So here are the Facts as of today, September 24, 2009:
We bought a Ford Freestyle in May of 2007.  We changed the oil and performed the routine maintenance according to the maintenance schedule.
July 2009 - Vehicle’s transmission light came on when starting it, vehicle died, restarted, light went off.
August 2009 – Vehicle’s transmission light came on when starting it, vehicle did not drive correctly until it was restarted.
September 2, 2009 – Brought the vehicle in for service, local Ford dealership could not get the vehicle to mess up; recommend bringing it back when it is messed up, without shutting it off. (I don’t fault them for this, they had good advice to bring it straight there)
September 18, 2009 – Vehicle’s transmission light came on when starting it; took it to the dealership for them to diagnose the problem
September 21, 2009 – Informed the bad part was the “Throttle Body” and that it was not covered under the 60k power train warranty.
September 23, 2009 – Talked to local dealership and told the part is NATIONALLY back ordered UNTIL DECEMBER 2009.
Praise to Ford for offering to:
- cover the cost of a rental car
- trying to expedite the part replacement
- cover all but $150 of the repair
Major Criticism to Ford for:
- Not covering a rental car for the entire time we are without our car. They will pay only up to $550, translation not much more than two weeks.
- Trying to expedite the replacement part – sounds good, but the millions of Freestyle owners having the same problem are probably being told the same thing?
- Not covering the cost of the entire repair.  This part was so poorly designed the supplier went out of business. The new supplier is redesigning the part. I would call this a defective part. I was told because it is not a safety issue; there can’t be a recall on it. I understand that, but this same car had crappy brakes, and Ford extended the warranty for them, they could do the same.
More details:
- Ford has killed the Freestyle (which was renamed the Taurus-X for 2008 and 2009 models). The 2010 line up does not include the Taurus-X, which has killed the resale/trade-in value. This problem leaves us up-side down in our payments if we wanted to try to replace this vehicle.
- This vehicle was our 6th (and our last) Ford between Jennifer and myself (others including Escort, Explorer Sport, Explorer Sport Trac, Explorer, & a F150).  None ever had any major problems and routine maintenance was done on all of them.
- While I appreciate what Ford has offered to do to help us, it is not enough when we are paying a $500 note for a vehicle to sit at the dealership and continue to depreciate for the next 3 months.
- Please feel free to share my experience with anyone you know.