her hard-earned money on a nearly top-of-the-line F-450 King Ranch dually, and she hadn’t owned it for 10 hours when it began spitting real-as-shit fire out the exhaust pipe. Now, if that sounds bad, it’s because it is, but it only gets worse!

According to, Shelly Shields (truck owner), she first noticed the undercarriage and part of the exhaust system glowing red as soon as she was done with her maiden drive. That’s when what should’ve been a day filled with joy, turned into horror when she realized the truck was shooting out flames while driving down the road. Something which isn’t only a danger to others, as it could start a fire or burn someone quite badly, but and enormous danger to herself as the truck’s diesel tank could ignite. Again, if this sounds bad; it is, but it only gets worse!

It’s not clear who Shields contacted first, but according to the original story, she wasn’t content with the fact that parts to fix the problem were hard to come by, and a replacement truck simply wasn’t available. Because even Canadian ranchers don’t order $73k on pickup trucks all too often. When Shields reached out to Ford Canada, she received a letter saying it was up to the dealership to make things right and that all fixes would be covered under warranty. As you could imagine, she didn’t take that as a satisfactory answer, and neither would I.

Eventually, Carstairs Ford, the selling-dealership got involved and took the truck back and refunded the money. Whether that happened voluntarily and without threats of lawyers getting involved on behalf of the owner, or strong-arming on behalf of Ford, we don’t know. Regardless, all that matters is that Shelly is taken care of now.

Ford claims that this is not a widespread issue, and that it was caused by an incorrect repair after production. Mmm… Still, what a horrible experience for a big-bucks truck owner that may very well be jumping ship to the competition.