Clunking sound on Gen 3 too

[FordTechOne]

Did they though? I don’t remember ever seeing what is exactly wrong with a faulty shock, just that it might be faulty if there’s a clunking noise and to have it replaced. The TSB is also subjective to the dealer hearing the noise or even being willing to put chassis ears on the suspension to identify the noise. There have been a number of guys who go to the dealer and the dealer doesn’t hear anything or wont go the extra step of putting the chassis ears on. That then requires the customer to either go to another dealer or record a video with their own chassis ears.

The root cause is irrelevant; publishing that does not add any value. It’s no different than any other vehicle concern, if the customer has a symptom, the dealer searches OASIS and follows the appropriate service message. Manufacturers can’t directly control dealers, but that’s a different discussion about the franchise model. Which I think most people have a negative perception of due to the issues you cited.

A recall would resolve all the work the customer has to do to prove they’re hearing the clunk and that’s not something we should be doing on a brand new $100k truck. Ford knows more than they’re letting on about these shocks and they’re either bound by an NDA to not disclose the fault or are refusing to disclose it so they don’t have every owner of a 21-22 and early ‘23 models getting them replaced. Leaving it as a TSB with subjective wording like “hearing a clunk” puts the onus on the customer and dealer to come to the same conclusion and to me that’s messed up.

Recalls are for safety issues, not a clunk noise that the dealer can easily resolve if they follow the service message. It would be a huge waste of time and inconvenience for every Raptor owner to schedule an appointment at the dealer when they don’t even have a concern. Once again, why does the manufacturer need to “disclose” the issue? That changes nothing; if the shock is noisy it needs to be replaced. You’re not going to go out to your truck and identify an internal valving issue by looking at it.

Every owner of a Gen 3 does not need their shocks replaced because not every shock has the issue. They published a service message just as they would for any other “known” concern. That’s the standard across the industry; there is no conspiracy theory here.

It should either be a straight recall/replacement, or Ford comes out and tells the dealers exactly what to “Look” for, not hear. Hearing is diagnosing a symptom but not identifying what the true problem is.

There is nothing to “look” for. Do you think they’re paying dealers to use diagnostic equipment and road test the truck if they could just have them check the engineering part number instead? Hearing a noise and pinpointing it to a component is a diagnosis; it identifies the causal part.

 

[taquitos]

My understanding is that dealers tend to treat a SSM, which is what this is, differently than they do a TSB. I had a dealer tell me that even though the noise was there they couldn’t fix it since there wasn’t a TSB. Is this actually just crap service?

 

[FordTechOne]

My understanding is that dealers tend to treat a SSM, which is what this is, differently than they do a TSB. I had a dealer tell me that even though the noise was there they couldn’t fix it since there wasn’t a TSB. Is this actually just crap service?

Yep, that’s pretty bad. All they needed to do was perform the diagnostics and reference the SSM to file the warranty claim.

 

[SurfRaptor]

Yep, that’s pretty bad. All they needed to do was perform the diagnostics and reference the SSM to file the warranty claim.

It wasn’t until the 3rd time I took it in that they finally agreed to follow the SSM instructions and use the chassis ears. I also had to tell them about the SSM as they were unaware. To replace 2 rear shocks it took a total of 4 trips to the dealer and I didn’t get the issue fixed until a year after delivery and 20k miles in.

What really sucks is knowing how to do this work yourself but being told by service managers that there isn’t an issue and I’m just hearing things.

 

[Thamac15]

My rear shocks and front right strut assembly were replaced this week at the dealer. It rides 100% better and is planted rather than bouncing around. It feels soooooo good after 16k miles of the clunky bouncy ride.

Took one visit to the dealer for them to put the chassis ears on and duplicate the sound. 44 days of backordered parts and one day install.

 

[JCloud]

My rear shocks and front right strut assembly were replaced this week at the dealer. It rides 100% better and is planted rather than bouncing around. It feels soooooo good after 16k miles of the clunky bouncy ride.

Took one visit to the dealer for them to put the chassis ears on and duplicate the sound. 44 days of backordered parts and one day install.

I had the exact same experience. Took some “gentle” and diplomatic convincing…but they replaced my rears and front passenger side strut. Much much better now.

However, I’m still not entirely convinced they shouldn’t have just replaced all four.

 

[Thamac15]

I had the exact same experience. Took some “gentle” and diplomatic convincing…but they replaced my rears and front passenger side strut. Much much better now.

However, I’m still not entirely convinced they shouldn’t have just replaced all four.

I had my front left replaced a few months prior due to an accident, but never experienced any sound from that side.

 

[taquitos]

Well I’ve got more to add to the shock clunk saga. Decided I was pretty tired of the clunk and doubled down on getting the shocks replaced. Went to a different dealer than before and they were much more helpful. Still had to jump through one hoop though. They told me the spare tire winch assembly was making noise. I asked them if I could isolate would they look at the shocks again. They said yes so I uninstalled all that. Still clunked obviously. Although they weren’t just making stuff up. The spare tire winch assembly isn’t entirely quiet, but the sound still should have been easily traceable without that removed. Took it back for them to look at again. The agreed the noise was coming from the rear shocks. Easiest way to replicate and not make any other noises is lay underneath and push the rear bumper up and then drop it back quickly by the way. I asked them to replace the fronts too since manufacturing related things like this tend to not randomly impact just some shocks from the same time range. So they agreed to do both front and rear. They said the part numbers for the shocks are very new (not sure how new is new to them). Shocks showed up in about two weeks. One happened to get damaged in shipping so they replaced the three they had and am waiting on the replacement for the fourth. Glad I got them to do all four because the one corner that didn’t get replaced (front right) definitely makes noise. The rear is so loud when it clunks that it makes it hard to hear anything from the front. Driving over potholes going slow can easily tell the one original shock apart from the new one though. I purposely didn’t check which corner had the original the first time I drove it after the swap to avoid any placebo too.

Is the ride quality better on the new shocks? Honestly hard to tell. Going 15mph can maybe feel the reverberations from the clunk a little, but past that not crazy different. Actuation at low speed is potentially a hair smoother, but again nothing night and day. It’s more peaceful at least. Not that raptors are especially peaceful to begin with, but sometimes I like a little quiet on back streets. Haven’t gotten a chance to thrash it since, but I expect that to be indistinguishable. My only hesitation is maybe the neutered something to get rid of the clunk. Who knows since they say nothing about it. EXT did this with certain mountain bike shocks to appease people who didn’t like the noises. Worst case scenario I have an excuse for aftermarket shocks whenever that rolls around.

 

[sixshooter_45]

Well I’ve got more to add to the shock clunk saga. Decided I was pretty tired of the clunk and doubled down on getting the shocks replaced. Went to a different dealer than before and they were much more helpful. Still had to jump through one hoop though. They told me the spare tire winch assembly was making noise. I asked them if I could isolate would they look at the shocks again. They said yes so I uninstalled all that. Still clunked obviously. Although they weren’t just making stuff up. The spare tire winch assembly isn’t entirely quiet, but the sound still should have been easily traceable without that removed. Took it back for them to look at again. The agreed the noise was coming from the rear shocks. Easiest way to replicate and not make any other noises is lay underneath and push the rear bumper up and then drop it back quickly by the way. I asked them to replace the fronts too since manufacturing related things like this tend to not randomly impact just some shocks from the same time range. So they agreed to do both front and rear. They said the part numbers for the shocks are very new (not sure how new is new to them). Shocks showed up in about two weeks. One happened to get damaged in shipping so they replaced the three they had and am waiting on the replacement for the fourth. Glad I got them to do all four because the one corner that didn’t get replaced (front right) definitely makes noise. The rear is so loud when it clunks that it makes it hard to hear anything from the front. Driving over potholes going slow can easily tell the one original shock apart from the new one though. I purposely didn’t check which corner had the original the first time I drove it after the swap to avoid any placebo too.

Is the ride quality better on the new shocks? Honestly hard to tell. Going 15mph can maybe feel the reverberations from the clunk a little, but past that not crazy different. Actuation at low speed is potentially a hair smoother, but again nothing night and day. It’s more peaceful at least. Not that raptors are especially peaceful to begin with, but sometimes I like a little quiet on back streets. Haven’t gotten a chance to thrash it since, but I expect that to be indistinguishable. My only hesitation is maybe the neutered something to get rid of the clunk. Who knows since they say nothing about it. EXT did this with certain mountain bike shocks to appease people who didn’t like the noises. Worst case scenario I have an excuse for aftermarket shocks whenever that rolls around.

Don't forget to have them check their calibration.

 

[taquitos]

Don't forget to have them check their calibration.

One of the solenoids is getting replaced in the future so it will definitely be getting recalibrated. The insulation on the wire is worn through but still functional. They are on back order apparently.