What luck. My 2004 FX4 F150's lease is up at the end of this week, so I go to get it washed so it goes back to Ford all pretty. When they are done washing it i get in the truck I go to get in to leave. I close the driver door and hear a kind of cracking sound (not good i though to myself) i went to power the window down to see if it is just stuck or something and it drops down like a rock. i try to power it back up and i just hear the motor cracking down in the window and some metal on metal sounds. I talk to the car wash manager he's a ***** and tells me the truck is under warrenty and the owner is not there. I ask to file some sort of incident report and tell him I'm not leaving, so the owner magically appears. The owner is even bigger of a ***** and says he is not liable since I rolled the window down. He says he owns many ford trucks and never has this problem. I called the non-emergency Richardson police to see if I could file a report or something and they said all I could do if file a civil suit on them.

I then went to the Ford house, without opening the door they diagnosed it as a Regulator issue. (i guess the main gear on the window motor)

So my warranty expired 6/11/07 it is 2.5 months out of warranty.

I am seeking advise:

-Should I try to lean on Ford to fix for free since its only 2 months out of warranty? A guy from my work said hes done this with Hondas and has had good experience.

-Should I go after this car wash? I mean my window was working fine when I got there. (i has witness to this from one of thier employees who i spoke to when figuring out what wash package I wanted.)
The owner told me my only option was to have Ford diagnose the issue to being due to a door slam. and he would continue to talk to me then.

-If I just eat it, i got quoted around 400$ which really means closer to 500$

So pissed right now.

Dont take your car to Rubber Ducky car wash in Richardson,TX (off arapaho) unless you want your doors slammed and an owner who isn't happy with his life and wishes this on everyone else as well.

Rant complete. Thanks for any advise. -J

 

This is probably a case of bad luck on your part.....What has happened to you is not new. I have had to replace my window regulator and several members have had to replace 3 so far.

Basically, your window winds down by itself. The crunching you hear is the cables and the cheap *** plastic pulley getting torn up and twisted.

It took me about 1 hour to disassemble and replace the regulator. Cost me about $110. Real easy and a shame too since the motor was perfect. Just the crap plastic pulley and clips that Ford approved from one of their suppliers.

Who says it is only China that is producing crap these days. For $.50 more they could have done it in cast aluminum and it would have lasted a lifetime. Hell, even a stronger plastic would not have cost considerably more.

Later,

 

My service advisor just told me the regulator was replaced and they had one in stock for only $326.00 plus labor I'm sure.

My first problem in 3 years and 3 months. Only 25007 miles.

I would have worried about doing the work myself, but since its going back to Ford this week, and its 101 degrees outside.. another 400 down the toilet.

 

Unfortunately whether in or out of warranty there was no help coming from any dealers. I took matters into my own hands and fixed the problem, but I also investigated why this had been a common problem in 97-07 Ford Trucks. There had been several open service notes on these units, but it really comes down to the fact that they are made from the cheapest metal and lowest gauge available. They are cheaply made and spot welded in critical areas, and after several years simply break down from stress. This is particularly true in the drivers side front door which probably gets 80% of the total usage and wear in the door system. My motor never did fail, but the mechanical linkage had broken down at the spot welds at three critical joints. I did not want to "re-spot" the bad welds since I did not have the proper equipment to complete the job. However I did drill out all the spot welds, and substitute the weld points with zinc coated 1/4-20 bolts and nuts. Additionally I added 1/4" channel steel strips to the regulator arms bolting them in with rivets, and 1/4-20 bolts, and nuts. This was the last time that I had a problem with the window regulator in my unit. Oddly a new window regulator that I checked from Ford was built even more poorly than the one taken from my unit to begin with. I would try my rebuild idea before replacing your bad regulator since the replacement could be even worse after a few years.

 

My neighbor's '04 Screw has had 3 out of 4 regulators fail in the past 2 weeks.

 

You got stroked!! Don't blame the car wash though.

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