Another Rear Leaf Spring Thread - Extreme edition

[Texasota]

Hey Al, out of caution, did you replace both?

No, I just replaced the broken one and crossed my fingers. I loved that Ranger but I replaced it with a 2026 Ranger.

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[MountainMan]

I had just the driver’s side fail. I noticed a loud pop sound while hauling some logs. Couldn’t figure out what it was at the time. But a thread on this forum about this issue motivated me to look at the springs and sure enough, the driver side was broken just like the photo in this thread.

It depends. As a long time Ford customer my dealer helped me out. Ford paid for the parts and I paid the labor charges. I was good with that.

Honestly I was completely willing to do this, for an outside warranty repair I told Ford Customer Service I'd be willing to cover labour cost if they provided the replacement parts given the circumstances and they straight up refused.

Recorded the rep saying "if you can't accept this offer there's nothing else we can do for you" in response to me explaining how it's unfair to expect a customer to pay ~$1200 to fix a part that isn't a wear item, that failed barely outside of warranty milage.

 

[SigOris]

Honestly I was completely willing to do this, for an outside warranty repair I told Ford Customer Service I'd be willing to cover labour cost if they provided the replacement parts given the circumstances and they straight up refused.

Recorded the rep saying "if you can't accept this offer there's nothing else we can do for you" in response to me explaining how it's unfair to expect a customer to pay ~$1200 to fix a part that isn't a wear item, that failed barely outside of warranty milage.

You’re reps name wasn’t Kelly by any chance

 

[RangerRog]

About a month ago I sent my ranger into a local shop to have my rear brakes/rotors/calipers done. The tech put it on the lift as usual, started lifting the truck and promptly stopped once he realized the front of the truck was going up and the rear axle was still touching the ground.

Long story short, both rear leaf springs completely fractured at the radius of the front eyelet at an almost perfect 90° angle, in the exact same place on both sides. Signs of advanced oxidization, meaning they have been fractured for a while.

Obviously indicative of an improper heat treat/defective parts/yadada.

Truck has 65,000km on it, 2019 XLT. Barely outside the factory warranty for milage. Highway/city driven it's entire life.

Dealership says nothing they can do about it, get in contact with Ford customer service, rep agrees on the phone that this failure is completely out of the norm. They humm and haww for two weeks and offer to cover 50% of the repair, which they quote at $2300. I tell them that's ridiculous, I can buy better aftermarket parts and install them for hundreds of dollars cheaper than what they're asking me to pay. They tell me too bad, even after acknowledging how dangerous of a condition these faulty parts could've caused.

Ultimately I replaced the rear leaf springs with OME EL120r's and am currently drafting a letter to Ford HQ with invoices for the cost of replacement parts to return my truck to a safe drivable state and the transcripts of the recorded phone calls with customer service.

Filed a vehicle defect safety report with Transport Canada, doubting I'm going to hear anything back from them, but i kept the old leaf springs just in case. Considering legal action at this point as well based on if/when I get a response from Ford HQ.

Body Centered Cubic Fracturing is particularly prevalent in cold climates. As you live in Canada, your truck being exposed to far more extremes in temperature variation may accelerate a predisposed fracture line within the metal. Over heat treatment with too rapid cooling also makes the part exceed brittleness standard. Being less malleable...someone who drives in a hot average climate may never experience that fracture even with the exact same part. It is a manufacturing defect in the annealing process.

 

[TJC]

Body Centered Cubic Fracturing is particularly prevalent in cold climates. As you live in Canada, your truck being exposed to far more extremes in temperature variation may accelerate a predisposed fracture line within the metal. Over heat treatment with too rapid cooling also makes the part exceed brittleness standard. Being less malleable...someone who drives in a hot average climate may never experience that fracture even with the exact same part. It is a manufacturing defect in the annealing process.

There is well understood material science behind all of this. What we are witnessing is sloppy manufacturing processes. That and/or Ford no longer spot testing their suppliers. It's all teh same thing.

I recall IBM setting acceptable failure rates on our PC power supplies of 2%. Our supplier began to send us 2% failed units. It was definable repeatable behavior, and our QC team proved it. We dropped that supplier and then raised the standard to 100% working units. No room for error.

Problem solved. All of the power supplies went through QC testing at the manufacturer and that supplier figured they could increase their ROI by intentionally delivering 2% of the units that they knew failed the QC test. They met the contract requirements... they were good.

We (IBM) learned our lesson. We eliminated the possibility of abusing our supply chain by changing the contract specs.

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