I received a phone call from my wife on Thursday evening, she was driving our 2001 Supercrew and it was making a terrible grinding noise and pulling to the right when braking. I told her to drive home slowly. She was about a mile away. As she pulled into the driveway I saw that the right front brake was locked up, the moment she stopped the tire went flat.

What I found was the lower caliper bracket bolt was missing. The bracket pivoted up when she applied the brake and wore a groove thru the wheel. When the tire was taken off the wheel cracked in half.

I have never had any work done to the brakes or suspension. When I took the wheel to my Ford dealer I was told sorry your 3 year warranty is up. Nevermind that I only have 22,000 miles on the truck and that this is the third new vehicle I bought from in the last three years. I have a call into Ford hopefully they will help me out.

 

Don't forget to put the safety issue to them.. Sounds like you had a defective part and even though you might have been out of offical warranty I would think that since it is a serious safety issure you might put the pressure on for that reason. I would think Ford would be very sensitive about tires blowing out and causing an accident given there recent history. If the groved wheel gave out at speed ( especally a front) that could have been a real problem.

 

just out of curiosity was the truck serviced at the dealer? you know the service where they check the brakes.
if not ford is gonna tell you they would have caught the problem before it happened due to a bolt falling out.

 

Never heard of that happening b4. Guess I had better check the torque on my front cliper hardware now.

 

same thing happened to me... I changed my pads myslef then about 15,000 miles later that same bolt as yours backed out. Luckilly I stopped the vehicle before it caused major damage to the rim. From now on I use locktite.

-Sal

 

Dealers have a certain amount of discretion in "out of warranty adjustments".

If you have dealt with a particular salesman repeatedly, enlist his or her assistance. When a repeat customer's business is on the line, they know who needs to be called to get things done that are more in your favor.

Steve