Jerked around by Ford - Lateral-g Forums

**Ummgawa** · #1 01-31-2007, 10:53 AM

Well, my son's Expedition nearly caught on Fire while he was at College on Monday evening. He was at his frat house and one of his buddies came running in screaming "JT, your Expedition is on Fire!". Mind you, he was not driving it and it was cooled off and had been sitting for 8 plus hours. He ran out, opened the door and grabbed the extinguisher and lifted the hood, and sparks and smoke were coming from the Brake Master Cylender. He called in a panic and told me the deal. I got on the Net and checked for a diagram and noticed a relay on the front of the MC. Did a search of Expedition fires and sure enough, it's called a SCDS switch made by Texas Instruments. The web site showed every thing from burned down Expeditions to burned down HOUSES where they were parked in the garage!!

Long story short, the recall is on vehicles from 1996-2000 (his is a 98) and a lot of other models too. The SCDS switch causing this kind of trouble is not an IF scenario its a WHEN scenario, so check it out.

Here's the pisser, it ruined the Master Cylender and because we did not respond to a recall notice (we did not recieve one) in November of 06 and again in December of 06, Ford sez they will not fix the damage that the faulty switch caused, that being a 240 dollar master cylender. I argued with the Zone boys and the customer service folk. Hell, they acted like they sent the notice when Stonehenge got stacked up. It was 45 days ago. You can't even get a Ford dealer to schedule you for recall service (you have to have an appointment) for 3- 4 weeks.

Shame of it is, I have had 2 recalls for minor stuff, and we had it fixed, no problem.

If you have a Ford Product in the 1996 to 2000 range with cruise and ABS, check to see if you have this switch on the front of your Master Cylender. It is Red and silver about the size of an Idiot GM Oil light sending unit on an older small block.

See info here:www.atslab.com/fire/PDF/IAAI_Article.pdf

And here:http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/pr...e&summary=true

cykotic · #2 01-31-2007, 11:10 AM

That just burns me when you get sold a faulty product in the first place, but they won't take responsibility for it. Even if they did recall it, it should still be on them. They should do more to get in contact with their customers.

**Streetking** · #3 01-31-2007, 11:47 AM

That sucks, it could have been worse though. I would take it to your local Ford Dealer and have a "nice" conversation with the service manager.

good luck,

SW

**Steve68** · #4 01-31-2007, 12:26 PM

The local news did stories on the "problem" here in FL awhile back like you stated from burned car to burned down HOUSES, Ford was saying "oh yes we'll rectify the problem" but it was really like- theres nothing wrong get your car out of here or pay us the money, yea, I'd buy a Ford product!

kennyd · #5 01-31-2007, 12:28 PM

we had a new navagator come into service with " smoke smell " 2 days later
it was found as it was burning in front of the customers house . completely gone from the rear doors to the front bumper

scott_b_69 · #6 01-31-2007, 03:10 PM

Sorry to hear about the fire. As the owner of an 01 Expedition, I thought I would respond.

The recall notices were sent out in Nov/ Dec 05 (not 06) and covered through the 02 models. It was Feb 06 before my local dealer notified me that they had the part in stock, and the service advisor installed it on the spot. I haven't had any issues since the harness was installed.

Good Luck,
Scott

rwhite692 · #7 02-01-2007, 07:37 PM

Jim I'm glad to hear no one was hurt. Hopefully the dealer will turn around their position and make good on it. If not, just keep going on up the chain...