Carrier Bearing NOT Covered Under Warranty

[FocoRanger]

Hello All,

Just wanted to share my recent experience with Ford's warranty dept not covering a failing carrier bearing, PN: KB3Z4W602A under the 5 year/60k mile powertrain warranty.

Bearing started making noise at about 45k miles, drove it for another couple hundred miles before taking it to Ford and they told me their system was saying the part number wasn't covered. Reached out to Ford CS and they opened a case to look into it. Tell me it's not covered. Ask why it's not covered and while waiting for a reply did some digging and on Fords website it states bearings, center support bearings, and driveshafts are covered:

Go back to the dealer and ask them to verify if they have the correct part number and to call Ford with me to get it figured out. Service Manager starts looking and says it should be covered and something is most likely coded wrong in the system.

Keep it mind it's been almost 2 weeks since I first took my truck it and I had gotten it back cause I needed it for work. Get a call at the 2 week mark from Ford CS and dealer stating it's not covered and they don't have a reason why. Decided I'm done dealing with terrible service from Ford (have had multiple other issues with dealerships and warranty claims in the past) so I traded it for a '24 Canyon.

I am going to try and get a reason out of Ford as to why it's not covered, but just wanted to let yall know that if you have this issue (which you probably will cause 2-piece drive shafts are garbage) that you might as well pay the $100 for the part and replace it yourself. Ford wanted over $1200 to replace it and quoted me $300 for the part alone.

Best,
Joey

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[Joeiconic]

Spending $45k+ instead of $1200 could be a slight overreaction, but that’s just me. How tall is your lift and did they say anything about that?

 

[airline tech]

Unfortunately, it appears this is how the (warranty) approval system works, if the part number is not coded in the system correctly (even though) the verbiage states that it is. Even though it is clearly wrong (it is correct) in the Ford Warranty Department.
Frustrating.
I wonder if it ties into the Driveshaft P/N including the carrier bearing as an assembly vs separate P/N for the Carrier Bearing (itself)
I have a hunch the driveshaft assy would possibly have triggered a Covered response.

 

[Stevedbvik1]

Unfortunately, it appears this is how the (warranty) approval system works, if the part number is not coded in the system correctly (even though) the verbiage states that it is. Even though it is clearly wrong (it is correct) in the Ford Warranty Department.
Frustrating.
I wonder if it ties into the Driveshaft P/N including the carrier bearing as an assembly vs separate P/N for the Carrier Bearing (itself)
I have a hunch the driveshaft assy would possibly have triggered a Covered response.

I agree and am wondering why they didn’t look into that ?‍

 

[ThatsAMonkey]

Goodness that is odd. I just had my carrier bearing, drive shaft boot kit, yoke assembly done. Same exact part number.

KB3Z4W602A KIT - DRIVE SHAFT BOOT REPAIR
KB3Z4784A YOKE ASY
RS001 CARRIER BEARING REPLACEMENT

All of which was covered under warranty.

 

[airline tech]

Goodness that is odd. I just had my carrier bearing, drive shaft boot kit, yoke assembly done. Same exact part number.

KB3Z4W602A KIT - DRIVE SHAFT BOOT REPAIR
KB3Z4784A YOKE ASY
RS001 CARRIER BEARING REPLACEMENT

All of which was covered under warranty.

The issue is he was out of the 3 Yr - 36K Warranty but within the 5yr 60K
Ford is saying that it is not covered under the 5yr - Powertrain Warranty, which per what was posted clearly states (in-Writing) that it is.
Dealers have to input a Part Number for Authorization of Warranty in the system, if the system does not validate that the part is covered - Automatically Denied and a hassle to get the dealer and or ford customer service to bypass that authorization denial

 

[ThatsAMonkey]

The issue is he was out of the 3 Yr - 36K Warranty but within the 5yr 60K
Ford is saying that it is not covered under the 5yr - Powertrain Warranty, which per what was posted clearly states (in-Writing) that it is.
Dealers have to input a Part Number for Authorization of Warranty in the system, if the system does not validate that the part is covered - Automatically Denied and a hassle to get the dealer and or ford customer service to bypass that authorization denial

So, in a sense it's like getting a waiver in the military and the military being Ford customer service having to bypass/override the authorization... yeesh. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Rocketeer61]

Wow.

 

[pboggini]

As mentioned by @ariline tech the problem is that Ford's service system has the "base part" classified in certain ways. If the "base part" number (the middle part of the part number) isn't classified correctly (likely because of some idiot at corporate misclassifying it) then your claim gets denied all the way up thru Ford "Customer Care".

You can see from my battle with Ford over my seat belt buckle that they wouldn't budge:

https://www.ranger5g.com/forum/threads/anyone-swapped-out-front-belts.27549/

My solution was to first talk to my friend who works as a parts guy at a dealer far away and have him have his manager (who also manages service) look into it and figure it out. Then, I shopped dealers until I found that senior service manager who knew that you sometimes have to 'work the system" and find the right "base part" number to put in the system at the beginning of the claim. Once the system accepts that base part number (in my case it was changing the second digit from a 1 to a 5) then they can open the claim like normal and put in all the correct parts and get you covered.

Yea, it's stupid, yea it's some high up accountant who's cut costs somewhere because the layer of escalation that used to exist to help is now gone. It's also insane to me that are actually people (Ford Customer Care people) who think it's perfectly fine to suggest this finding of the correct base part number is somehow "warranty fraud" when these warranties (particularly the extended ones) are contracts and so Ford is essentially in breach of contract for not covering these.

What is really needed is a Ford owner who is also a lawyer to apply the right legal pressure to Ford so that they have to figure out how to fix this. Alas that's not me.

For anyone else bitten by this, keep looking around, escalate to the local most senior service manager you can find and tell them about this process. If they've been doing it long enough they will know that the system is broken and sometimes has to be worked.

 

[rooster]

Mine was covered under an extended warranty at 64 months / 42k miles. But I do think it should be covered by a factory drivetrain warranty, that shouldn’t be a wear item like brake pads.

 

[Jason B]

This post didn't age well. NOT seeing all those carrier bearing fails that SHOULD have happen due to all Rangers having a 2 piece shaft. Let's hope that Canyon is 100% defect free.

 

[FocoRanger]

Spending $45k+ instead of $1200 could be a slight overreaction, but that’s just me. How tall is your lift and did they say anything about that?

*52K, but I am leasing the Canyon and it only costs me $30 more a month than my payment on the ranger for a much nicer truck.

But no, I don't think it's an overreaction given all the other issues I've had with the truck and with Ford in general. If it were the first issue at almost 50k miles I would have been more inclined to keep it, but seeing how the spark plugs literally rusted out of the thing at 25k miles and left me stranded on the side of the road due to a misfire, the constant shudder from the two-piece drive shaft that cost a grand to get to a manageable level, and the disrespectful attitude from the dealership that sold it to me, my home dealership it was serviced at, and the Ford warranty dept *Takes Breath* I'd say saving 1200 bucks in todays economy and getting into something (hopefully) more reliable, that is covered under warranty for as long as I'll have it, was justified.

Fox leveling coils up front and an add-a-leaf in the rear, but I took the overload leafs out when I did the add a leaf which made it same ride height plus maybe a quarter to half an inch. Nothing that would cause the premature wear.

 

[FocoRanger]

Unfortunately, it appears this is how the (warranty) approval system works, if the part number is not coded in the system correctly (even though) the verbiage states that it is. Even though it is clearly wrong (it is correct) in the Ford Warranty Department.
Frustrating.
I wonder if it ties into the Driveshaft P/N including the carrier bearing as an assembly vs separate P/N for the Carrier Bearing (itself)
I have a hunch the driveshaft assy would possibly have triggered a Covered response.

When I talked to the service manager he originally said it would be covered based off the part number he put it, but it when they went back to Ford to do the warranty claim it came back as non-covered.

 

[FocoRanger]

As mentioned by @ariline tech the problem is that Ford's service system has the "base part" classified in certain ways. If the "base part" number (the middle part of the part number) isn't classified correctly (likely because of some idiot at corporate misclassifying it) then your claim gets denied all the way up thru Ford "Customer Care".

You can see from my battle with Ford over my seat belt buckle that they wouldn't budge:

https://www.ranger5g.com/forum/threads/anyone-swapped-out-front-belts.27549/

My solution was to first talk to my friend who works as a parts guy at a dealer far away and have him have his manager (who also manages service) look into it and figure it out. Then, I shopped dealers until I found that senior service manager who knew that you sometimes have to 'work the system" and find the right "base part" number to put in the system at the beginning of the claim. Once the system accepts that base part number (in my case it was changing the second digit from a 1 to a 5) then they can open the claim like normal and put in all the correct parts and get you covered.

Yea, it's stupid, yea it's some high up accountant who's cut costs somewhere because the layer of escalation that used to exist to help is now gone. It's also insane to me that are actually people (Ford Customer Care people) who think it's perfectly fine to suggest this finding of the correct base part number is somehow "warranty fraud" when these warranties (particularly the extended ones) are contracts and so Ford is essentially in breach of contract for not covering these.

What is really needed is a Ford owner who is also a lawyer to apply the right legal pressure to Ford so that they have to figure out how to fix this. Alas that's not me.

For anyone else bitten by this, keep looking around, escalate to the local most senior service manager you can find and tell them about this process. If they've been doing it long enough they will know that the system is broken and sometimes has to be worked.

Wish I would have known this sooner, but to be honest I was so sick of dealing with Ford and warranty B.S. that I was begging to get out from under it. The new Canyon is pretty sweet, got the bougie AT4 interior package with leather seats and nut coolers and let me tell you, I can never go back to cloth seats again ?

Hopefully mechanically it holds up, I've got almost 4k miles on it already and so far it's been solid.

 

[FocoRanger]

This post didn't age well. NOT seeing all those carrier bearing fails that SHOULD have happen due to all Rangers having a 2 piece shaft. Let's hope that Canyon is 100% defect free.

I'm hoping! I really have little trust and hope in new vehicles these days. Miss the days of my high school 91' F150 with not much more than spark, air, and fuel to get you where you needed to go.

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