Today I just had all of my hope in ford motors pulled out from under me. I have a 2004 ford f150 lariat,avery beautiful supercrew,with only 51000 kms on it.I knew that they were having some trouble with rear diff. crown & pinions because I had one replaced at 40,000 kms no big deal.This is where it gets interesting.I just came home from work, took my truck for a drive, to find a noise again in the rear end.So I take the truck in to my locall dealer to get it checked out and sure enough the rear diff is gone again.The dealer checks out the time frame on my warrenty and says that it has expired by two months.Now normally I would have just accepted this but the truck has only 10000 kms on it since the last rear end was installed.My dealer just shrugged their shoulders and said to take it up with ford canada,so I did.Ford canada said that there was nothing that they could do because it was over the time limit.They would not even begin to look into the situation of having the second diff go out at 10000kms, just hid behind the fact that the time was up on the warrenty.So all you people that are having any trouble of any kind and your warrenty is getting close to being up, or there is any kind of dispute, be prepared to lose out and be pushed out and left on your own to deal with it yourself.

 

Try a different dealer form my experience it sounds like they should replace it regardless because it was either installed correctly or was manufactured incorectly.
If it comes down that your gonna have to pay for it, get an aftermarket LS that uses gears instead of clutches.

 

I had an ongoing issue that was not fixed till after warranty to a tune of 2,000 dollars and Ford of USA covered it since I contacted them back before warranty was up. So anyone with a problem should call the 1-800 number in your owners manual and have it documented before the warranty is up.

 

I did talk twice to ford and even emailed them, all with the same end resault.They are just not going to admit that something is wrong. Needless to sat if that 's the kind of backing I'm going to get right from the company then I'm not going to keep the truck if I'm going to be replacing rear diff's every 10000kms.In fact I've got an appointment to trade it off tomorrow. It sound kind of harsh but what else can I do? I'm not putting anymore money into it. The darn truck only has 50000 kms on it. If I was ford I would be ashamed that it even happened and try to get to the bottom of the problem rather than just hide behind a policy.Quality is job one my *ss!

 

man...i hope my rear diff does not start to act up again

 

Just curious, but what seems to be the problem with the diffs? sorry if this has been coverd alot already, Im usually in the older model forums. Isnt the diff just the 8.8? and what did they change to screw it up?

 

Its all 8.8 9.75 (or 9.5 not sure right now) if you have an open rearend your fine. But fords LS uses a clutch based system and they just flat out suck. I'd be willing to bet close to 50% of them burn up the clutch packs all the time and theres a good bit of people driving down the road with a useless LS and they wont know it until they need it. Example my dad had 15,000 miles on his 2wd 04 5.4 got stuck in just a few inches of clay and I had to come yank him out with my old 97 4x4. He should of been able to drive on through it but only 1 rear wheel would spin and the front wheels got hung up and 1 spinning rear tire doesn't have enough grip to get it out. He took it to ford and sure enough clutch pack was gone installed a new one and so far the rearends still hooking up when he does burnout at 36000 miles but ill never trust a ford rearend unless the get a gear based system, but thats just $.02

 

Most factory LSs are crap, and the 8.8 has always been that way (doesnt last) but a loss of the clutch pack wont wreck any diffs Ive had. Someone mentioned crown and pinion problems?

 

Not just bein a ford fan boy here, but except for the LS clutch packs, I have always thought/still do think that fords rear ends are bullet proof. Especially on the bigger trucks since they use dana axles.
But I have seen literally countless F-150 E-150 F/E 250 on up with well over 200k miles on them and they've never had any rear end problems. I've got 214000 miles on mine a friend has 270000 on his, I even went to school with a guy that had 350,000 on his. These are all 4.6L with the 8.8 If your rear end tears up ie the ring & pinion gears eat themselves up your one of the unlucky ones, as far as I know they have a very good record.

 

I beleive the rangers can come with torsens. The gear based system still might not be what you want. It still usually peg legs, and shifts power to the wheel with the most traction. Its great for road racing but if you do any offroading or drag racing I find a locker is still better, preferably selectable. Ive seen them work offroad but often the brakes need to be applied a bit to get them to shift power to the other wheel.

 

With this rear diff. there was no problem with the L S system. Both times it was a complete rebuild of the diff. The crown & pinion were replaced in both instances along with the main bearings.The diff itself would whine at about 80kms./hr.This time I asked for my old parts back since there was no warrenty, and I'm going to have them looked at by a qualified gear shop to see if they can figure it out. Something that ford should 've had done them selves.

 

Cool, keep us posted.

 

On one of those 4x4 TV shows(the one w/ the guy & girl) earlier this year it showed pictures of how to correctly install the rear end gears. There was was some trial and error and they showed what it looked liked when installed improperly. As I recall the wear pattern on the gears indicated if they were installed correctly or not.

After taking my 06 to the dealer in Jan 07 for a rear end leak- which they "couldn't confirm" but resealed the cover anyway- the rear end was replaced in March and again in May. Both times it was howling. Fortunately under warranty, but I will be buying the extended warranty as I have almost 36,000 now.

Good luck- I've had 3 other fords with around 450,000 combined miles and never had a rear end problem.

Tim

 

get a eaton. end of problem. but if you still want ford to replace it then you should know that under warrenty or not with that amount of km on it the dealer should be responsible for it. and if anyone is upset with ford then get a chevy, you always have a choice. I own my ford and love it problems and all.

 

I had less than 20,000 on mine when it went out. It was obvious that it was installed wrong or the parts were bad. It did not really matter because to much time had passed on the warranty. I got it fixed at the dealership and now there still is the slightest hum and you can barely hear it. I hope that noise never gets any louder.