>I recently had the heater plenum/blend door and actuator replaced in my 1997
>Limited. I wrote a snail-mail letter to Ford Canada, outlining my displeasure
>of having to dole out $1200.00 to replace something that Ford should have
>recalled years ago because of defective parts and design. I also touched on
>what I consider the safety aspects of this part(s) failure.
>
>I got a phone call from Ford, asking me to call them and discuss this matter
>further. I told the "representative" that I had 160,000 km on the car, and that
>I had it diagnosed and repaired by an independent shop. When told that it
>should have been repaired by a Ford dealer, I told him that my manual states
>that should problems evolve with the climate control, then it should be taken to
>a Ford dealer OR a qualified repair shop. That shut him up on that issue. >
>The point of this rant is this. I was told by Ford of Canada that they have had
>absolutely NO complaints of the blend door failure,
What nonsense. WHether they have "complaints" or not, they obviously can easily track the number of duct and blend door parts they sell and it would be obvious that they sell a lot more of them then could possibly be normal for that kind of part - on most vehicles it would last the life of the vehicle. you can be sure that their internal Quality folks know full well that it's a major problem and that management has made a decision to pretend it isn't to avoid some fairly expensive repairs. I just read in the newspaper that the average warranty cost for ford is $700 per vehicle. If they had to repair a bunch of those doors, say 30% of them wind up having to be replaced, that would represent a huge increase in their per vehicle warranty costs on that line.
and that he had already been
in touch with engineering about it. I said that by simply doing a Google search
>for "blend door failure" on the internet would render dozens and dozens of
>complaints from dissatisfied Ford Explorer owners. He said that until people
>quit complaining of the internet and start contacting Ford about this, there was
>no validity in my complaint at this time. I was "assured" that my letter would
>be kept on file, in the event that Ford ever did find that there was indeed a
>problem with the blend door. He had no answer when I asked him why Ford had
>redesigned the plenum and door, as well as the actuator.
>
>So folks, apparently Explorer owners, at least in Canada have either had no
>problems, or have neglected to contact Ford. I would urge anyone who has had
>this problem to write to Ford Canada ASAP. It would be interesting. >
>Thanks
>