Ford Company - assholes
 

A friend asked me to post this:

http://www.imageno.com/thumbs/20080805/qujmwgbo1adf.jpg

Automatic gear shifter fell off in my Ford Explorer 2002 XLT. Later I saw it was broken. This already seems quite ridiculous, but well, shit happens.

But here comes a really cool part: you have to buy an entire steering column which costs $1000 USD. There is no way to purchase that cheap little shit that is actually broken.
My mechanic says it's 4th case he sees. Sometimes it's possible to solder it, but in my case the attempt has failed due to a form of the crack - it broke again. This seems to be aluminium-silicon alloy and it's soldering is rather sophisticated.

You can use google to find similar complains and to find out that there is no possibility to purchase that shifter separatelly - no one store even has it in the database.

I repeat again - there is no possibility to purchase that little cheap shifter, you have to pay $1000 USD for an entire steering column and wait several weeks, because usually they are also absent in stores - you have to order from the producer/distributor. And it breaks quite frequently in this model.

So my conclusion is - Ford Company are assholes. Henry Ford was a great man, but I guess he would turn over in his grave if he knew how his successors handle things.

Be aware! Do not buy Fords. Feel free to show this to your friends and repost on as many forums as you can.

Have him go here http://consumerist.com/ and perhaps email the story to [email protected] They might run it and he will get LOTS of eyes.

Car problems suck ass, but seriously.. what would possess him to buy a ford? Especially the Explorers and Rangers. Those are notorious pieces of crap. Replace two engines and and a transmission in different Rangers just after the factory warranties lapsed. The F-150s were ok, but I always felt uneasy.

Went to Nissans and Hondas and have been worry free since.

Ford just wasn't prepared to make new vehicles that require more than 100 shifts throughout the its' lifetime.

Ford has bigger problems right now than worrying about your buddies shifter. The whole situation sucks though.

My buddy used to have a f-150 with the 5.4 liter. Turns out ford held the plugs in place with only 2 threads. He was driving down the road one day and his plug shot into the roof of his hood. Common problem and you can either have a new mold maid (which he did for 700 bucks) or I beleive replace the top end which turns out to be a hell of a lot more. Engine is an aluminum block.

In all fairness though, all car companies have problems like the above with some of their models. Comes down to bad engineering.