Strong Mildew Smell After Rain. Two Dealers Can't Find Source/Leak

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Porpoise Hork

Porpoise Hork

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The dealership has a rain simulator?
They do. One of two dealerships in the city that does. It supposedly can replicate everything from a light mist to decently strong rain shower. The tech doing the work also stated they can have it hit the entire truck at once or focus the water to a specific area if needed. Not sure how accurate this is but, personally I hope it's more than just someone standing out back spraying the truck with a water hose and adjustable nozzle...
 

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They do. One of two dealerships in the city that does. It supposedly can replicate everything from a light mist to decently strong rain shower. The tech doing the work also stated they can have it hit the entire truck at once or focus the water to a specific area if needed. Not sure how accurate this is but, personally I hope it's more than just someone standing out back spraying the truck with a water hose and adjustable nozzle...
We call that the car wash around here ?
 

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Hell.. For all I know they're just sending it through their wash tunnel a bunch of times...
Bret, do you have a power washer or access to one? You could create your own rainstorm with one and see if it was fixed.
 


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Porpoise Hork

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I have one. Knowing my luck though I'll end up getting side tracked after accidentally making a clean spot on the driveway and spend the next three hours on that instead not spraying the truck at all. Only to have my wife come out to see what the hell I am doing, then roll her eyes at me when I tell her I'm checking for leaks in the truck as I am creating art on the driveway with the pressure washer...
 

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Nope!!

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"Let me do it Boss, I always wanted to wok on ..." :LOL:
 
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Well... It finally rained, and sure enough the truck still smells like mildew. I call the dealership and left a voice message for the service writer with the update and that there is now a bad rattle in the dash that wasn't present before the service. He returned my call this morning and left me a msg stating that he acknowledged that the smell is still present. However the window weather stripping is on back order (the weather stripping on all 4 windows bends inward at the top of the windows and I had pointed this out when I brought it in the first time and it is unrelated to the mildew smell) and won't be available until the end of September possibly into October.

Okay...

Then he goes on to say they want me to keep the truck and bring it back in when those parts delivered and then they will look at the leak again at that time...

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Basically stating we don't have a clue, so we're not going to touch it for a couple months until we can blast more parts at it in a desperate attempt to fix this. In the meantime you can drive it and keep smelling mildew each time after it rains...


I have emailed the Ford rep explaining this update, and how utterly unacceptable this is. I have also been in contact with the service manager at the dealership explained what's going on, the ridiculousness of the don't put it on fresh air suggestion, and them not wanting to touch it for upwards of two months and keeping me in a vehicle that could potentially be hazardous with the continued leak and wanting to know how exactly any of this could be considered acceptable. He stated he would have to speak with the shop foreman and get all the details about it and would try to reach the field engineer. Based on what information he gets will allegedly call me back later today....
 

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Wow bret that's to bad it still smells. One thing I would tell him when he called you back is that for health reasons you shouldn't be driving this truck. Mildew/mold shouldn't be taken lightly as it's very dangerous and can cause major health issues. I cant see how they wouldn't realize this and could be opening themselves up to a huge lawsuit if you were to become sick from this!

One of my biggest accounts back east was a fire and water restoration company. I would go into a house that had water damage and could immediately tell there was still mold present. I have asthma and my throat would instantly start to close up and I would become wheezy (not like the Jeffersons lol) so it's not something to take lightly and just drive it until the fall.
 
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I have told the service writer and service manager that the mildew creates a hazardous and life threatening situation and needed to be resolved immediately. Neither of them even acknowledged this as a concern when it was brought up.
 
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Got a call back from the service manager and he's stating that because they are not getting any further direction back from the support line that there is nothing more that they can do to fix it. I was informed that they cannot even contact the field engineer unless they direct them to do so, and of course they are not doing that. They are literally not responding at all to the case. I was able to get them to finally close the service ticket on it and send that to me.

I called Ford and of course the rep handling my case is out for the week.. It took several more lengthy call attempts but I finally was able to get a rep to put a supervisor and explained the myriad of issues and failed fixes, as well as what the dealership is stating and the health risk presented by the mildew. The supervisor updated everything including and recommended I contact another dealer despite the original rep's insistence it remain where it's at and get it in as soon as possible.

The truck is scheduled to go in to a different dealership Monday morning.
 
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Just received a call from the current dealership that the truck is at.

They were unable to locate any source of leak or replicate the mildew smell. They claim they had it in the tunnel for 2 hours on the heaviest rain setting then parked it outside and nothing. They also stated they performed a smoke test and did not find anything. They did state that because the other dealership did not replace the jute carpeting when they serviced it, that the mildew smell I detected from the most recent rain storm (while present was significantly less than normal) was likely caused by the existing mildew in the carpeting producing the smell from the high humidity. They also suggested that I contact the other dealership to ask why they did not replace the carpet along with the AC housing and pressure Ford to get them to replace it. I asked if they could please put that in the notes of the report so it's logged. I'm going to contact the other dealership but I already know they probably won't do anything about the jute carpet unless Ford says to replace it. So I'll hound Ford on it and see if I can get them to agree to it.

Next thing is to spray the crap out of it with the pressure washer in sections and see if the mildew smell comes back. If it doesn't then I'll put my Ozone generator in there for an hour and saturate the interior and hopefully kill the mildew. If I have to pull the seats and carpet out to do make sure then I will.
 
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I found the leak.. Or at least I'm 99% sure of where it is now.

My wife had noticed that the mildew smell was much stronger on the driver's side than the passenger side after a light rain Friday night. With that information I ran painter's tape down the entire rail from the windshield to the back window. Then proceeded to spray water on every other possible area for the leak. Waited about an hour and checked the truck. Nothing. No hint of mildew at all. Removed the tape and then applied water to just that rail and within 5 minutes the mildew smell returned. It was very strong up near the driver's door and microphone port. Aired the truck out and waited will it stopped smelling then re-taped the rail and repeated the water test. Nothing. Again, no hint of mildew. The water leak must be very small and is probably dripping onto the side curtain airbag and that's why there's no evidence of it on the headliner.

So now to contact the dealership and let them know. I had spoken with them on Saturday about it and they were going to make some calls to see how they can bypass the service support line techs and get in touch with the field engineer. With this update hopefully they will be able to replicate it and finally fix it.
 
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Oh it's getting pretty close to driving over there and parking the truck on the general manager's desk...

I spoke with the service manager's boss (don't know her title) about this on Saturday. She's been extremely helpful so far and when I called her this morning just after posting my last update to let her know what I found she said she's already placed calls to several contacts she has at Ford corporate in an effort to get the field engineer sent out. She's going to get me a loaner and once it's available and they have the truck, have them pull the headliner and inspect the top side of that as well as the side curtain airbag assembly while they run water over the rail so they can verify the leak.

I also just received a call from the case manager at Ford letting me know she received a call from the dealership first thing this morning with the update that it's still leaking and they needed to bypass the support line due to not getting any response from them. So the manager at the dealership is doing what she said she'd do so far.
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