I wanted to get this story out to the public for a couple of reasons. First, so the world knows what I am currently going through with Ford. Second, to find out if anyone else has had this issue. And lastly, as a warning to all other Super Duty (and maybe other truck) owners to make sure to check this.


I recently purchased a backup camera to install on my 2008 Ford F-450 Super Duty. When I crawled under the rear to begin the installation, I found my spare tire missing. The winch for the spare is there, but there is no cable, no saddle, no tire. There is not even a little bit of cable sticking down. (I felt that had the tire been stolen, there would have been some cable sticking down.)

I took the truck to my local Ford dealership. (This is the one I use when needed. They are the ones that do my oil change and any other warranty work that is required if I am not traveling.) When I told the service advisor about my issue, almost immediately told me it would not be covered under warranty. They did not look at the truck at this point. I told her I was not going to let this go and I needed to know how to move on. She gave me the 800 number to Ford Customer Care. (Or the 1-800 who cares number as I like to call it.)

My first call into Customer Care was about 20 minutes after I left the dealership (11-19-2009) and I spoke with a very nice lady who told me that the parts may be covered under warranty, but the truck would need to be diagnosed by my local dealer. She said she logged it in the computer for the dealership.

I called back to the dealer and they told me I could bring it in right then and they would look at it. I returned to the dealer and they did put it up on the lift and look at it. They did not however do anything more than a visual inspection that returned the results of, "The tire is not there and we can not see the cable." This is what I told them to begin with. They did state that there was evidence of the tire being there at some point as there was rub marks underneath from where the tire was mounted. I was then told I would need to call back into the Customer Care line as they could not determine it was a faulty unit. (Nor did they determine it was not.)

I called into the Customer Care line as I was returning home and explained it all again. Customer Care told me I would need to return to my selling dealer. (90 miles from where I now live.) When I asked why I needed to return to that dealer, I was told it was so they could determine if the tire had been installed at the factory. When I explained that this had already been determined by the local dealer and I did not wish to drive 180 miles to have them state the same thing, she no longer had anything to help me with. I asked to speak to someone higher up as I was not going to let this die. I was told she was it. She actually said to me, "Sir, you are talking to Ford!" I then explained that I wanted to talk to someone higher up IN Ford. She told me her supervisor had no additional resources and that it would not change anything. I explained to her that I would take this all the way to the CEO of Ford if I needed to. She put me on hold, came back and explained that all the supervisors were currently busy and I could wait or have them call me back. I chose the call back.

A supervisor called me today (11-20-2009) about 3pm. I explained the situation again (3rd time) and told her I felt I was being treated unfairly. I felt that no one was taking the initiative to actual diagnose the issue. I explained that not only was I upset the tire was missing, but that if this is an issue, someone could be killed. A dually tire is not light and if it came out at road speed, someone could easy have been killed. She then said that I would have noticed it. I don't think that is true. As big as this truck is, as rough as it rides, I don't think I would have noticed anything. She put me on hold and called the local dealer again. They said they were willing to pull the winch down and open it up to see if they could determine what the issue was. (They will likely charge me a diagnostic fee however.) She also made a comment that if it was defective, they would replace the hanger, but not likely the tire. My comment to that is what if my leaf springs fail and my axle falls out? Will they cover the springs and not the axle?

So at this point I am awaiting a time to go back to the dealership again to get it diagnosed.


So that is the story to this point. Anyone else lose a tire on a Super Duty? I would also like this to be a warning for you all to drop the tire occasionally and check the condition of the cable. I only have 30K miles on the truck. Also, for the record, I seen the spare when the truck had 1200 miles on it as I was under the truck to install the 5th wheel hitch. The last time that I "know" the tire was under there was August of 2008 when I had the truck at a dealership in Augusta, GA. and had nitrogen put in the tires. I requested that the spare also be done. I would imagine (if they actually did the spare) that they would have told me it was not there. So it disappeared in the last year.


I hope this is an OK place to post this. This forum has helped me a ton since I purchased my truck

Please let me know if anyone has had this issue. This could turn into a safety recall!

 

sounds like somebody stole your spare by cutting the cable.

 

thats what i was thinking
someone cut the cable and it ran up into the whatchamcallit
like a broken window shade

 

Sounds suspiciously like something that happened here a few months ago. Some 20-30 cars around town had spare tires stolen from park and ride facilities.

 

Cutting the cable is not an easy undertaking. The cable itself is pretty much out of reach once the tire and wheel are pulled up in place under the truck. Plus if this was the situation of it being cut there are two items that come to mind.
1: there would be a length of cable still sticking out of the spare tire winch itself.
2: As hard as it is to get to the cable and cut it, most thiefs are not that ambishious, it would be a difficult job to do. Plus the weight of the tire dropping down could cause some major pain if it landed on the thief.

Of course, on the other hand. With all the post here online about people losing there spare tire key. And the little secret tool that works like a dream in lowering the tire. Maybe we have opened a can of worms in assisting theft of tires and wheels.
It would then make sense that once the tire was lowered and removed, the thief could either cut the cable so that the cable would not drag the ground and alert the owner as to the tire theft until the tire was needed. Or the cross piece that is slipped onto the end of the cable once placed through the wheel opening and used to raise the spare in place, could be thrown away, the cable rewinched up into the winch housing...again leaving to tale tail sign of the theft until the spare would be needed.
I guess anyway you look at it, it still sucks.

 

Did ya take a flash light and look into the hole were the cable drops out of?

 

If the tire is up properly, there will be tension on the cable...

once cut, and the tension is released, it will retract back into the winch.


Not all theives are lazy, just the ones that aren't any good.

 

I think the winch works a little differently than you think. If the tire had been stolen, the thief would winch yours down and flip the bracket off of the wheel and the cable and bracket would be dragging on the ground. Since there is no cable, the weight must have been too much for the winch and the cable separated from the housing. The winch assembly needs to be removed from the truck and examined more carefully. Sounds like an issue for either ford or your insurance company to discuss, but in all reality, the spare tire should have been additionally secured by you by lassoed to the frame with a chain and lock to prevent thieves from stealing it anyways. If you read the forums, you will find out spare tire theft is very common in all major citys in america, and any cable set up is easily cut by thieves.

 

Call your insurance company ... not the dealer. Most likely, a thief cut the cable and stole your spare. Unfortunately it's common.

Best way to tell is simply to crawl under there and fish for the cable yourself instead of paying the dealers "diagnostic fee". If its a clean cut ... thief. It its frayed & stressed ... it fell off.

 

Yes, I agree with 98SurplutExpy. You should be talking with your insurance company, not your dealership or Ford.

On my old 1995 F-150, the spare tire carrier was a bar hung between the frame rails. A threaded rod extended from the bar. The tire was held on the rod with a plastic cone that was threaded to engage the threaded rod. I was out one day on the Oregon coast doing some 4 wheeling. i was climbing the side of a sand dune when the tires started digging in. I floored it in 4L and drove out, but then looked in the mirror and noticed a tire in the path I had just taken. Fearing I had snapped an axle I stopped and counted 4 tires. Hmmm...doesn't seem to be off of my truck. Wonder where that came from?

My teenage son says, "Dad, is that your spare?"

Oh.......well duh!

I dug under the truck (Did I mention it was deep sand?) and sure enough, no spare. I threw the spare in and backed down the dune, then surveyed the damage. The bar that carries the spare had been wrapped around the rear axle and was dragging on the ground. I got a bungee cord to hold it up and headed for home. It took a few hours with a hacksaw to get the old spare tire carrier off of the frame. I went to a salvage yard and got a spare tire carrier from an older Ford truck (used a large metal wingnut instead of a plastic cone), installed that and added a weatherproof padlock so no one could steal my spare tire.

 

The negative of going through the insurance company is just about everyone has a deductible and I'm thinking it would be higher than the cost of the tire and wheel. I agree the cable would be hard to cut without lowering the wheel. I had to do it on my work van once when the winch broke in the up position. Luckily I was home with all my tools in a warm garage and I was just trying to swap out the new spare while buying new tires for the van. And, no, cutting it while it was raised does not make the cable snap back up into the winch. It just hangs there after being cut. Now, if a thief could lower it, cut it, and crank it back up to cover the crime. Well, that's a different story and exactly what could have happened. Also, if it just broke, some cable should be showing, albeit frayed. This happened on the truck my wife had when we met. Her S10 pickup had the cable rust out and frayed and snapped. Again, there was frayed cable hanging out of the winch after it happened. It didn't just disappear into the winch.

 

I think the thieves have a method for easily cutting them under tension. Here's my example ...

My truck was missing its spare when I bought it used (not cut or anything, hanger & cable still there). So, I go down to the salvage yard to buy another. The "yard dog" (salvage yard employee) and I go out and find an '07 with the size spare I need. Of course, it had the McGard lock on the crank ... so I tell the guy, "if we cant find the key in the truck then I guess I wont be getting this one". No sooner than I start digging inside to look for the McGard key, I hear a "pop" and the spare is being dragged from under the truck by the "yard dog". I say, "how'd ya get it down"?? He replied, "I cut it, aint got time to find a key".

Moral of the story .. the cables can be, and frequently are, cut with the tire completly raised and under tension.

 

I agree that it COULD have been stolen. But I still think it would have a piece of cable sticking down. With the tire up in the correct position there would be at least 12 inches of cable between the winch and the saddle. No way is it going to retract 12 inches of cable back up automatically (tension) and I can not imagine a thief would waste time and risk capture by cranking the cable up.

This is all true.

No, but I will. I will also use my camera in macro mode and see if I can get a photo.

I do not live in a major city. I live in the country and the nearest city is a retirement area. I realize I should have secured it, but I think Ford should also make it harder to steal it. And for the record, I have been driving pickups for 20 years and never lost a spare.

I do not want to tamper with the winch. I do not want to give Ford a way out of this. I have talked to some people around here locally that said the local dealership avoids doing anything under warranty. I guess at some point they were doing "too much" warranty work and got a hand slap. So I am going to make the 90 mile trip to my selling dealership.

True. And I have seen saddle designs that do not protect it much. But again, no cable sticking down.


Thanks to everyone for the input. It gives me other things to think about. And don't get me wrong, my first thought was that it was stolen. But it just does not line up to me.

 

I completely agree that there would be cable hanging down if it was cut or broken as I have seen both first hand. Something fishy.

 

The thieves lower the tire enough to get bolt cutters on the cable, then take the tire and run. Saves them 30 seconds and reduces the chances of getting caught.