2001 Ford F-550 SD problems

What is wrong

Ford is recalling model years 1995-2003 windstar, 2000-2003 excursion diesel, 1993-1997 and 1999-2003 f-250 sd through f-550 sd diesel, 1992-2003 e-150 through e-550, 1995-2002 explorer, 1997 and 2002 mercury mountaineer, 1995-1997 and 2001-2003 ranger, and 1994 f53 vehicles equipped with the texas instruments speed control deactivation switch (scds). The scds may leak internally and then overheat, smoke, or burn.

Risk

A vehicle fire could occur with or without the engine running.

Remedy

Ford will notify owners that dealers will install a fused wiring harness in line with the scds. On 1999-2003 windstar vehicles with a leaking scds, dealers will also inspect the ABS control module connector and repair as necessary. Repairs will be completed free of charge. The safety recall began on october 27, 2009. Owners may contact ford at 1‑888‑222‑2751.

Recall number 09V399000 · Recall details

What is wrong

On certain heavy duty trucks equipped with 7.3l diesel engines, the camshaft position sensor located on the engine of the vehicle may function intermittently, possibly resulting in an engine stall.

Risk

In the event of an engine stall, a crash could result without warning.

Remedy

Dealers will inspect the sensor and replace it with an improved camshaft position sensor free of charge. The recall began on december 29, 2007. Owners may contact ford at 1‑866‑436‑7332.

Recall number 07V553000 · Recall details

What is wrong

On certain trucks equipped with speed control, gasoline or natural gas engines, the speed control deactivation switch may overheat.

Risk

Overheating could result in smoke or burn and an underhood fire.

Remedy

Dealers will install a fused wiring harness into the speed control system free of charge. The recall began on august 7, 2006. Owners may contact ford at 1‑866‑436‑7332. (note: also see recalls 05v017 and 05v388)

Recall number 06V286000 · Recall details

What is wrong

Vehicle description: passenger cars, sport utility vehicles, and light and medium duty pickup trucks. A switch located in the plastic cover of the wiper motor gear case could malfunction and overheat, potentially resulting in loss of intermittent wiper function, loss of wiper park function, complete loss of wiper function, or ignition of the plastic cover material. Switch malfunction is most likely to occur when the intermittent setting of the wipers is being used, or when snow or ice obstructs the blades from returning to the "parked" position at the bottom of the windshield. These vehicles were built at the following assembly plants: atlanta plant from 2/11/00 through 7/31/00; chicago plant from 2/14/00 through 8/4/00; kansas city plant from 2/26/00 to 9/4/00; kentucky truck plant from 2/18/00 to 8/31/00; michigan truck plant from 2/23/00 through 8/3/00; norfolk plant from 2/21/00 through 7/27/00; wayne stamping and assembly plant from 2/25/00 through 8/15/00; and wixom plant from 2/15/00 through 8/8/00.

Risk

Loss of visibility while driving increases the risk of a crash.

Remedy

Dealers will inspect the date code on the wiper motor. Motors built with the suspect time frame will have the wiper motor gear case cover replaced. Owner notification began august 20, 2001. Owners who take their vehicles to an authorized dealer on an agreed upon service date and do not receive the free remedy within a reasonable time should contact ford at 1‑866‑436‑7332.

Recall number 01V258000 · Recall details

What is wrong

Vehicle description: passenger and sport utility vehicles, pickup trucks, and minivans. Equipped with seat belts supplied by trw. It is possible that the driver's and/or front passenger's outboard seat belt buckle may not fully latch. Ford crown victoria built at st. Thomas assembly plant from 4/17/00 - 5/29/01 mercury grand marquis built at st. Thomas assembly plant from 4/17/00 - 5/29/01. Lincoln town cars built at wixom assembly plant from 3/27/00 - 5/30/01. Lincoln navigators built at michigan truck plant from 4/11/00 - 5/31/01. Ford windstars built at oakville assembly plant from 3/23/00 - 5/30/01. Ford rangers built at twin cities plant from 3/28/00 - 5/30/01, and also at the edison plant from 3/13/00 - 5/25/01. Ford f-150 truck built at norfolk plant from 4/18/00 - 5/25/00; at ontario plant from 5/10/00 - 5/28/01; at kansas city plant from 9/11/99 - 5/25/01; and at cuautitlan plant from 5/16/00 - 6/9/01. Ford super duty f-250, f-350, f-450, and f-550 trucks built at kentucky plant from 4/17/00 - 5/27/01; and at cuautitlan plant from 5/16/00 - 6/19/01. Ford excursions built at kentucky plant from 4/17/00 - 10/2/00. Ford expeditions built at michigan truck plant from 4/11/00 - 5/31/01.

Risk

In the event of a crash, the restraint system may not provide adequate occupant protection, increasing the risk of personal injury to the seat occupant.

Remedy

Dealers will inspect the front outboard seat belt buckles and if the buckle fails the inspection process, it will be replaced. Owner notification began july 25, 2001. Owners who take their vehicles to an authorized dealer on an agreed upon service date and do not receive the free remedy within a reasonable time should contact ford at 1‑866‑436‑7332.

Recall number 01V227001 · Recall details

What is wrong

Vehicle description: trucks equipped with commercial truck tires that have steel cords in the tire sidewall. The valve stems may have been torn or damaged during assembly and could leak causing sidewall damage.

Risk

If not maintained, could result in a sidewall zipper failure. A zipper failure during inflation of a damaged tire could result in injury to someone near the tire.

Remedy

Dealers will inspect the valve stems for leakage, and will replace both the valve stem and the tire if leakage is present. Owner notification began march 28, 2001. Owners who take their vehicles to an authorized dealer on an agreed upon service date and do not receive the free remedy within a reasonable time should contact ford at 1‑800‑392‑3673.

Recall number 01V046000 · Recall details

In a december 3, 2007 letter, ford advised the federal safety agency that it will conduct a safety recall to replace the cam position sensor (cps) in approximately 1.2 million subject vehicles to address reports of engine stalling.a new design cps with improved performance and durability will be installed as a remedy.owner notifications will begin in december 2007. The subject vehicles are durable, full-sized, medium duty trucks commonly used for commercial purposes, rescue/emergency response, and commercial or recreational towing.cps failure is comparable to unexpectedly turning the key off since the signal it produces is vital to the electronic engine control system.cps signal loss terminates fuel injection resulting in an engine stall.once stalled, the engine may restart right away, or may restart after a delay (typically 5 to 10 minutes), or may not restart at all.in addition to exposing the driver and other motorists to crash risk due to loss of motive power or vehicle disablement, engine stalling also effects the power assisted steering and braking. Through consumer interviews, odi determined that cps failures occurred without any form of warning, at any vehicle speed (50% at highway speeds), and under any driving condition, such as accelerating.consumers reported that about a third of the vehicles failed to restart, with another third reporting delayed restarting.half the vehicles that did restart experienced another stall on the same or a subsequent drive cycle (before cps replacement) re-exposing those consumers to the risks associated with a stalling event.in their voq reports, half of the odi complainants described difficulty controlling the vehicle due to lose of power assist systems, especially those who were towing at the time of the incident. The one alleged injury incident occurred in an intersection when a subject vehicle stalled while turning across oncoming lanes of traffic.although unsubstantiated, the complainant alleged an injury to a child occupant during odi's interview.the other crash allegations mostly involved low speed, loss of control incidents often caused by lack of power assist; no injuries are reported in these incidents, and property damage, if any, was minimal.consumers also reported other incidents with significant safety risks, such as disablement in a lane or on a shoulder of a high-speed roadway or interstate, or extended disablement in remote areas during severe weather conditions. The population above is ford's estimate of the 1.4 million subject vehicles produced that are currently registered.the ford complaint and warranty counts noted above are current as of ford's last submission dated june 21, 2007; they do not include f-450, f-550, or econoline counts as these products were not formally within scope of the investigation when failure information was requested.warranty data analysis indicates that about half the claims involved a stall while driving event ( ford's assessment) and that poor cps durability was a longstanding concern.ford reported that the new cps design should meet or exceed their 10 year, 150k mile life expectancy design requirement.

EA06012

Ea05-005 is closed with ford?s actions in recalls 05v‑017, 05v‑388, and 06v‑286, recalling approximately 6.7 million vehicles equipped with texas instruments speed control deactivation switches (scds).the brake systems in these recalled vehicles generate a vacuum that can potentially cause the scds to fail and, in certain switch installation orientations, catch fire.ford is also including the entire population of 1998 explorers.ford has informed odi that testing to determine the cause of failures in the 1998 explorers will continue after this investigation is closed.odi believes that the vehicles exhibiting the factors causing scds failure described in this report correlate well with the observed failure rates on these vehicles by model and model year.the closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by the federal safety agency that a safety-related defect does not exist in the non-recalled vehicles manufactured with scds that are not included in ford?s recalls.odi will continue to monitor the non-recalled population for incidence of engine compartment fires.the agency reserves the right to take further action if warranted by the circumstances.see attached closing report for details.

EA05005

During the initial recall campaign in 2001, the subject vehicles were inspected by ford dealerships using a test tool that would detect a defective front seat outboard seat belt buckle assembly.approximately one million vehicles passed the inspection test for one or both front buckles.subsequent to the recall service action, odi received 15 consumer reports alleging that a passed inspection buckle subsequently failed to latch or inadvertently unlatched during use.in addition, ford has identified 543 owner and field reports alleging buckle failure subsequent to passing the inspection test.ford tested and examined over 100 warranty-returned buckles and found that 44% of the buckles had no problem or a condition not related to the recall inspection (non-latch related buckle damage or foreign contamination).warranty claims were highest during the 18-month period after the start of the recall (july 2001) and have been declining during the past 24 months.over the past 12 months, ford has received approximately 12 warranty claims per month out of a vehicle population of about one million.complaints counts are also decreasing.during the past seven months, odi has received only two complaints. A safety-related defect has not been identified at this time and further use of agency resources does not appear to be warranted.accordingly, this investigation is closed.the closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by the federal safety agency that a safety-related defect does not exist.the agency reserves the right to take further action if warranted by the circumstances.

EA05004

Under recall campaign (01v227), ford recalled approximately 1.3 million vehicles to inspect and if necessary replace the front driver and/or passenger seat belt buckle.approximately 1.1 million owners responded by taking their vehicles to a dealer for inspection of the buckle using a specialized buckle test tool.ford reported that 829,927 vehicles had both buckles pass the tool test and another 167,336 vehicles had one buckle pass.odi and ford received complaints alleging seat belt buckle failure shortly after passing the original recall inspection service.complainants alleged that the buckle failed by either not latching or false-latching (partial engagement of the latch to the latch plate).a false-latched buckle may release with minor movement or impact against the buckle housing including inadvertent release while the vehicle is in motion.odi is upgrading this recall query to an engineering analysis (ea05-004) to further analyze the field performance of those vehicles that ford dealers passed (one or both buckles) using ford's inspection test (997,263 vehicles).

RQ04011

Failure counts from odi?s analysis are stated above; see the additional problem experience discussion in the summary report.ford data contained duplicative reports for 4 odi complaints and 1 crash.three crashes were allegedly due to intermittent operation of the electronic throttle control (etc) pedal, one crash occurred when an etc disabled vehicle was struck by another motorist, one report contained no detail.the injuries were minor.an issue involving fixed etc pedals was investigated also, however failure reports and populations are not shown above; see summary report for detail.although ford has used etc based throttle control systems for many years, the pap feature was new for my 2002.the subject etc sensor produces two output signals which the engine management system (ems) utilizes to:1) determine fueling requirements; and 2) perform sensor diagnostics.one signal is linearly proportional to throttle pedal position; the second is a digital signal.by design, the detection of a sensor fault results in the engine returning to (or remaining at) the idle state.ford identified a defect in the pap etc sensor which prematurely affected an output signal; the migration of internal sensor lubricant caused a loss of proportional signal.the failure mechanism is progressive and as the sensor deteriorates, the ems will detect a fault, store a fault code, illuminate a warning lamp, and the engine may remain at/return to idle.in the early stages, normal operation can be regained by pedal re-application.the failure progresses until the engine remains at idle.the engine does not stall, power assisted steering and braking systems are unaffected. Ford corrected the etc sensor defect and conducted field service action (fsa) 03b03 to replace etc pedals, addressing 50% of vehicles.at agency request to improve completion rate, ford extended fsa 03b03 for 6 months.based on odi's analysis of available data, ford's action has appropriately resolved the etc sensor proplem in the subject vehicles.the closing of the investigation does not constitute a finding by the federal safety agency that a safety-related defect does not exist, and should not be considered as having any precedential value or effect binding the agency in future defect investigations. See the attached summary report for additional information.

EA04006

This investigation was opened on certain ford pickup trucks and vans to evaluate the effects of a valve stem ejection (with rapid air loss) and a slow leaking valve stem on vehicle handing.during the investigation, odi evaluated over 1,100 complaints and warranty claims, conducted vehicle dynamic testing on a subject vehicle with the failure mode replicated, interviewed owners, and examined complaint vehicles in the field.the results of the test program indicates the effect of a valve stem ejection on these vehicles is easily controlled. Further, with a population of almost 900,000 vehicles, having two to four years of exposure, odi is aware of only 3 minor crashes and is unaware of any injuries.the small number of crashes relative to the large population of vehicles is consistent with the testing which was performed. Therefore, this investigation is closed.see the attached report for full technical details.

EA02018

This ea was opened based on a response received from ford motor company to an information request (ir) submitted during sq00-018.ford stated in an internal service message that it had changed the steering gear sector shafts and pitman arms installed 1999 model year f-series super duty vehicles on march 22, 1999.ford stated that these design changes were implemented to make improvements in vehicle steering and handling, and that virtually all of the reported fractured sector shafts were the result of extraordinary, possibly multiple, impacts.an engineering analysis closing report is attached.

EA01009