AllFiredUp
Member
- Joined
- May 7, 2008
- Messages
- 18
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Lake Arrowhead (Waleska), GA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2007 Eddie Bauer 4.0L 2WD
I'm still somewhere between dazed, confused and MAD AS HELL over this...
Last week, I was driving on the interstate at about 75mph and suddenly I felt something weird happening. I heard a very faint, distant sound from under the hood. It sounded and felt like the pinging caused by poor quality gas. The revs were fluctuating every 10-20 seconds by 200-300rpm and it felt like the transmission was going in and out of lockup. My first thought was that the transmission was failing. I slowed down to about 60mph and clicked the O/D button OFF and it everything returned to normal (except the slightly higher revs since I was in 4th gear). The noises and rpm fluctuations had stopped, no dummy lights came on and the temp gauge was fine (first thing I checked, just to be sure). The A/C was also still blowing ice cold as it always has....
A few miles later, I got off the exit and as I was stopping near the bottom of the ramp, black smoke started billowing out from the hood and fender! The acrid smell slapped me in the face at the same exact moment and I could hear some rather low, but NASTY sounds once I rolled down my window! I thought the freakin' engine might be on fire by all the smoke, horrible smell and weird noises...
There was no shoulder on the ramp and I couldn't block traffic, but I knew of a parking lot about 1/10-mile after I turned off the ramp. I pulled in there, raised the hood and when I saw the mangled pulley on the A/C compressor and the shreds of the belt that used to turn on it, I knew exactly what had happened- the A/C compressor had locked up and it was going to cost me $$$!!!
I called the dealership, an independent Ford specialty shop and a few other places to get some estimates for comparison. After the first two, I started to think that a transmission failure probably would've been cheaper! The dealer quoted $1800+ and the lowest from a local mechanic was $1300. I took it to my dad's grumpy old mechanic in our little town (he's good and he's cheap) and he told me it would be at least $740, but if the evaporator was trashed it would be about $1025 plus refrigerant and tax....I wrote a check yesterday for $1083!
I'm stunned that this happened on a vehicle that is only three years and two months old??? It does have 105,000 miles on it (highway, obviously) but the high miles aren't an acceptable reason! Of course, the miles are the reason the warranty was expired before it was even 1yr old. But a $1000+ AC failure on a 2007 Explorer Eddie Bauer with a $37k sticker price is just WRONG! My '03 XLT has almost 180k miles on it and the original AC is going strong (my sister owns it now)...so what happened to my EB???
Last week, I was driving on the interstate at about 75mph and suddenly I felt something weird happening. I heard a very faint, distant sound from under the hood. It sounded and felt like the pinging caused by poor quality gas. The revs were fluctuating every 10-20 seconds by 200-300rpm and it felt like the transmission was going in and out of lockup. My first thought was that the transmission was failing. I slowed down to about 60mph and clicked the O/D button OFF and it everything returned to normal (except the slightly higher revs since I was in 4th gear). The noises and rpm fluctuations had stopped, no dummy lights came on and the temp gauge was fine (first thing I checked, just to be sure). The A/C was also still blowing ice cold as it always has....
A few miles later, I got off the exit and as I was stopping near the bottom of the ramp, black smoke started billowing out from the hood and fender! The acrid smell slapped me in the face at the same exact moment and I could hear some rather low, but NASTY sounds once I rolled down my window! I thought the freakin' engine might be on fire by all the smoke, horrible smell and weird noises...
There was no shoulder on the ramp and I couldn't block traffic, but I knew of a parking lot about 1/10-mile after I turned off the ramp. I pulled in there, raised the hood and when I saw the mangled pulley on the A/C compressor and the shreds of the belt that used to turn on it, I knew exactly what had happened- the A/C compressor had locked up and it was going to cost me $$$!!!
I called the dealership, an independent Ford specialty shop and a few other places to get some estimates for comparison. After the first two, I started to think that a transmission failure probably would've been cheaper! The dealer quoted $1800+ and the lowest from a local mechanic was $1300. I took it to my dad's grumpy old mechanic in our little town (he's good and he's cheap) and he told me it would be at least $740, but if the evaporator was trashed it would be about $1025 plus refrigerant and tax....I wrote a check yesterday for $1083!
I'm stunned that this happened on a vehicle that is only three years and two months old??? It does have 105,000 miles on it (highway, obviously) but the high miles aren't an acceptable reason! Of course, the miles are the reason the warranty was expired before it was even 1yr old. But a $1000+ AC failure on a 2007 Explorer Eddie Bauer with a $37k sticker price is just WRONG! My '03 XLT has almost 180k miles on it and the original AC is going strong (my sister owns it now)...so what happened to my EB???
