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Ford Recalls 300,000 Transit Vans Again for Driveshaft Separation

In 2019, Ford has been a champion of recalls. It all started in February, with the monstrous action involving 1.48 million F-150 pickup trucks, and continued throughout the year with the Fusion, Explorer, Ranger, or the new Aviator. Hell, there’s even been a recall to repair an improper fix made during a previous intervention.
2015 Ford Transit 1 photo
Photo: Ford
There are about two months left of the year, so Ford has plenty of time to go through most of its lineup before the ball drops. And it's starting with the Transit.

In an announcement made on Tuesday, October 29, the Blue Oval said some owners of Transit vehicles made between 2015 and 2017 would have to have their property checked for a potentially dangerous fault.

The carmaker discovered that in the affected vehicles – 293,558 in all – the driveshaft flexible coupling might crack with increasing mileage. If that happens, the first sign one will notice is the increase in vibration and noise.

If the car remains in operation with this fault, the cracked flexible coupling may cause the driveshaft to separate, which in turn could lead to crashes or the deterioration of some other parts in the vehicle.

Ford says it is not aware of any crashes because of the problem, but to be on the safe side it has decided to have dealers repair them.

What’s interesting about this is that the problem was kind of dealt with before. Back in 2017, some of these cars got fixed over the exact same issue (recall number 17S15). The problem was that, due to the lack of a permanent solution, the fix was only temporary.

This essentially means customers will have to go in every 40,000 miles to have their cars checked before “permanent repair parts become available.”

“Ford does not expect the enhanced driveshaft flexible couplings previously installed per recall 17S15 to deteriorate sufficiently to result in driveline separation before 40,000 miles,” the carmaker said.

“For affected vehicles with flexible couplings with more than 40,000 miles, the interim repair will consist of replacing the driveshaft flexible coupling every 40,000 miles until the final repair is available and completed."

You can find more details in the press release section below.
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press release
About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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