2020 FX4 Salvage Rebuild

[dmeyer302]

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I think you need to manage your expectations differently. None of the troubles you've described in this thread are shocking or unusual.

Having rebuilt several salvage vehicles, I know from experience that you will never get a perfectly rebuilt car on the other end. There will be imperfections and differences from factory. That goes with the territory.

What you will get, though, is a reliable vehicle at a bargain price. Not a show car.

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[XionUAV]

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I think you need to manage your expectations differently. None of the troubles you've described in this thread are shocking or unusual.

Having rebuilt several salvage vehicles, I know from experience that you will never get a perfectly rebuilt car on the other end. There will be imperfections and differences from factory. That goes with the territory.

What you will get, though, is a reliable vehicle at a bargain price. Not a show car.

There's a big difference between "managing expectations" and accepting excuses and sloppy or unprofessional work as being acceptable or normal. People have different standards. As a professional businessman and entrepreneur, I have very high standards and hold other businesses, and those I deal with who sell products and services, to a higher standard as well.

Not shipping a fender for at least a week after it's been ordered isn't acceptable. I finally cancelled that order and will not do business with that company again.

Folding up a $470 painted plastic upper bumper cover into a puzzle for shipping so it has permanent damage? Not acceptable.

Receiving a NEW radiator support that has rust hidden under the paint? Not acceptable.

Ordering and paying for a radiator support with shipping only to have the order cancelled the next day because it's "too big to ship?" Unprofessional.

Having another company sell you a radiator support with shipping, then cancel the order later claiming it's out of stock? Sloppy.

Being told and shown, in person, that the "correct" fender you're ordering and prepaying for from a Ford dealer will come with the fender support mounted to the front, and it shows up in steel instead of aluminum, doesn't include the front mounting support that was shown originally, and it takes four parts people, including the parts manager, to figure out why? Sloppy, and irritating.

Paying for a hood that's insufficiently packed for shipping and shows up with damage that will cost almost as much to fix as the hood costs to start with? Totally unacceptable.

Listing a used rack and pinion with an "A" condition rating and it shows up naked loosely strapped to a broken board and was maybe a C+ condition at best? Sketchy.

There are still people in this world who expect more than substandard work and service from those we pay for those services. I'm one of those people and expect no less from myself, which is why my customers appreciate what I do. My employees or those I work with? Not so much sometimes because they know I never do anything half-assed. This Ranger is no exception.

Of course it won't be perfect. It's a 3-year-old service vehicle with front end damage and some dings here and there. But when it's finished it's going to be exceptionally nice because I will have made it that way by working hard with an eye for detail, and not accepting excuses and unprofessional services from those I've paid and am paying for those services.

 

[XionUAV]

Since the last post was about the problem orders, I figured it was only fair to list some of the companies I did business with or ordered parts from that performed professionally and as expected.

The used intercooler was from OK Autoparts on eBay. Arrived in good overall condition and came with the mounts.

Radiator and AC condenser are from 1A Auto.

Ford Performance Grill and Bilstein Shocks came from Stage 3. Very impressed with these guys. Talked to Wayne before ordering the shocks. Very professional.

Tasca supplied the intake manifold, left upper cover mount bracket, both fan shrouds and the bumper mount bolt kit.

Blue Oval Industries supplied the skid plate.

Upper Control Arms came from American Trucks. Pretty impressive that they have a catalog just for the 5G Ranger.

There are other companies that performed professionally as well. Always good to work with competent people who provide quality customer service.

 

[XionUAV]

Three months later and the Ranger is still sitting on the frame rack at the body shop. Apparently when it was delivered to them, my comment of "I'm in no rush" meant they could let it sit for weeks without working on it. Interpretation is one thing. Professional ethics and repeatedly missing stated timelines is something else.

Over a month ago I was told that their frame rack was needed for another vehicle so they were going to get busy finishing up the Ranger. Two weeks ago I was told it would be ready for paint by the end of the following week, which is around now. I stopped in today to check on it and it's still on the frame rack not even close to being paint ready.

As expected, I got the usual excuses. They had to pull this and do that and they've been busy and blah blah. If it's the only vehicle that's been on their frame rack for the last 3 months, they aren't that busy. There was no waiting on parts. Three months and they're still playing with the frame. It wasn't that bad. I fully expected to have it back and at least mostly together by now.

It's frustrating enough that I'm considering just trying to cut my losses and get out from under it. We'll see what happens after I talk with the body shop owner tomorrow. This is a local business that's been around for decades. I expected them to be a little more professional than this. Wonder if they're going to try and stick me with storage fees because it's been there so long.

 

[9zero1790]

three months... i dropped off my 5g monday and it feels like i lost a dog, or a girlfriend lol. i keep going out to the garage and seeing the empty spot and tire tracks...
id tell them to stick the storage fees in the rear end if they try that.
i wonder if it is lack of good employees at the shop. frame guys and body guys are hard to find these days.

 

[veedubtuner]

There will be different imperfections and differences from factory ones

FIFY

 

[Grandaccess]

the biggest pain in the a$$ is the salvage title and bringing it in from another state, you have to jump through months of hassle with DMV and re-cert state inspections, mine 21 XLT Sport FX4 was damaged at the Lot so the first title owner is an insurance company, front fender, driver door, no frame or twist damage, all parts were ordered and installed by a service guy in MD and he bought it, drove it till he needed money for a piece of property, I got it at half retail it had 13k on it when I drove it away, you can say New
now trying to get it titled in N.Y 5 F***ING months later I am almost to the point of getting a Temp tag to be able to get an Appointment at the state Inspection for salvage, its a state money making Scam!
I love the truck, it rides and drives like a Caddy! it pulls loads like a Mac Truck and uses gas like a motorcycle LOL IMHO you cant buy a better truck in the world...
but that wording on the title that says rebuild may be a stick up your bum!
here in N.Y even if a vehicle was stolen and returned it has to get a salvage title and state inspected with another cost of $205
I even have many pictures of the damage when sold to him

 

[Grandaccess]

the biggest pain in the a$$ is the salvage title and bringing it in from another state, you have to jump through months of hassle with DMV and re-cert state inspections, mine 21 XLT Sport FX4 was damaged at the Lot so the first title owner is an insurance company, front fender, driver door, no frame or twist damage, all parts were ordered and installed by a service guy in MD and he bought it, drove it till he needed money for a piece of property, I got it at half retail it had 13k on it when I drove it away, you can say New
now trying to get it titled in N.Y 5 F***ING months later I am almost to the point of getting a Temp tag to be able to get an Appointment at the state Inspection for salvage, its a state money making Scam!
I love the truck, it rides and drives like a Caddy! it pulls loads like a Mac Truck and uses gas like a motorcycle LOL IMHO you cant buy a better truck in the world...
but that wording on the title that says rebuild may be a stick up your bum!
here in N.Y even if a vehicle was stolen and returned it has to get a salvage title and state inspected with another cost of $205
I even have many pictures of the damage when sold to him

it already had most of the Mods I would have added and I didnt have to

 

[XionUAV]

Welcome (back) to my nightmare.

Received a text from the excited young shop manager that the Ranger was ready to pick up. For those of you not familiar with this thread, it started early this year with the purchase of a salvage title 2020 XLT with modest front driver damage. No airbag deployment.

Needed parts included a hood, fender, a couple inner panel parts, front frame rail and body mount parts, and everything else on the front end. I purchased the parts myself and delivered them to the body shop along with the truck. Also discovered the case on the power steering rack was cracked so purchase a used one of those as well. That will probably get installed next spring.

Drove down to the shop to take a look at my ready-to-come-home Ranger. It wasn't ready. Not even close. They had made mistakes and did some sloppy, shortcut work. It's staying there until it's repaired properly. It's only been there for 6 months now. What's one more. (rolleyes)

The paint looks good. I'll give them that. But they didn't attach the fender mounts to the radiator support. The front of the fenders are just dangling there. The shop manager brought out the guy who did some of the work and that dipstick suggested to drill a hole through the support and bolt it instead of welding. The shop manager told him it needed to be done right and welded. The dipstick then asked if he should bring the welder outside and weld the supports on. This was with the rest of the support already painted. The manager had to tell him again that the truck needed to go back into the shop and the supports attached properly. Not an employee any reputable shop should employ. Reminds me of working on a rebuilt Audi A4 one time and finding a wood screw holding on part of the headlight bucket.

And get this, the new driver fender was attached without the plastic shield that mounts in the jamb and no sealant was applied anywhere. Based on the sloppy work, it's doubtful the passenger side was sealed to the body either.

I originally removed both fenders very carefully by using a long, flexible knife cutting the foam at the body and supplied both the good and damaged fender to the shop so they would have the parts and see how the new fender should be installed. It appears they may have tossed the damaged fender along with the plastic shield (Ford calls it an insulator). So now they have to order that part and hopefully assemble and install it correctly. And there are still a few areas inside the engine compartment that could have been easily straightened by someone who cared, but apparently they didn't. I'll have to clean those up once it's back home.

The gap between the hood and new aluminum fender isn't uniform. It's visibly narrow in the middle and wider at the ends, an indication that the inner fender wasn't straightened properly. While there I put a strip of blue painters tape under the narrow part. And even though the old hood with snubbers was in the bed, they only put one snubber on the driver side of the new hood so the passenger side was resting on the fender. How stupid was that? A minor strip was rubbed through on the fender. I removed the snubbers from the old hood and put them on the new hood. Just sloppy work.

And best of all, they charged me about $2,000 more than the original estimate of around $3,500. $5,500 just for labor and paint. My parts cost for everything, including the new Bilstein shocks, control arms, Rough Country bumper, Roush wheels and new-used AT tires was around $7,000. So with the cost of the vehicle, I'll be into it around $24,000. Still want to spray-liner the bed, get a bed cover, good mats, some OEM-style flares and so forth.

And now with fall here and winter around the corner, I'll be working on it in frigid weather, IF there isn't snow on the ground. If I can at least get it running before the snow hits, then the other stuff may have to wait until spring, or those occasional days when the sun's out and it's over 40°.

If it was a boat I would name it "BAD JUDGMENT." The 6-spd manual Frontier I bought at the same time is still sitting in my driveway because it's really nice to drive after replacing the front suspension. Total into it is about $10,000 less than the Ranger, but it's 8-years older with 90k more miles. Don't want to sell it until I know the Ranger is going to make the grade. I see potential in the Ranger but with all the yap about defective transmissions and now knowing some of the sloppy repair work that's been done to it with this shop, I'm still on the fence.

Just got a text from the shop manager because I asked him to make sure the passenger fender is also removed and properly sealed to the body, since I seriously doubt that was done. He has apologized profusely for the screw ups and promised to get the thing properly sorted and back to spec. While I was there, I told him he seemed like a nice guy who deserved to work someplace where people were professionals and didn't do shoddy work. He agreed. I'll leave it at that.

There's another shop in town that I know does highly-professional work. Had I gone there instead, the total cost probably would have been upwards of the same but the repairs would have been done professionally and probably 4 months sooner. My mistake. Never again.

 

[XionUAV]

While at the body shop, I removed the hood insulation pad, weather stripping and windshield washer nozzles and tubes from the old hood before tossing it in their metal bin. If your weather stripping isn't ripped, you can just replace the clips.

The long section that goes around the front of the hood, and the shorter middle section use the pictured black push fasteners designed for a 5mm hole. There are zillions on eBay.

Got the weather stripping clips off Amazon. There are plenty of different versions of those as well. Main thing is the hole is 5mm and the top part that slides into the weather stripping is 15mm.

The washer fluid hose clips all broke as well. There are a few different types out there but the main thing is the tubing is 7mm and the hole is 6.5mm. Got clips for 7mm holes because I never found clips for 6.5mm holes. Should work but we'll find out soon enough, maybe.

 

[XionUAV]

Got a text this morning that the Ranger was ready for me to inspect. Some of the problems have been resolved. Others remain.

The shield at the rear of the fender at the jamb is now a large piece of dense, black foam supplied by Ford, not the OEM plastic. I would expect a sealant should be applied to both the fender and body when this foam is installed, but who knows. At least it's in there. The shop manager didn't know if the passenger-side fender had been sealed or not when installed. So likely not. Things I'll address once the thing is back home.

Basically this means that Ford's replacement parts for the fender include none of the original components. The original fender is aluminum. The replacement is steel (I bought an after market aluminum fender to match OEM). The steel fender does not come with the fender support mount at the front. It's a separate piece that needs to be bonded to the fender. This part is pre-attached on the aftermarket fender. It doesn't even show up on the Ford parts diagrams. The jamb seal is thin plastic on the original. Thick, black foam piece as a replacement.

Fender supports are attached and painted. Battery tray support metal is still mangled. The shop manager said he'll have someone fix that. The gap between driver fender and hood still isn't uniform. It widens at the front. However, I noticed the gap widens slightly on the passenger side as well so it's possible the genuine Ford aluminuim hood is slightly out of spec. Seems it just is what it is, unfortunately. Will have to wait until the headlights are mounted to see if fender adjustment to fix that will be possible or not, or necessary.

Now the problem is paint imperfections in the areas of the hood that were repaired because of shipping damage. The manager called it "pinching." There were places where the paint had holed, as if the surface had contamination on it when paint was applied. The clear coat is also rough and dimpled in areas. So now the truck stays for who knows how much longer to get that resolved.

To save my sanity, I've pretty much written off the whole Ranger and Hatch Auto Body Repair experience as a very unfortunate $25,000 black hole. My wife suggested I get the Ranger back together when I can and sell it for whatever I can, sell the Frontier and get what I really want. Not sure what that is though. Until then, one step at a time.

A Tacoma would be the logical choice for a top-of-the-line midsize truck, but they're about $10,000 to $15,000 more than a comparable Ranger in year and mileage. This whole thing started out as a quest to find a good budget pickup under $15,000 to drive in the desert and on trails, haul a motorcycle and drag a trailer with a SXS. I don't need a $35,000 pickup to do that. My old Audi Q5 actually pulls the trailer well, albeit it at about 13 MPG. And I've driven it on some decently challenging trails. Just nothing that required more than about 8" of ground clearance.

Anyway, more waiting...

 

[XionUAV]

Great photos

Thanks. This was west of Eagle Mountain, Utah. I chase and try to recover weather balloons (think geocaching for sky trash) as a hobby and excuse to go explore and hike areas all over Northern Utah and Southern Idaho. This area in the pictures with the Audi is where the weather balloon landed that was launched from Dugway Proving Grounds ahead of the Osiris REX landing in the Utah Test & Training Range early September 24th, 2023. The live NASA feed even mentioned the balloon launch.

The Audi is my current replacement for a truck to drive mild off-road since the Ranger is still hostage at the crap body shop. It's actually done incredibly well. But even with a capable 4X4 truck, I'll still use the YXZ on trails and in areas that are more appropriate for a lighter and narrower 4X4 with high clearance and super long suspension..

FYI, the National Weather Service has around 100 locations in the United States and launch balloons twice a day from most locations. Additionally, the military and space agencies launch thousands a year. So over 70,000 weather balloons are launched each year to land wherever the wind takes them.

 

[XionUAV]

Interesting development.

The owner of the auto body shop called me yesterday and apologized several times for the "piss-poor" work that had been done in several areas of the repair and for how long the repair has taken. He said he had been absent from the business often to manage his car dealership. He also apologized several times regarding the employee who suggested we just drill holes through the fender supports and bolt them on instead of welding them on properly. He thought that was inexcusable of that employee, which it was.

He mentioned that he ordered a new battery tray and would install that instead of straightening the old one as he thought the bent one would never look right, and he wanted to smooth out the apron better.

I mentioned that there had been some type of contamination in the paint and he acknowledged that their dryer system had failed and the guy spraying didn't realize it. So they'll reshoot the panels. He also agrees that additional adjusting will be needed to get the hood-to-fender gap more uniform on both sides. To that end, he'll personally oversee getting the repairs back to spec and make sure no more amateur work is done or corners cut.

To save my mental health, I've already written off the Ranger as something that was going to get finished this year. I told the owner he can keep the thing as long as needed to get it back into spec because at this point I wouldn't be working on it until next spring when the weather warms up anyway.

I really meant well with my plans to rebuild this Ranger. Sometimes sh_t happens even when you try to do the right thing. But hopefully there might still be some hope for it at the end of this very long, dark tunnel. In the meantime I'll start looking for a wiring harness for the front left corner.

I see no point in continuing this thread since my personal work on it won't start again for probably another 5 months at least, even if I get it back sooner. Maybe I'll come back then. Thank you to all those who have been following and participating.

 

[OneMore]

Your intentions were good to bring this Ranger back to usefulness. Unfortunately every step of the way, things just didn't work as planned.
Thank you for documenting the problems you encountered in this project.
May it serve as a lesson and reminder to others that may attempt to do the same.
I hope this doesn't turn into a large financial loss in the end.

 

[9zero1790]

I hate to see it unfinished after so much awesome effort. It has been an up hill fight for sure. I look forward to future updates

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