Any body out there have any issues with the new f-150 (04). I had to limp home in 4 HI as when I was in 2wd, I got an awful grinding noise from the front left side. I think something snaped up there. Any ideas?
Jim

 

Sounds like one of the hubs went bad. Unlike the 97-03, these do have vacuum operated hubs. A few have had similar problems, but not many.

 

Thanks for your info, I have to try and make it to the garage, @ 60 miles away. It certainly does not give you any confidence. I get an intermittant click from the left front.

 

I had a something quite the same happen to mine. The dealer finally tracked it down to a faulty solinoid that was trying to engage the front hubs while driving in 2x. The noise was incredible when it would do it. Its been driving great since they replaced it. Good luck.

 

Thanks for your input Dale, I finally got it out of the service dept. yesterday,as you said it was the actuator on the left side. What a releif. The hub was ratchitting, like you said what a hell of a racket and grinding noise
Thanks
Jim

 

Thats great Jim! At first my dealer didn't believe me on just how loud the noise was, until I told them to keep it and have one of the techs. drive it home and to work the next day. It happened to the tech. coming to work in the morning on the hwy. To say the least he was blown away from the noise. Lets hope there wasn't any hidden damage. I guess time will tell. Take care.

 

wow funny that you bring tis up, well not to funny, but i had the same prob the same noise, !!! freaked me out, so i said for get it, had rode side towing come get it and they towed it to whre i bought the truck and you!!!! the hub was completely shattered, i asked why that would happen dealershipo said defective part!!! but that is exactily what it is let me know when you get it fixed if thats the prob, i have a 04 stx 4x4

 

you know i should read all the posts before i reply, you should actually have them check the hubs again to make sure no damage!

 

had the same ratchet noise on my 04, dealer finaly tracked it down to bad actuater , whichs operates with a vacume to lock and unlock the front hubs. they also replaced both front hubs at the same time.

 

I had the same problem earlier this summer. It was my right hub. They went thru all kinds of stuff including replacing the COMPUTER! Still didn't fix it, so they had it back in and were on the phone with Ford Engineering all day and replaced the solenoid and that seemed to do it. I've been driving it for a month now and haven't had a problem with that again.

Now, does anyone know anything about the vibration issue? I have just shy of 20,000 miles and it's starting to shake like crazy at 40-50 mph, the same thing I always heard about, but never experienced until recently. It's horrible. I just want to pull over and walk home when it happens, and there's no way to stop it.

 

A sticking rear parking brake will cause this problem. Next time it shakes like that, check the rear hub where the wheel is bolted on. If one side is hot, then have the dealer check it out. Some other folks have had this problem with '04's.

There are drum brakes in the rear hubs that are the parking brake, not the disks.

 

At first my dealer thought it was the emergancy brake hanging up. They replaced everything on the back brake system. Two days after getting my truck back from the dealer the grinding noise was back, nothing to do with the emergancy brakes(thanks ford for all those new parts). Once they replaced the actuator for the front hubs the problem has been fixed. I hope!

 

Hi guys, since I've got @ 68,000 kils. on my o4 Screw, it would seem that I have experienced every thing. The noise/vibration, what the hell it was, started very soon after I bought the truck. At firts , I thought it was bad gas,(engine stutter), no. Took it to the dealer, could not find a thing. This happened to me a good many times. The whole truck shook and vibrated. It was not untill I had about 40,000 kils. on it, that I took it back to the dealer. By the way while attempting to put my hand brake on, it busted. After I got it out of service, the tech told me he found a sticking rear caliper, this was due to the park brake not fully releasing. All parts were replaced. No problems since. The problem with this issue is that it happens at any speed, and not all the time. Just consider the last time you have used your park brake.

 

Will the sticking rear brake cause the entire truck to jump violently, like all 4 wheels are out of balance or something? This might be the problem. The last couple times I've done it I had just left my parents house. Their driveway is steep, so I use the parking brake. My driveway is flat so I don't need it there. That might be it. It's at the shop right now for that, the steering "nibble", and my differential locking up and spinning tires around every corner (no, it's not my foot on the pedal doing it). The shake didn't start until this year. I moved into my house in May. Before that I used the P brake all the time still living with my parents (steep driveway). That might have kept it loose, but now that I haven't been using it daily, maybe it's starting to bind up.

 

Got my truck back last night. They added a vibration dampner to the steering, road-force balanced my tires and found 1 bad one, so they're ordering me 1 new tire (kind of crappy to have 1 new tire and 3 with 20K on them), rebuilt the clutch packs in my differential, and found that my e brake WAS siezed up. Hopefully this all fixed the problems. I only drove it home from the dealership, so I'm not sure yet. I'm going out of town with it this weekend, so I'll know better on monday.