I own a 2002 FE XLT v8 and for the last year and a half I've had this irritating sound that is this sort of droning effect that occurs at certain speeds..(45-55 it sounds the worst)- if you let up on the gas and back on you *really* notice it.
I took it to a dealer about a year ago and they searched their computers and said "Ford was aware of it but had no fix". They couldn't do anything and that was that.
So about a month ago I had some work done on the car- new brake pads- rotors, etc and the technician actually noticed this sound (without me mentioning it; I had basically given up on that problem) and mentioned it to me. I was aghast that he noticed it as many, many techs in other dealerships never would actually acknowledge this as anything but "road noise"...
So to my surprise this dealership not only knew that they were going to have to replace my rear axle (under warranty) but that they were all ready to set up an appt! (and they'll even give me a rental while its in the shop- for a LONG time).
Apparently this recall (or whatever) is so big that Ford cannot even get enough of these axles to dealerships to get everyone taken care of..So my dealer is telling me 4-6 weeks and "don't call us, we'll call you".
So although its not a dangerous problem (apparently), I can't believe they actually are going to do all of this.
So hats off to Ford on this one...I can think of a lot of horror stories about my car so I'm pretty happy about this one.
Cheers,
-sd