Anger

[Fsponheimer]

My ranger is just over 2 weeks old! Went away on vacation only to get hit by a dude driving a Honda Accord! Body shop is replacing everything on drivers side from front bumper to the drivers side bed panel. Frustration over it only being 2 weeks old and not being able to enjoy it has settled in. This is prior to going away

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[IdahoRanger]

That sucks

 

[weasel1]

I bought a new to me car and hit my wife who was driving our SUV within 10 minutes of buying the car.

 

[slowmachine]

I bought a brand new Honda Odyssey, and tore the front bumper off of the van while backing out of a parking space at the dealer. Distance traveled before the first mishap was less than 5 feet. Total gut punch, but it was a great car for ten years after that.

 

[JaysOnTheEDGE]

i wrecked my Ford ZX2 within 2 months of owning it did 8K in damages and it took 6 months to get parts for it. It never drove or felt the same afterwards.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

I bought a brand new Honda Odyssey, and tore the front bumper off of the van while backing out of a parking space at the dealer. Distance traveled before the first mishap was less than 5 feet. Total gut punch, but it was a great car for ten years after that.

Hi Folks,

I have told this story before but it is buried in the archives. So here is my back story.

Henry Ford II was the CEO. I was on loan from Light Truck to AEFEO.... Automotive Emissions and Fuel Econony Office with my responsibility to over see California Air Resources Board attempt to imply that an exhaust idle sniff would detect a gross emitting vehicle. Dealing with CARB is frustrating to say the least.... then I get this assignment which landed in my lap with a HFII 32 on it. When Henry Ford II sends something you have 30 days, ( not business days ) to respond. Talk about attention from my Management chain! The allegation from EPA ( not my job except my boss dropped it in my lap as the EPA guy was worthless ) was that we built F150 vehicles without the required unleaded restrictor in the fuel filler neck, back in the day when you could buy leaded or unleaded fuel. Okay, I had little info to start with but got the VIN of the alleged vehicle that violated this mandate and EPA was demanding a FULL model year recall to the tune of half a Billion dollars. HFII hit the roof as the EPA sent him this treat. Cripe. So I started by calling the dealer to which the vehicle was shipped. I needed ASAP info as the clock was ticking. I found that the dealer sent this offending Truck to another Texas Dealer. So a call to the new dealer. There records showed that the vehicle was sold to a person, John doe, who was not the complaint owner that contacted the EPA. So now what. I asked the dealer if the selling salesman was still around and it was confirmed he was still at the dealership. So I got him on the phone and he said he would be of no help until I mentioned the person to which he sold the vehicle..... Oh Yeah...this guy bought the truck. Pulled out of the driveway and was smaked by a deliver truck...totaling the vehicle. Now in the meantime I had the build sheet from the vehicle pulled out of the archives that showed an inspector signed off that the restrictor filler neck was in place.

Back to the dealer who indicated this trashed vehicle was sold to Action Auto Wrecking! WTF???
So called Action...they were of no help but by that time I had a picture of the truck and it was clear that the pickup box was not the same as the cab... as the character lines did not match, so back to Action Auto. They took parts and pieces and built vehicle out of crashed vehicles. It turned out that they put a prior year before the EPA requirements pickup box with attached filler neck on the frame of which they cut and weled another back half frame stub! So now I had the story....Now the tough part was to explain this and send the info back up the management chain where I call it the fire hydrant syndrome where every level of management had to leave their mark on the document...UGGGG! So got thru this mess and AEFEO drafted a letter back to EPA to tell them to politely pound sand and do their research before sending such CRAP to our CEO....Whew.

Best,
Phil Schilke
Ranger Vehicle Engineering
Ford Motor Co. Retired

 

[Yellowtoy]

What a great read Phil,
I bet you would have a lot of good stories and specially the ones you cant share..
Cheers bud.

John..

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