Well, I took in the truck for the rear end whining at 40mph and 60-65 for the 5th time the other day.

They called me later that afternoon saying the truck was ready. I said Wow that was fast, what did ya'll do to it this time. About 7k miles ago they rebuilt the entire rear-end for the first time to correct the problem.

They said that they would no longer repair it because it was "NORMAL OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS".

I asked why they repaired it the previous 4 times then for the same problem. They didn't have an answer for me.

Offered me a great deal on an F250 Power Stroke. I asked the owner of the dealership (a friend of mine), why would I want to buy another Ford?

Has anybody got Ford to fix his or her problems after being told it was Normal? I really don't want to go through the hassle of the Lemon Law ordeal.

Maybe it's time to go back to Chevy & GMC. Sucks, because I love my first Ford truck, just can't accept the answer they are giving me on my problem.

And to top it off, my upper roof brake light was leaking, and they wouldn't cover that under the extended warranty because it was a TRIM item.




Are there any mechanics in here that could tell me what will happen if I continue to drive the truck with the rear-end whining? Will the ring & pinion fail quickly?

 

I had a similar issue with a 97 F250. The rear end went out while under the warranty (whining, clunking, etc). The rear end was completely rebuilt by a Ford dealer in Tustin CA. It went out again in another ~5K miles. They rebuilt it again. It went out again in another ~5K miles and they refused to warranty the work. They said it was due to our driving habits, etc, but the bottom line was they blamed it on us and told us to take a hike. We went to another Ford dealer in Orange CA and they had one of their senior techs look at it. The next day, the tech called and said he was pretty certain the other dealer was not setting up certain tolerances correctly. He said they'd cover it under warranty based on all the paperwork we had.

Prior to this last rebuild on the rear end, this truck was used pretty lightly for the most part and didn't do any towing. After the rear end was rebuilt this last time, we sold our other light duty tow vehicle and this truck spent plenty of time towing horse trailers, motorcycle trailers, a flat bed car trailer, spent time off roading for fun, etc. We used this truck wayyy harder after this last rear end rebuild and it held up fine for another ~80K miles. It probably would still be working fine today if the truck wasn't totaled.


If the whine is happening all the time, then perhaps it's due to an axle bearing. If the whine is happening on deceleration, then perhaps the bearing pre-loads are not set correctly. The other thing that can cause a whine on deceleration is if the backlash is not set correctly (the relationship of the pinion teeth to the ring gear). It's very critical that both the heel to toe and depth of contact of the pinion teeth to the ring gear is set perfect or else you'll end up with a whining rear end and premature wear / failure.

 

He's not much of a friend. Try another dealer, call Ford, and hope for the best.

Ford seems to want to call a design flaw "normal operating characteristics". They have spent a lot of money on the truck. They know that whatever they do to it most likely will NOT be a permanent repair, so they want to wash their hands of your truck before they spend any more money on it.

Bad techs cause a lot of the problems on the rebuild, but mostly,the quality of the gear metal is so poor it will not hold up.

Ford knows this, just as they know about the breaking plugs in the 3V they won't pay for. They also knew about the 4 thread heads on modular engines used from the early 90's until early '03 models that spit out plugs. Ford also knew the 3.8 engines were basically junk motors because of a bad water jacket design, but that did not keep them from producing them from the late 80's until 2003.

Same for the AXOD transmission, and the 4.0 SHOC engine that ate up timing chain tensioners, which destroyed the engine if not caught in time.

I hope you have luck, but from past experiences, I'm not holding my breath.

If I sound a little bitter, I am. I'm afraid to drive my Expedition for fear of what's going to break next (I also have a whining axle, among several other things), and I can't afford to take a bath on it either.

 

You still a have the whine I guess. Try another dealer before you give up. JUst because hes a friend off yours doesnt mean you cant go somewhere else. GMC Chevy hey boefore I would do that Id get another Ford. An who says GM dont have problems. Piston slap dead fuel pumps after the warranty is up. Transmissions going out at 30000 miles. Just normal huh. Brother had the bow tie experience never again. If it was me I would just trade the truck off an get a new Ford truck 150 or 250. Go to another service department an have the tech drive it an see what he says about the rear end whine. A second opinion is needed.

 

I had a problm with vibration, went twice and was told it was normal. I went back a third time and had several other problems plus the vibration issue. Told them to fix it or I would start the complaint process. I also called Ford to report the problem. I ended up telling the dealership I already called Ford and if they didn't find and fix the problem this time I would pursue a vehicle swap and would use an attorney if needed. Well they fixed it. New service manager drove it and heard the problem that the previous two manager said wasn't there but if it was it was normal. I have a letter I gave to the dealership manager that got my point across. End of the story is the truck is fixed and sometimes the squeeky wheel does get the grease. Good luck.

 

I had the same problem with my 05 company truck. the thing leaned to the left since new took it back 4 times to where i bought it until they replaced the rear spring. guess what it still leaned but they say thats normal. I told them i don't think so brand new truck that leans. same way with the trans when you put it in reverse it shutters they said that was normal and would not fix it. I finally got tired of fighting with them and took it to another ford dealer and they fixed both problems. Needless to say the Ford dealer where i bought it no longer has the dealership ford pulled there licence because they had alot of complants about the place. Don't give up try another dealership.

 

I was going to take it to another Ford dealership, maybe a different mechanic would solve the problem, but my problem is already in the Ford system, so I'm SOL no matter where I take it for the whine problem.

I'm going to contact the Ford Motor Company Customer Relationship Center next and see what comes of that.

 

I had the same problem and when the whine returned after the third attempt, I took it in and they "couldn't hear anything". They said I could call Ford but it wouldn't do any good. I didn't call Ford, I wrote them. The called me about 10 days later and discussed it with me. They promised to get back with me after they checked it out. Waited 2 weeks and wrote them again with a copy of the original letter. Same thing happened again and I wrote them again. I included who I talked with, when and what we talked about. After the third time, a manager called me and walked me through the entire repair at another dealer and they resolved the problem by installed a new assembly (the prior dealer left the carrier bolts loose and it wore the housing).

Everytime they called me, they asked what I wanted and I always said I just wanted my truck fixed.

The secret is good records and persistance. They should have known better than to irritate a retired old f**t that has the time and determination to get justice and actually enjoyed driving them nuts.

 

i'm a tech at a chevy dealer and gm has their share of problems too. i can't tell you how many times a customer comes in with a complaint and i had to tell them that this was normal or that gm is working on a correction for it so come back later, but that is what gmsi and tech support told me to do. gm has been having a problem with their automatic t-cases where the vehicle shutters and jumps while turning and gm just has me flush the fluid and send on its way and it goes away but eventually comes back and the customer gets pissed and gm won't let me replace the tcase the have all kinds of problems like thise and i bet dodge has their fair share too.

 

And Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes, BMW, Honda, etc...

They're all designed, manufactured & serviced by people who aren't perfect. Unfortunately, a certain amount of failures are to be expected, but it sucks when it happens to you.

If we owned a Land Rover, our chances of problems would be much higher based on the JD Powers Vehicle Dependability Study. Ford ranks in the upper one third...
http://www.jdpower.com/corporate/new...asp?ID=2006133

And it appears that the F150 helped to bring up Ford's previous scores, which likely means the F150 in itself would rank higher on this scale if it were judged alone. Here's a quote from the sidebar in the link below. "The Ford F-150 was one vehicle that helped improve Ford's JD Power dependability scores."
http://www.autosite.com/content/shar...icle_id_int/21

 

For people with continuing rear end problems, have your dealers check out the housing itself. Make sure it is not bent or twisted from the factory. I have seen this occur, not on a Ford, but on a GM product.

Houghtie

 

It could also just be a bad rearend. Sometimes you get things like that. My grandfather bout a new 89 Chevy 1500 van and it had the rear axle whine on it since it was new. Went through the same thing your going through and never could get it fixed. Drove it up till about 2000 with no problems. My dads 2000 model 2500 Chevy work van has had about 3 transmissions in it so far with under 100000 miles on it. Where he works has a new 3500 chevy truck that they use to push snow on the parking lots with and it overheats everytime they start using it.

 

Just a quick note here...

On rebuilt/new rear-ends, one cannot just jump in and go driving like they would otherwise do. Ring-and-pinion sets need considerable care taken when driving for the first 100 miles.

Was looking at this problem when considering new gears for my now-sold Chevy. Several people on the forum I was frequenting for Chevy trucks mentioned having gone through multiple ring/pinion sets after having them rebuilt at dealers. Not wanting to go through all this hassle, I checked with several local shops (independent of dealers and marque's) and was confirmed on the delicate break-in process.

The short version was to drive 5-10 miles easily, then let axle cool for at least 30 minutes. Then drive 30-45 miles and let it cool completely again. Then drive for 60 or so miles and let it cool. Then drive easily for the next couple of weeks, before considering the gearset properly broken in. (I also believe there was a fluid change in there somewhere.) I had a drive matching this almost exactly planned (it was easy at the time), but wound up going a different route for the gear swap: complete rear-end change with the appropriate factory gearset. Never had a lick of problems with it.

Apparently non-original (even OEM) gearsets are not machined with the same close tolerances as original factory-installed gears, and are not given the proper surface finish at the completion of machining. Jumping in and driving "normally" doesn't give the gears a chance to "mate" properly and they fail. The slow break-in allows the gears to machine themselves smooth and "mate".

Don't know if this will help or hurt at this point.

-blaine

 

The only break in procedure the dealer gave me after the repairs was:

No towing for 500 miles
No cruise control for 500 miles

I waited at least 1000 miles on the last repair.

If I get them to repair again under warranty, then I will certainly mention this technique to them and see what they say.

 

Do arbitration. It is binding on their part. Check your owners manual for how to do it. My friend just had his F250 PSD bought back by ford through it.