Is Ford, Baiting and switching?

[Varn]

My "Camo van", a 99 Ford Windstar has two major recalls on it. The front engine cradle and the rear axle are both prone to rust damage and failure.

I take the car to a local service center for maintenance. The mechanic said that the front cradle showed some thinning so my car is suffering some wear.

I think why not take the car into a Ford dealer for repair of replacement? So after looking at the recalls on the internet, I find that there are a lot of reports of people having their Windstars failing inspection but then the Dealer doesn't repair it but rather gives them a voucher for a new Ford and junks the car. The same group of owners are saying that the dealers not giving you your not repaired car back unless you sign a form stating that you know you have an unsafe car.

Rather disturbing to say the least. I have not talked to the local Dealer about this.

My car has 166,000 miles on it. Doesn't burn any oil shifts great and gets 25mpg on the highway. It still has the original exhaust system on it. The car spent its entire first 11 years in Illinois I know it has rust. I don't want to drive an unsafe car.

I went to a local salvage yard a month ago for taillight and found that they had 10 ford windstars without crash damage and 3-4 with obvious crash damage. I thought great a good source of spare parts. Only later did I get to thinking why were there so many "good" cars there.

So is Ford acting unethical? Using a recall to sell cars?

[pete c]

I have similar issues with my 97 ranger.

Ford did a great job at using rust resistant steel for the main frame rails. Unfortunately all the crossmembers and suspension parts have rusted badly.

Both radius rods (the part that keeps the front ibeam members aligned) rotted through and broke within the past year! the ibeams themselves have considerable rust, but, they are fortunately plenty thick.

Unfortunately, these rods were a dealer only part. You would think that ford would do the right thing and at least sell me these parts at cost, but, they won't.

I guess it comes down to playing legal games. Selling replacement parts at a discount would be an admission that the original parts were defective.

[FXSTi]

Varn,

From my cursory look online it looks like Ford was doing buybacks last year. I don't know if they still are. I would take it in for the check and if you get lucky they might give you a rental for a few months before buying it from you at more than it is worth.

Not much sense in driving a van which has the potential for a bad rear axle and a front end. Everything I have read says it is a purchase offer not tied to buying a Ford.

[brucepick]

The unfortunate part is, if you're driving a '99 (or a '97 Civic like I am) it's a safe guess you're unwilling or unable to buy and drive a new car. We buy our cars privately for less than 1/5 the price of a new car. So if we were to be given a voucher for some unexpected reason, I doubt it would be of any use to us.

At the same time, I can't blame Ford for wanting the owner to sign a sort of "hold harmless" release agreement if they were to fix the existing van. At that age, something else certainly could go wrong with the vehicle and Ford wouldn't want to be held liable for any damages. That certainly COULD happen if there's a failure and damages after they work on it.

[Frank Lee]

At least they aren't doing a GM/Metro thing where the undercarriage rusts away and they do nothing for you.

[Christ]

Toyota did this with frame issues. They were buying vehicles back at something like 1.5x book value in "Good" condition, without noting the actual condition of the vehicle.

Some noted that based on dealer perceptions, their intention was to feed new sales, taking advantage of a bad situation, but to suggest that they purposely built a "bad" vehicle with that in mind seems like a bit of a stretch.

I had an Aerostar that always had transmission issues... to the extent that I swapped the trans for a manual (with considerable labor involved, and a great expense). Shortly thereafter, I sold the van to a farmer to use as a "field truck" because it was all wheel drive (electronic 4 wheel assist), who cut the top/rear off it and continues to use it to this day with no issues to speak of.

[niky]

I also doubt rust on a 13 year old vehicle is a means for selling new vehicles now. Hell... most manufacturers don't expect you to keep your car for more than several years, and they know better than to target second- or third-hand car users for direct sales drives... most likely it's a goodwill move designed to keep irate customers quiet.

[Fat Charlie]

Insurance companies total cars all the time when the cost of repair exceeds the value of the vehicle.

The fun part about working on 12 year old rustbuckets is that you break a lot of unrelated parts just by looking at them funny. Then you get into fights about who pays for those brake lines, shocks and whatever else breaks. It's easy to see Ford's bean counters and lawyers turning that whole mess into a voucher for a discount on a new Ford. They can point to having offered you something to make you whole, and forget about how much it's going to cost you.

[Allch Chcar]

It's just Ford turning a negative situation into a possible feeder for new sales. The first generation Windstars had a lot of problems. We had one that we bought from those crap used dealers that up and blew a headgasket when we hit a bump after 200k of abuse. I learned to drive in that blue van. I didn't hear about the rust issues and the recalls until after the fact.

If Ford offers you a good deal for it, that's the safest bet IMHO. It's not going to be easy to sell a vehicle with that kind of damage but it depends on the expensive of repairing it. Really depends on your situation though.

[BrianAbington]

Toyota had something on the trucks from I think the 95-2000 tacomas where they didn't properly rust proof the frames and they were rusting from the inside out...and they buying back damaged trucks for 1.5 times the blue book value. So a voucher for a signifigant discount still isn't a bad thing.