Hey guys, couple issues here. First of all after crawling under my new F350 I noticed a problem with an exhaust hanger, causing more harm than good:

Anyways I brought it in to dealer to get fixed today and this is how they set it up:

I'm no exhaust surgeon but I don't think that's going to do the job. I will be driving the truck daily for work on gravel roads that can get quite rough. Thoughts?

 

Second thing that's bugging me is this:


Dirty fingerprints on an inside lens. That's not going away, and I know it's going to bug me. Maybe I'm just being picky but for the price of these trucks I think they should be almost flawless. First new truck that I've noticed a run and dust specks in the paint, the exhaust hanger, rear bumper was installed crooked, 1 door doesn't align with cab corner... Weirdly enough the paint I'm not super concerned with, it's going to be trashed from the gravel roads anyway. Opinions??
On a brighter note I really believe that for a heavy duty pickup, mechanically its superior to the Ram, and of course Chevy is don't even compare. Yes I've owned a few of each, but this is my first Ford pickup, hoping it'll last a good number of years.

 

I would have to crawl under my truck to understand what Im seeing in the photo and compare to how it should be. As far as flaws, unfortunately most of what you have found has been found by others too. The door misalignment has been around as long as the aluminum body has, starting on the F150. I agree that these trucks, and actually any new vehicle, should be flawless but not all are.
Door and bumper alignment should get taken care of by the dealer. If the debris in the paint is anything like mine its probably not worth the trouble.

 

Is it a truck built during Covid?

 

Yes it is...

 

I wouldn't sweat the exhaust hanger, you do realize those are meant to move?

The exhaust needs to move independently of the chassis, The next time you look it may be in a different position. I think Ford has one of the best hangar systems out there, I've changed enough for deletes to know.

The fingerprints and such I would have ford correct.

 

Geez that sucks.

 

looks like the rubber isolator got push too far on the bottom part and just needs a tug back to the left to get it back right.

 

My original concern withthe hanger was that it was almost metal on metal contact, the rubber piece was squished between them. Now it's installed upside down, the exhaust is kinda held up instead of hanging...

 

You purchased a mass produced piece of industrial equipment during a global pandemic. Just because they load them up with fancy features it is not a handcrafted luxury vehicle.

 

Well somebody had theirs hands on it...😏
I don't know about your job but I can't use the pandemic as an excuse for shoddy work at my job...

 

the exhaust hangers ive seen were symetrical with no up/down/front/back. yours looks no different. to straighten it up just give a tug. i dont see why you needed a special dealer appointment for 2min of work in your driveway

 

It is difficult to compare your before and after photos on your exhaust hangar, because the photos are presented at vastly different angles, and field of views.

If the second photo was shot at the same angle as the first photo, and if the first photo had as wide field of view as the second photo, that might have made a before and after assessment easier outside of the context having an identical vehicle to crawl under and check.

Exhaust system hangars vary by wheelbase, cabstyle, engine type, model year, etc, so for someone to have the same context to refer to, they would have to have the same type of truck as you (which you do not describe in your signature), and also be motivated to go lie down in the snow on your behalf to check their truck against your photos, to get the orientation that is not available with the photos presented.

What concerns me about the "repair" depicted in the "after" photo is... for the exhaust hangar to be clocked 180 degrees upward, the entire exhaust system would seem to have to have also been elevated, and if so, how was that done, what other hangars were changed (as the exhaust system is relatively rigid), and, what are the ramifications of such a dramatic positional deviation from the original design?

The flexible exhaust hangars not only resolve and absorb vibrations and movement, they also have a purpose built swinging direction (they swing aft) to accommodate the exhaust system's growth and lengthening from heat expansion. The cumulative growth or lengthening of the exhaust can "stack" up to quite a bit of measurable length gain as the exhaust gets hot. It shrinks again in length as the exhaust cools, and the swinging double eyelet loop design and directional orientation of the exhaust hangar accommodates these expansion and contraction cycles.

To any extent that the dealership service techs disrupted the directional swing of the exhaust hanger in order to make you happy, and thus maintain their "Blue Oval" status for having satisfied customer's concerns, the ramifications might not manifest themselves until enough expansion and contraction cycles have been constrained from swinging in the direction of growth freely to the point of fatiguing a point of stress concentration that otherwise would not have been constrained with the original design.

Perhaps the best solution is for you to find similarly configured vehicles on local dealership lots, lay down in the snow, and take photos, using care to replicate the same angle and field of view, and then present these photos to your dealership in the event that their solution is not consistent with production design. You may also find that other new trucks have the same, or different, hangar deviance that you first found in your truck, and thus might come away with a broader based and realistic set of expectations for how the hangars can be situated.

Looking at your before photo, I would have just slid the lower half of the flexible double eyelet hangar to the left slightly, so that it was vertical and up against the stop on the arm that passes through the lower hole.

 

Yeah its just a regular hanger for sure, but it wasn't hanging freely. Couldn't budge the rubber by hand, it was binding together. Without the rubber there the two posts would have been pressing together...

 

the rubber grips the steel post with alot of friction. tap it with a hammer would probly work or a small screwdriver between the rubber and steel might loosen the grip enough to straighten it