Does any body know if Ford will eventually assume some financial responsiblily for repairing the notorious blend air door coupling failures on Rangers, Explorers and Mountaineers? I contacted Ford customer service and they told me they had no knowledge of this being a problem - they lied to me! There are far too may reports of failure on various web site forums that talk about this problem. My local Ford dealer wants $800 to fix my 96 Ranger because the entire dash must come out to access the plenum where the blend air door is located. As far as I'm concerned, Ford is hurting their credibility by playing dump to this issue.

 

If it isnt a safety issue they likely will not. No manufacturer is going to bankrupt themselves by giving warranty on big ticket repairs indefinitely. If you purchased the vehicle new, have relatively low miles and have been a loyal customer they may offer some financial assistance. But if you purchased it used with substantial miles you cant expect them to be willing to finance everyones cost of ownership. That is up to the owner to set aside a budget for vehicle repairs, expected or not. They arent any happier about a bad rap for repetitious failures of major components but thier hands are tied as to how far they can go with customer support.

It is largely up to the vendor of the parts as well. If they are willing to foot part of the bill that helps in making a decision to implement a program for repairing issues such as this. You must understand that an automobile is manufactured using many components made by smaller vendors and they have to rely on the quality of craftsmanship of all those vendors. There is no way they can produce all the parts themselves.

The only part avaliable from the vendor for your issue is a complete new plenum assembly. There is no simple replacement of just the door. So that requires a large parts cost. On top of this there is the large labor expense of R&R of the entire plenum assembly and transfer of components.

There are quicker easier fixes as posted on this forum for that repair
although it likely may be only temporary.

We would all love to see Ford and all manufacturers be able to pay out the funds to fix these big ticket repairs indefinitely but as stated earlier, it would lead to bankruptcy and then there would be no one to fix our vehicles. I am certain all auto manufacturers share in these same problems. I also can personally vouch that over the past 7 years I have seen Ford offer more assistance and ate a lot of parts and labor for the sake of customer satisfaction than any other manufacturer I know of. IMHO

 

Thanks for the reply. Your comments are very valid and I appreciate your taking the time to respond, but $800 is a very hard pill to swallow. I still think that a chronic problem should at least be addressed on a cost share basis by the manufacturer. At a minimum, I think Ford should do the repair at cost and should not profit from an apparent defect.

 

Just an FYI, have you seen the link in the tech info post at our Ranger forum on repairing the door?