Clunking sound on Gen 3 too

[New recaros]

All 4 or just rears?

Killing the image, a logical person would question Fox’s reputation, not Fords

 

[GordoJay]

Killing the image, a logical person would question Fox’s reputation, not Fords

But people aren't logical. Tough to be in Ford's position, at the mercy of suppliers and dealers. All the more reason that they handle the problem promptly and with class .... perhaps there's room for improvement. Someone with balls needs to go slap the crap out of a few bean counters if you ask me.

 

[relak]

All 4 or just rears?

All four were replaced.

 

[relak]

But people aren't logical. Tough to be in Ford's position, at the mercy of suppliers and dealers. All the more reason that they handle the problem promptly and with class .... perhaps there's room for improvement. Someone with balls needs to go slap the crap out of a few bean counters if you ask me.

You also can’t blame anyone but Ford because they won’t even tell us what the true issue is. They’ve left it up to the consumer to figure it out. Fox owes us nothing, it’s Ford who needs to save face and do right by their customers.

 

[FordTechOne]

You also can’t blame anyone but Ford because they won’t even tell us what the true issue is. They’ve left it up to the consumer to figure it out. Fox owes us nothing, it’s Ford who needs to save face and do right by their customers.

What am I missing here…they identified the cause and issued a TSB with new parts. If you have a clunk noise, you bring it in for that symptom and the dealer performs the TSB.

 

[New recaros]

A friend that works at a nearby Ford dealer told me his contact said Fox screwed up and trapped a bunch of air in the shocks. That allowed for a momentary hi speed piston movement and oil flow which was shutting off internal valving creating a really hard shock compressor damping. Don’t have any backup proof, just what he said.

 

[relak]

What am I missing here…they identified the cause and issued a TSB with new parts. If you have a clunk noise, you bring it in for that symptom and the dealer performs the TSB.

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.

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.

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.

 

[New recaros]

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.

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.

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.

Where are you seeing that all 21/22 and early 23 all had bad shocks. If that was the case, I would agree. But I think it’s not all trucks. I would bet Fox gave them some bad batches and Ford can’t track it.

 

[GordoJay]

Where are you seeing that all 21/22 and early 23 all had bad shocks. If that was the case, I would agree. But I think it’s not all trucks. I would bet Fox gave them some bad batches and Ford can’t track it.

Do a voluntary recall, put chassis ears on, and check. If they're noisy, replace them and have Fox rebuild the ones you pull off. Or have the dealer rebuild them. Use those to replace other bad shocks. Explain what you're doing and why. The shocks are designed to be rebuilt. If someone is happy with their truck and doesn't bring it in, it's probably got good shocks. That gets all of the problem vehicles off the road and helps Ford's reputation. Right now they're handling it the same way as too many other companies - make it such a pain in the áss that half of the customers give up in frustration. The fly in that ointment is that very few of those customers will ever buy a Ford again.

 

[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.