2012 Titanium Front Strut Low Speed Noise (Clunk/Rattle)

[gtncpa]

I am a "car guy". I race a Mustang as a hobby. I am very educated on things like this. I have no tolerance for "They do that" I am also a big believer in preventive maintenance. I change wear items before they give way. I keep my cars well over 100K and I expect with my preventive maintenance approach to car ownership .. my cars should work as well with 100K on them as they did when new.

The Focus use to be whisper quiet .. and now there is a noise ..

[Zillon]

Originally Posted by gtncpa

The dealer just called ... they hear no noise .... ugh! I am an hour and 1/2 away. I will have to stop by there tomorrow morning before work and "show" them the noise...

Of course they don't.

Mine didn't either. Good luck with that.

[jpolk84]

I fully expected the "they're supposed to do that" remark too. I did get it for one thing. I have water pooling in the door jam when it rains heavily. When you open the door about a cup will dump out. As long as it's not getting in the car I'm good I guess. I'd originally thought it was getting in the door but not sure of that now.

[HornedFrog05]

Originally Posted by jpolk84

I fully expected the "they're supposed to do that" remark too. I did get it for one thing. I have water pooling in the door jam when it rains heavily. When you open the door about a cup will dump out. As long as it's not getting in the car I'm good I guess. I'd originally thought it was getting in the door but not sure of that now.

It's pretty sad that Focus owners have to have the "could be worse" mentality. We all paid good money for a vehicle we were promised and this new crap wagon isn't cutting it. I'm tired of Ford making excuses for their new product, sack up and go to bat for your cars instead of sitting back and letting all those individuals that believed in the vehicle get burned.

I'm so bothered by Ford's lack of respect for the very people that put their cars on the road.

[gtncpa]

Was there a fix for the water door jam thing? I still have that problem.

Oh, the Ford dealer did not call me back like they promised. Now I have to take time out of work and go show them the noise tomorrow. Ugh

[wilsonfocus86]

Originally Posted by jpolk84

This is, to me, a problem. There's a TSB: nuff said. This is really a black eye for Ford when it's really a dealer issue where they simply aren't doing the work unless they hear it.

I agree, too. But just because there is a TSB out doesn't mean that they have to be on the forefront of making your vehicle priority one. As my service advisor put it, a TSB is nothing more then a "campaign" by enough people complaining of a "problem" to make the manufacture address an issue in some way, shape, or form. So true, unless your dealer doesn't hear it, you're just "campaigning" for them to get it fixed. I was fortunate enough for them to say "yeah we hear it" the first time in the garage. But I was annoyed, however, when I mentioned TSB he reverted and kept saying "campaign".

[jrn146]

Originally Posted by Zillon

One dealer I get my parts through says the strut bearings are on backorder until mid-September.

The bearings aren't the fix for most of us anyway. I and many others have had the tsb done and either the noise either didn't go away or did and came back. Another thing I've noticed is that my clunk is louder after the car sits out in the heat all day than it is in the morning when it's cool. Maybe Ford has a few hundred thousand bad struts. What else could the heat effect like that in the front end?

[Zillon]

I feel that it's a combination of the struts and strut bearings. Over the next month, I'm going to piece together a rebuild for my front suspension that consists of Koni Sport struts, new Motorcraft strut bearings, and ST strut mounts.

I really don't mind replacing the struts because they were ultimately going to get replaced anyway, since OEM suspension is never good enough for me. If the clunk doesn't go away after my attempted fix, it may be the icing on the cake that makes me give up on trying to make the car right, and pay off what's left on my loan and trade the car in on something I should've gotten in the first place; either a GTI or Cooper S.

[Shade-010]

Im getting really F'N tired of the "ITS NORMAL NOISE" BS i keep getting from the dealer, and since i took it to 2 dealers and they both say its normal, FORD won't do S'T to the car to make it right.... Im going to cool down a bit then go back at it hard and heavy, Im not giving up, I love the car I just want the damn thing FIXED.

[TiPilot]

Update:

I've been trying to get mine fixed for a couple months. Dealer acknowledged the noise, worked with Ford, and was told current TSBs don't apply to my car. It was in again about two weeks ago and they were still told no fixes were applicable to my car. Note that this was after other folks had posted the newer TSB on here indicating the fix applied to any Foci built prior to 4/2/2012 - my car is a Dec 2011 build.

Fast-forward to this week... I've been going back-and-forth with my CSM for about three weeks. She stated this morning that the TSB still doesn't apply to my car, but I'll have to bring it into the dealer and they'll work with the Hotline - drive the car, etc. - to approve the fix. Was told the dealer would need to have the car for a while. She said to call the dealer to make an appointment.

So I called the dealer and they told me that the TSB does now apply to my car and commented about it being for all cars built prior to 4/2/2012 - note that this is about a month after that updated/expanded TSB appeared here on FF! The service advisor also mentioned that the springs are color coded and he has to get the car up on a lift to quickly check which ones my car has, then he can order the parts for the fix per the TSB.

It seems like Ford has a serious problem maintaining consistent information between corporate, service, and the dealerships! My dealer has been great in trying to resolve the problem, only to be shot down numerous times by a variety of sources at Ford. He specifically has made sure he's there whenever my car is in and has asked me in advance to come in on a different date if he can't be there. You'll hear no complaints about the dealer from me - they rock.

The good news is that progress is finally being made. The bad side of things is that it's taken a couple months at this point - and multiple drives to the dealer and phone calls with my CSM - to do so.