Thor Forums

[bevedfelker]

I'm at a loss to understand this whole affair with what the Ford warranty states about front end alignment within the first 12000 miles or 12 months. The statement in their guide is very specific, yet the descriptions of what owners have encountered seems to run counter to the actual words.

1. Who drives a Ford stripped chassis around as it comes from Ford? The answer is obvious -- no one. That stripped chassis is going to have a second party put something on it. That could be a commercial refrigerator delivery box, commercial goods delivery box, ambulance box, or "house" of a motorhome put on the frame. So when a Ford dealer tells someone the only front end alignment covered is the one that was done when it came from the factory is inconsistent with the words of the warranty. Are we to assume that the stripped chassis sat for 12 months or had 12000 miles put on it while it remained stripped? Does the statement in the warranty say anything about whether a second party modification was completed or not? Again, I go back to why does Ford build stripped chassis in the first place? You'd get awful cold and wet driving it around in its stripped configuration, and it would be awfully difficult to put anything behind your seat without it falling through the open space in the frame.

2. When I operate my car and don't exceed the load limits, does the manufacturer of my car cover alignment problems discovered during the period of my warranty? The answer is yes. So Ford's stripped chassis is designed to have something put on it. If that something is within the weight carrying design of the stripped chassis and it then disrupts the alignment why is the second party manufacturer of what was put on the chassis responsible for the alignment and not Ford?

3. As long as the modification put on the stripped chassis by a second party conforms to the weight carrying limits of the chassis design, why is Ford not responsible for any impact on the alignment? To my way of thinking, that is EXACTLY why Ford has the statement regarding covering an alignment within the first 12000 miles or 12 months. Is that a recognition that the subsequent modification by a second party MIGHT effect the alignment? In a perfect world wouldn't the best option be for Ford not to do an initial alignment until the modification was complete? But that is impractical since the second party facility is not collocated with the Ford factory.

These are just some of my observations and it intrigues me that there are so many different interpretations from Ford dealer service managers of what to me is fairly simple and explicit words in the warranty. I am going to try to get a clarification from Ford corporate warranty division regarding this alignment. My sense is that they have a lot of dealership service departments that are not well informed.