My '94 shorty got rear ended by a 12 passenger E350 yesterday, ricocheted off an Excursion and booted a Nissan Murano into a Caravan. Not much unaltered sheet metal left.
Checked about for Aero's last night. Pickings are slim in D.C. metro area.

 

everyone all right? Sounds like a heck of a hit.

 

Thanks, I was alone and am fine;just stiff and sore. The guy in the E350 is a paraplegic; said his brake lever did nothing to apply brakes. He said he was doing 35 when he topped a rise and realized traffic was stopped. After me he picked up three more vehicles downstream.
Strange, I hit the Murano HARD and no air bag deployment. Maybe not moving fast enough?

 

Glad you're OK. I would still have myself checked out.

Maybe you did not hit the other car dead-on to trip the sensor? Is there a way to check its computer to see if it tried to fire?

I've always wondered how you run full diagnostics on those things. You can check out all the electrical lines up to the bag itself, but how do you know for sure that at the critical moment, it will fire its charge as directed?

 

May be check Ebay for one in anouther state?? Glad to hear that you are OK though!!

 

Thanks all. No direct hit on front. Excursion hit was passenger front and down side. Murano hit was drivers side front. Guess thats why airbag did not deploy. After all that, firemen could not push it; started it up and drove it straight to shoulder on flat tires with fan banging away on radiator.

Headed 50 miles south to look at a couple of Aero's this afternoon.

 

glad no major injuries.
can always get a new rig, family and friends are not replaceable

those E350s are heavy beasts especially the extendeds. don't have the Aeros good braking.

 

I can't imagine many vehicles that have less adequate brakes than an Aerostar, except for another Ford product. Are the brakes on an E350 at least easily upgradable?

 

Yep, beast is a good description for an E-350.
Ended up 75 miles south yesterday, almost to Richmond Va, looking at three Aero's, all over 200k. No luck. Two extended 4.0's with heavy rust on rocker panels and a 3.0 shorty manual that I could"ve worked with if it wasn't going to be my daily driver in heavy traffic. The knees just can't handle a stick anymore.

Gotta friend who brokers fleet vehicles coming out of service. He's looking but doubtful as most Aeros would have been cycled out by now. Government vehicles might still be coming out.

Off to Maryland today to look at a couple.

 

LOL I had to laugh. The rear brakes are all right on these, but the fronts are terrible! Hard to find premium rotors arounds here at the local parts stores!

Still, the Aero's haul ***.

 

go to RockAuto.com
get the Raybestos new calipers with steel pistons, Raybestos Premium level rotors, Raybestos ATD249M Advanced Tech semi metallic pads, new flex hoses

flush and new brake fluid

you'll have Aero brakes that will quickly and safely stop 8,800 lbs GCVW towing with my loaded trailer
after i redid the brakes, they saved my Aero in a mashed brake pedal to the floor with both feet panic stop behind a stopped loaded log truck on a curve in the dark. hung the wife and i on the seat belts and broke her collar bone but we're still alive.

do it right and you too can have outstanding Aero brakes.

too many go to NAPA or Autozombie, get the cheapest brakes they have, DuraFail Chinese One Flung Louie brakes, and put them on old glazed rotors and drums.
Death Trap brake repair

now that Dodge, I wouldn't even call it a truck. worst 1 ton brakes i've ever seen. normal empty stop requires max pedal pressure.
I bought a Cummins, the cheap truck they gave me.

the only thing the Chinese can make well is Chinese food and babies that all look the same.

 

Hey, I resemble that remark!

I think it depends on the company. We all joke about crap we get from places like Walmart, but places like Walmart won't exist without all those shoppers demanding cheap crap. So it is with other things, like auto parts and electronics.

You do know that for the longest time, the American automobile industry was known for shoddy workmanship, which is why they lost so much of the market to foreign companies. Having worked for Ford myself, I used to know that "Ford Quality" was a punchline to a bad joke.

 

i once got a couple cheap blankets at Walmart along the road for camping when we still tent camped years ago with the Aero when we first got it.

We tried the blankets one trip, they were so rough and course material we couldn't stand them. Of course the smart Walmart markeing dept had sealed them in packaging so we had no idea of the roughness. Tried washing with fabric softener a number of times. Only made them worse, must have been made from wood chips or steel cable. We finally tried them in the back of the van for the dogs to sleep on, they refused to use them. We put them in the dog boxes, they refused to go in the boxes. We threw them in the garbage where they should have went when they hit the US shore.
Walmart still sells the same exact poor excuse for a blanket made in China.

buy those cheap Chinese brake pads, we'll see who turns their favorite Chinese restaurant into a Drive Thru with wrecker Dim Sim service.

got rid of the blankets 12 years ago, still driving my Ford Love Van

just test drove one of the new Ford Edges, very nice rig but spendy. ugly as sin but heh, I love Aeros, fits right in
Ford still knows how to build efficient consumer desired vehicles.