[gfourth]

Well I do and today it caught on fire.

I guess there is a recall for this. The cruise control switch has a membrane between the master cylinder and that membrane can break and cause the brake fluid to short out the switch. The switch is hot at all times.

I am 1 out of 66 to have a fire out of nearly 11 million recalled vehicles. Wow I'm lucky.

I had just left my house in my V and it must have caught fire 10 minutes later. Lucky my neighbors sprung into action and put it out.

 

[Jesda]

Yeah that's pretty old news, even made it into some episodes of Boston Legal and Law and Order. You didn't go in for the recall?

 

[Aron9000]

What year is it?

 

[dirt_cheap_fleetwood]

My friend's step dad owns a Ranger and he has not yet taken it in for the recall. He gets a notice in the mail about once a month telling him to take it in.

 

[Playdrv4me]

I assure you it is alot more common than 66 cases. I hear about one of these or come across a burned up one for sale at least once or twice a year, and if I'm coming across that many without looking for them it is obviously very common.

Why on earth would you not have this recall done? You put yourself and everyone in your home at risk by ignoring such a simple FREE repair. It sounds sort of like you didn't care much either way but this had the potential to be ALOT worse, treat your neighbors to a steak dinner or something.

 

[Playdrv4me]

My friend's step dad owns a Ranger and he has not yet taken it in for the recall. He gets a notice in the mail about once a month telling him to take it in.

I mean no disrespect but he's an idiot.

 

[VforMe]

That recall has been out for like 3 years, it was all over the news. I have an expedition and I heard about a lady who had the truck in her garage when it caught fire and ended up burning her house down. That was enough to get my attention. While I'm not that attached to the expedition my daughters bedroom is right over the garage. I took it in and they just unplugged my cruise control and told me they would call me when the part came in, six months later they finally repaired it. I was pissed that they would recall that many vehicles and not churn out parts a little faster, but at least my car didn't catch on fire. Good luck getting Ford to take care of it for you, I'm sure you'll end up spending a year getting them pay for the damage.

 

[RightTurn]

Why should Ford pay for it when they notified all owners of the recall?

 

[creeker]

I had a recall 3 years ago for my 2001 ford explorer for this problem,I had it done at no charge.

 

[gfourth]

I'll agree that not taking my truck in to get this taken care of was ignorance on my part. But ya know, life takes over and it's so easy to forget about something like this. I think I got two notices over the last three years, the second one being probably a year ago. Each time I set the notice aside because at the time it was an inconvienance (sp?). Then it gets forgotten...

Sometimes you just don't take it seriously enough and just don't think it will happen to you. Well it did. Another hard lesson learned.

 

[creeker]

maybe it would have been better to let it burn to a crisp as long as you had full insurance on it.

 

[dkozloski]

There are Cadillac owners that still haven't had the fuel rail recall done.

 

[gfourth]

What year is it?

It's a 2001 Supercrew with 204,000 glorious miles on it.

maybe it would have been better to let it burn to a crisp as long as you had full insurance on it.

In this situation, since the truck was all by it self parked on the street, I kind of wished the same. Well, at least part of me wished so. But I am very happy that it didnt harm anyone or anything else.

 

[dirt_cheap_fleetwood]

I mean no disrespect but he's an idiot.

He's a crack addict, seriously. We call him Metal Mike because he junks shit for a living.

 

[Red_October_7000]

Lots of recalls are bullshit in some respect of another, many of the Ford vans I managed got recalled for a "problem" that caused them to get higher MPG at the expense of emissions. Unfortunately they all got the service before I heard the true nature of the problem and its "fix", and if you know Ford full-size vans you know you don't want to cut fuel econ for any reason! The "fix" for this cruise control problem was... wait for it... Disabling the cruise! Not surprised at all that no recall service was done! Also if you vehicle is subject to such an undesirable recall, make sure you tell your dealer not to do it if you ever have it in for service as they tend to do recall service without telling you beforehand as it is free. Usually a good thing but in cases like the Econoline MPG "fix" it could definitely come back to bite you!

 

[Jesda]

The F150 recall letters specifically mentioned fire.

 

[Night Wolf]

I had mine done last year. They said on the phone it would be 30-60mins. When I got there, they took the car right away. I went in the parts room and talked for a bit, within 5mins my car was back.

It's a bandaid over the real problem. It is just a new section of wire harness that is basically an in-line fuse, so in the event that the diaphragm fails, it'll blow the fuse, which in turn prevents the fire. The vehicle can still be driven, but cruise control will not function.

I don't see any reason why someone wouldn't get this done...

 

[RightTurn]

I don't see any reason why someone wouldn't get this done...

For your reading pleasure...

I'll agree that not taking my truck in to get this taken care of was ignorance on my part. But ya know, life takes over and it's so easy to forget about something like this. I think I got two notices over the last three years, the second one being probably a year ago. Each time I set the notice aside because at the time it was an inconvienance (sp?). Then it gets forgotten...

Sometimes you just don't take it seriously enough and just don't think it will happen to you. Well it did. Another hard lesson learned.

 

[creeker]

I'll bet the insurance companies would use this as a reason not to pay for
a car if it burned and this repair was not done.

 

[Night Wolf]

For your reading pleasure...

I read the whole thread, but I don't know if I'd call being forgetful/ignorant a reason. Now if you lived thousands of miles from the nearest dealer, I could understand. Which leaves a few other possibilities, contact Ford and have them send you the part, install a simple in-line fuse yourself, or quite simply just unplug the connector, which just about anyone can do right now. You loose cruise control, but no more chance of (that particular) spontaneous fire. That's what I ment.