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1996 ford mustang silent recall

Actually, I don't think they call it an "silent recall", it's something like an "unadvertised extended warranty".

As related in a different thread, my wife's 1996 mustang GT (4.6 liter SOHC V8) started overheating about three blocks from home. There was no traffic so I turned on the heater and drove it the rest of the way home. It was gouting water from somewhere around the alternator. After carefully cooling it off with the hose, I shut it down and started diagnostic procedures.

For awhile I followed a red herring -- an empty threaded hole in the driver's side of the block just behind the alternator. Turns out some blocks had this (depending on where it was manufactured) it doesn't go into the water jacket, and in this model it wasn't used. (Thanks to everyone who helped on this issue.)

Finally I gave up, put everything back together, filled it up with water and started the engine. Since the engine was cold, I was able to put my hand behind the alternator and see where the water was coming from. (Kids, don't try this at home.)

As you probably know, the intake manifold on the 1996 Mustang is plastic. What I didn't know is that part of the cooling system -- a bridge between left and right parts of the block, just behind the alternator -- is also plastic. This part had split along a forward seam.

So, I went to the dealer and talked to the parts guy. He said "you sure you want that? It's expensive". I said other than wrapping the old one in duct tape, I didn't really have any choice. Then he said "You know, the last one I pulled was for a recall repair." Well that's interesting. He loaned me the phone, I called the insurance company to get the VIN number (which I didn't have on me) and then went around the corner to Service.

I asked the service guy what recalls were on this car, and he pulled up two -- a parking brake assembly (common on Mustangs -- our last one had a similar recall) and an.... let's see if I remember the term exactly... "unadvertised extended warranty" on the intake manifold. He asked why, and I said it had split open and was gushing water.

After a long time looking through books and arguing with the other service people, they couldn't find any limit on the warranty (either time or mileage) so he decided to cover it. I had the car towed to the shop and they had it fixed in less than 24 hours. The new part is aluminum.

If your car develops a similar problem, you might check on silent recalls.

Ron

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Nelp: Contraction of "no help". Colloquial: Helpmessages that are of no help whatsoever. Pretains to help files,messages or documentation that convey no useful information, orpedantically repeat the blindingly obvious.

Reply to
Ronald O. Christian
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Hardly an "unadvertised extended warranty." Every dealerships and shop, authorized to do warranty work like ours, in the US and Canada was sent a TSB notifying them of the 100K/7yr warranty. That is why one should take their vehicle to a dealership for service. The ONLY place were warranty work can be completed. Certain you don't think you can do that at places like "Pep Boys?" The only type of recalls that manufactures release to the general public and media are NHTSA safety recalls.

mike hunt

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Reply to
"Nevil Chamberland"

opined in news: snipped-for-privacy@mailcity.com:

Dyin' to know the long slim thread between Mike Hunt and Neville Chamberlain...

The Al Gore of his day.

Reply to
Backyard Mechanic

had my 96' tbird done . same prob and result was a warrenty item that ford claimed ran out 8 years after date of in service "

Reply to
Frank

I've read this through a couple of times, and it still reads like a non-sequitor. I don't recall mentioning "Pep Boys", (don't recall seeing one since I moved here from California) and although I'm the grandson of a mechanic, the son of a service manager, and the stepson of a competition driver, I don't pretend to be anything more than a shade-tree mechanic. My interests lie elsewhere.

What we were talking about here was a competent amateur working on what was ostensibly an out-of-warrenty car. That the warranty had been extended on this particular assembly was a surprise to me, but it's easy enough to check, as I outlined in my original article. (Take the VIN to the service manager and ask.) It's not necessary to drag your car to the dealer for every single problem on the off chance it might be covered. Therein lies financial ruin. Of course, if you work for a dealer, I can understand why you might feel differently.

Parenthetically, the statement that a dealership is "the ONLY place where warranty work can be completed" is demonstrably not true. But it's certainly one of those things the dealer wants you to believe.

Ron

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formatting link
Nelp: Contraction of "no help". Colloquial: Helpmessages that are of no help whatsoever. Pretains to help files,messages or documentation that convey no useful information, orpedantically repeat the blindingly obvious.

Reply to
Ronald O. Christian

Reply to
Thomas Moats

Nothing has changed except perhaps your perception of what I have always said. No everyone works 9 to 5, our facilities operate 24/7, except Christmas. Even then the network is always active ;)

mike hunt

Thomas Moats wrote:

Reply to
MelvinGibson

Actually what I said was 'Every dealerships and shop, authorized to do warranty work like ours,' see below. If you don't go to a dealership you will never know unless you do as you suggest and have one run the VIN#. According to what you posted it was only because that you DID go to a dealership that you saved $800, certainly not a bad thing. The reference to "Pep Boys" was a type of shop that is NOT authorized to do warranty work and unless the pay a subscription fee they do not even receive the TSB's. You can have the last word ;)

mike hunt

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Reply to
MelvinGibson

Reply to
Thomas Moats

There's plenty of them. They run Microsoft

Reply to
John Alt

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