The 99 LTD LEMON

[gpsdan]

Just wondering if there are any other owners out there, wondering why their 'still young' vehicles have so many flippin problems. From the subject line, you can tell that mine is only 5 years old. It has been babied, and only has 75K km(45K miles) on it. NEVER off-roaded....

Yet, it has the failed radio display on the MACH stereo system.

It has already had the Exhaust O2 sensor breakdown.

The auto running lights do not work anymore.

Now it has a drain leak in the drivers side, flooding the carpets.

I've owned half a dozen different Fords through the years, never anything newer than 10 years old. But, they were reliable compared to this vehicle.

If this is how Ford does business nowadays, it will be the last Ford I ever own. It, buy far, is the most expensive vehicle I've had, and certainly the least reliable.......another 'better idea from Ford'?

 

[Alec]

Honestly, all those problems are fairly minor and while they are inconvenient IMO they do not constitute a "lemon".

1) yes the radio problem sucks
2) O2 sensors commonly fail in this timeframe
3) running lights probably just a simple relay, these fail all the time
4) while drains don't commonly clog, it is a very simple and easy to fix problem and could have been due to almost anything.

 

[gpsdan]

The vehicle is only 5 years old, and, as I stated, been babied, no foolin'.

I don't know what you constitute as 'acceptable problems', but for a vehicle this young, with so few miles to boot, is totally unacceptable, especially for their 'luxury' edition.

Hell, I had a Chevette (which I hated in priciple, but was cheap transportation nevertheless) that was 10 years old, and it ran like my old Ford trucks, like the Energizer rabbit.

I'm sorry, but like I said, I've owned many Fords, all with far more miles, and much older vehicles, that didn't breakdown.

And, unfortunately, the list of unhappy Ford owners seems to be getting longer and longer.

I can't sell my vehicle yet, due to financing, but perhaps in a year or two, if repairs don't cost me a fortune, I will sell it, and buy a Japanese SUV as I should have done in the first place. No wonder the J vehicles keep seeing rising sales, what with all the quality problems with American vehicles. I've resisted for a long time to go that way, but now I understand.

 

[ManixT]

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles with your new explorer, but... we're not ford so complaining here won't do ya much good. Like Alec said most of those problems are relativily easy to repair given a modest amount of effort. You'll most likely be able to find loads of information about getting your explorer back into shape here, so I suggest you read around and not "cut off your nose dispite your face" as they say. Good luck with the explorer.

Oh yeah, this is in the wrong forum too

 

[F14CRAZY]

I'm proud to drive an Explorer, and I understand that some things will go wrong, and I don't complain; I ask how to do stuff here and fix it. I wanted an Explorer instead of other machines.

 

[Brandons]

Im sorry to hear, but ya know, weve gone through 3 fuel pumps, and transmission lines in 10 years. The fuel pumps for some reason are pitiful, and rust out at the top. I doubt that theres much more then that. And even the most luxery vehicles have issues, the hummerh2 and its tie rods, the new dodges and the trannys. Your lucky its just been 4 not so horrible things, is the radio made by ford too?, if its not, i wouldnt mention that! And how much money have you spent on repairs? Mine has 130k km on it, and only the 4 problems, over 10 years! go figure eh?

I wouldnt complain about your problems until something like a tranny dies in the 5 years, people here i doubt will really want to hear you diss the vehicle most of which like. And by your couple of posts, it doesnt seem that you were here for much more then just to insult it?

Perhaps you should ask around about certain things, problems that might happen, and ways to prevent them, hell you could even find out some good things about your explorer instead of thinking of all the bad things eh?

Good luck!

 

[Alec]

If you think about the suppliers, none of those problems except the drain are due to Ford manufacturing problems. Though of course it's on a Ford vehicle.

 

[Brandons]

Still, your Nvidia Geforce 3 could die, or Samsung CDROM, or Sound Blaster sound card, all could die on your DELL, so is it Dells fault??? All good names, just happened to die?

 

[LuCiFaRiAn]

I wouldn't own a jap piece of junk if my life depended on it. they may not bust as fast... but when they do, they're fkd.

Domestic or nothing.

 

[mhn3773]

^lol i feel sorry for u

but dude sometimes sh#t just happens..if thats all the problems ur truck has then fix them(probably cost 200 bucks with an aftermarket hu) and be done with it..unless something new pops up every month its not THAT big of a deal

if u are un happy with ur car simply sell it and buy a daewoo or hyndia(sp?) those are said to be more reliable =)

 

[Mbrooks420]

Have you tried to fix any of these problems, or do you just keep on driving it? None of your problems constitute a lemon. Not even close. Any 5 year old car nowadays is going to require repairs. It's as simple as that. KNow why the Chevette ran so good? Because it was an econobox POS that didn't have anything to break. Any SUV/or 4x4 vehicle is going to have a much higher maintenance/repair than anythig else. Maybe you belong in another compact.

 

[RickOTR]

I really don't think the Explorer is a piece of junk. I have had very few problems with mine (i.e, ball joints, tie rods, rear seals) and is one of the best vehicles I have owned. Every car manufacture has some kind of problem with their vehicles with many complaint's from them. I guess it's just the luck of the draw. Have you heard lately about Dodge Durango's ball joints that all of a sudden break and have lead to some serious accidents.

 

[Brandons]

I heard it was dodges trannys that act up the worst?

 

[Mbrooks420]

Explorer owners shouldn't bag on anyonelses trannies IMO.

 

[F14CRAZY]

mhn3773: are you talking about one of those asian Hyundai? It's actually an acronym for High And Dry. Aw, I wouldn't trust one myself...

Dell? Nvidia? Aw hell no. They would use some Intel Extreme shared memory bullsh!t.

 

[Brandons]

F14, what are you talking about??? They sell ATI's and Nvidia's cards in their comps. Unless you have no clue what your buying and get the integrated crap. Even then the intel integrated graphics is good, and note its not shared memory on most, its just built into the board, for example on the LXXXr you can clearly see the memory chips on the board for it.

Just so ya know

 

[mhn3773]

Originally posted by F14CRAZY
mhn3773: are you talking about one of those asian Hyundai? It's actually an acronym for High And Dry. Aw, I wouldn't trust one myself...

Dell? Nvidia? Aw hell no. They would use some Intel Extreme shared memory bullsh!t.

yah one of those lol...someone else made a good point though..its the reason i have someone in england looking for a mini for me right now..i want the OLD mini because in my eyes the new mini is POFS and shouldnt have been badged as a mini

its not that bad its just it isnt a mini its an elctronic new age fob where ass the old mini could run on AA batterys =)

new things just have so many different do dads and gizmos that can break its life live with it or buy a 69 charger

 

[Brandons]

lol hey my friends bro has a 69 charger and another one that i dont know what year.

 

[F14CRAZY]

Brandons: my bad. It's just I'm a ruthless Mac user...

I know its not the place to say this kind of stuff, but I guess I was making some generalizations. I was p!ssed off when my little brother's Sony VAIO desktop from last year had sh!tty SiS(sy) integrated crap. Come on, that's supposed to be a high end machine. 2.4 ghz Pe(ntium)on 4. An All in Wonder 9700 from da folks at ATI fixed that one. I also hate Dell cuz they expect like a 2.7 ghz Peon 4 to get anywhere with 128 megs of RAM. Poor suckers that don't know what they're buying buy their first PC, and its a Dell, and they say how they got such a great deal, and since they're my friend I go to their house and they balk and complain of its slowness and I have to go to Circuit City and pick up a stick to save their soul...

 

[Brandons]

Yeah man, its all good .

Got two dells here, one at my grandparents and mine, my grandpas got 256mb of ram and 866 mhz proc. I have 512mb 800mhz ram (RD) and 1.4ghz proc, and now a 256mb vid card (had the 64mb geforce3, got the fx 5600 now) . The integrated one on the 866 was sweet! That comp just flew, until my uncle messed with it.

It really makes me angry two when there slackin on ram, might as well buy a p3 600 with 512mb of ram then a 2.7 p4 with 128. Let alone RD is not made in most boards anymore!, it was pro! lol


And almost all integrated graphics suck! Just found the dells to be particularily good, considering the memory was soldered on the board instead of stealing it from the ram.

SiS sucks completely too lol