Dwebs262

I have found on any recall issued, you can look it up on the NHTSA site and they list all of the dealer memos. Usually my dealer plays ball, but I have printed a memo off to show them.

Check out this for rental info. https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2021/RCMN-21V158-8831.pdf Rental vehicles will be provided if you ask, according to Ford…I haven’t called for my car yet, if they can get me in with a few days that’s fine, but if it’s longer than that, I want a rental. If sounds like Ford is not anticipating a long delay.

So, after 6 months and 3 different rental cars, I took my Mercury Milan in yesterday to get its airbag replaced, had a rude awakening when I called to see when it’s was going to be done. It turns out when they scheduled the appointment they said it would “take less than an hour”. It turns out for my 2010 Ford books 6.6 hours to do it, they have to remove the entire dash and steering wheel to do it. After it was done I had to turn around and take it back as the mechanic put my steering wheel on crooked, but I found out some interesting trivia...in my city of around 80,000, this dealer had 150 people out in rental cars at an average of $45 a day, that is just the Ford and Mercury vehicles for the Lincoln owners Ford is paying $55 a day. When you start thinking about how many people had rentals, the cash they must have spent is staggering. The service advisor said they are getting boxes of 45-50 airbags a day.

After driving a rental since June 1 they called me November 13th that my part is in, just in time to fix it before thanksgiving, except I waited a day to call them since I was on vacation, they couldn’t fit me in until the 29th, which is a bonus since we are driving to see relatives 1/2 way across the state. Seems like some of the dealers are pretty lax with the rules but others follow them to the letter and beyond. So with my rental and my wife’s Ford paid out just under $14000, which is more than both of our Milan’s combined.

I had the unprecedented experience of having to take my loaner into the Hertz garage to get the oil changed. A first for them apparently since we had to wait for the car in their break room during break time. I noticed the other day my insurance company says you can only have a rental for 30 days, I couldn’t imagine the nightmare of trying to explain why I have a rental for 3 month.

That’s good news, what part of the country are you in?

I realized with my rental and my wife’s, they are paying $2684 a month at the max of $44 a day, if it lasts for us until January that’s $18788 total for just the 2 of us. I checked my 2010 Milan on nada guides and got $6886 for a clean trade with 54000 miles, that’s quite a jump down since I last checked in May.

I found something else on the NHTSA website, this is a letter from Ford to the NHTSA, here are the interesting parts: The 2 reasons for the delays, we are part of Priority Group 9: "Due to the development challenges and supplier production process concerns previously communicated to the Agency, Ford's production launch, rate and supply forecasting indicates that there will not be sufficient supplies of replacement parts by the June 30, 2018 ACRO3 deadline for certain vehicles assigned to Priority Group 9. "2010-2012 Ford Fusion and 2010-2011 Mercury Milan Passenger Modules During static airbag deployment tests conducted at Joyson Safety Systems (JSS) in Mexico as part of design validation/production validation testing, engineers identified unexpected deformation on the inflator stop plate for these passenger airbag modules. Ford and JSS are in the process of redesigning the inflator stop plate and will perform additional DV/PV test to validate the design." "Manufacturing Issue at Autoliv" "On March 26, 2018, an event occurred at Autoliv's Promontory, Utah inflater production facility that halted manufacturing operation. After working to determine root cause and instituting recommended preventative actions, Autoliv has resumed production of airbag inflators for recalls. "In some instances. replacing the existing Takata airbag inflator with a new Autoliv inflater did not deliver acceptable performance, which required redesigning the airbag "cushion and additional development and validation time." According to Ford there are 181,880, 2009-2010 Ford Fusions and Mercury Milans that need Air bags...Not including Lincoln MKX, MKZ and Zephyr. Fords estimate on the number of replacement parts by the deadline of June 30, 2018 less than 10% available. The next chart has a column that says Owner letter mailing start date extension request, no idea what that means, but the dates listed for the 2009 Fusion/Milan Nov 2, 2018 and for the 2010's it says January 11, 2019. There is a footnote that says: "These dates include some additional timing to avoid the need for another extension request in the event of minor unforeseen circumstances. Ford will work toward an internal deadline to launch as quickly as possible. No other years listed in this letter. The January date may be what my service guy was talking about. Link to the original letter: https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/public_ford_extension_request_pg9_1.pdf

I would document your trip to your inspection. Take a picture of your mileage, and get a gps logging app like GPSSpeed HD which will map out your route with mileage and time driven and take another picture of the mileage when you park it again. That way it’s totally documented when you add the letter or registration papers, if they question it at all. I have Geico for car insurance which gives me limited Carfax records, I got an email that the dealer “serviced” my car. Thought it was odd then I realized that is how they are keeping track of the mileage, by entering it into the normal service record. If you look at the NHTSA website in this link, scroll down to where it says 7 recalls for 2010 Ford Fusion under that if you click on air bags (2) you can read all of the letters Ford sent to the dealers on how to do the rental car program (it’s $44 a day now) https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2010/FORD/FUSION/4%2520DR/FWD%252FAWD#recalls

I have heard September also, don’t know why that guy threw out 2019. Isn’t it amazing how bad the upkeep is on some of these rentals? Both cars I had the inside of the windows was so filthy I couldn’t see clearly out of them, and when my first one came due for an oil change and was low on coolant, they said not to worry about it, just keep driving it.

When I went into the dealer today to sign the do not drive my car pledge, I asked the service writer if there was any update on the parts timeframe, he said the Ford rep told him the wait could go into early 2019. Has anyone else heard such a long estimate?

Every dealer seems to be doing it different, my wife and I were told dealers aren’t storing them, and they just called yesterday and want me to sign what I assume is the I won’t drive it agreement. We have both had rentals since June 3rd. I swapped my first rental, a Pathfinder because the seats gave me a backache, now I have a cheesy Malibu with bad a/c. My local Hertz refuses to swap cars because “the car isn’t broken down at the side of the road”. They also said they aren’t giving any midsize or larger rentals to “the Ford people” because they are running out of cars, and if you call for a rental they have cars for you, if you call and they find out you need a rental because of Ford, they suddenly have no cars available. There is a huge aviation convention coming into town in 2 weeks so they are hoarding their cars because they “can get more money from the rich people that go to the convention” (I actually overheard the manager saying that). Last time I talked to my dealer they had 15 people in rentals and had another 10 they were trying to get a car for. I ended up calling Hertz 800 # and they told me to get the car fixed and if it cost anything they would pay for it. I just want my car fixed so I can get my garage and driveway back.

Hertz gave me a Nissan Pathfinder, which for me the most uncomfortable car I have ever driven, been trying to get rid of it since I got it. They seem to have a lot of Nissan Sentras and Chevy Cruzes and Hyundai Sonatas, which they keep offering me, but since I’m 6’4” there is no way I could fit in them and be comfortable for as long as I may have it. Going to check again later today and see if my luck will change.

That makes sense, I am surprised it took them this long to figure that out.

I didn’t have to sign any waiver at the dealer, neither did any other of my family with the Fusion rental. What was it waiving?