Just need to vent...

With a 40 yrs plus background in the Auto repair industry, Ford are renowned for poorly designed parts failing. The door handles on the Aust X series between '79 and '84 was never sorted by Ford after 14 yrs, they just changed the body design and that required a different door handle. The Ford Capri that the sunroof guide failed and Ford simply ran out of replacement stock .... and that was that, the list goes on, but the mechanical issues with all late model ICE manufacturers says design engineers straight out of school are clueless when it comes to building engines and transmissions that last ...... Yet, people keep buying them and then complain that the vehicle spends more time at the manufacturers warranty repair shops than the time they actually get to drive their high priced lemon .....

T1 Terry

 

Man that Busy Forks is a pile, isn't it? Looks like someone were trying to ram contracts thru not to disappoint their relentlessly-vertical mgmt betters

So true, no one need even state it in print But will anyway

Had two Fords, that '78 E150 Chateau, and a '99 Escort. The best thing about the van, was its 351W... which like all the small-block Fords was unflappable even heavily abused, as most domestic V8s popular in '60s were. But the rest of that rat trap may as well have been Soviet produced, what a least-effort hunk of junk with impenetrable diagnosis for anything in the loom... including trblsht'g the ignition.

Worst thing Ford ever did to Mazda, were to abscond with its compacts and subcompacts, and attempt make them Fords -- was very weird to drive an Escort saloon with the handling verve of a Miata, but the 2-valve powerplant of a typical early-'80s domestic compact -- just awful at everything, esp being worked on (the later 4-valve 2.0L motor in higher trims and the Mk1 Focus, were much easier). Not to mention the crap interiors, esp seats and headliner. do not know what Australians got in that same timeframe but we got the usual Ford content-chiseled garbage in everything -- even luxury and performance models.

 

Gave my Tundra an oil change (driving to Tennessee in it soon). Checked her over and did a battery test on the 38-month old 12-bolt....says 48% and the dreaded "REPLACE"
Nice that it's 2-months outside of the 36-month warranty...won't be buying the Super Start Extreme from O'Reillys, anymore!

 

My $50 Walmart Value battery with a one year warranty works perfectly in my rarely driven Toyota truck for seven years now. I credit the battery monitor which gives a very complete picture of voltage and state of charge at any time while driving or not. It stores up to five days of data on a graph. I got the Ancel one for $20 or so.

 

Wow, that's impressive! I thought about driving down to my Yota dealer to get a TrueStart but just don't have time today so did a little research and got a DuraLast Platinum AGM with 885 CCA and it's has a 4-year warranty. (Saved $27 using my Military Discount.)

Installers was a bit cranky....he could use an attitude adjustment....(or yea, it was ME!) I don't let anyone touch my Yota's unless I have no choice.

 

Battery installer a little........'cranky?'

-good one!

I use the same installer, but a very different source for the battery.....and every time he goofs up I'm able to demand, and receive a 100% refund.

 

I'd say they saw less vampire loads while the car was off back then.

 

I like AGMs, every but their price (also flex a vet's discount but tbf it's nowhere near what I'd get as active military ). Lead-acid cells you must top off blind every few weeks under ideal conditions to get to the warranty svc life (100-mo Honda batteries )... should be obsolete... but sadly will always be around, esp the further you get from civilisation, on a roadtrip...

Motorcycle batteries, oy vey -- maint-free... and still drop like flies with perfect charging systems. Must be said, tho... moto charging systems are not and will never be capable of replacing the battery for all loads -- unlike an alternator, metric-std 3-phase stator / rotor systems with regulator / recitifers, only maintain batteries. So living in WA, had pigtails on my SV for a trickle thru the winter. They're pretty snazzy these days... with diagnosis, charge modes and safeties my old crinkle-finished Y2Ks Battery Tender w\ its gator clips & analogue needle, could only dream of.

Of note, tho... once I'd rigged up my Paseo's powertrain grounds to a common plate (as most ground mods do) rather than the body of the car... ate batteries a lot less often, and idled much more stable cold <=> hot, coolant-temp or ambient temp. Especially for off-road or 4-seasons vehicles in salt, pays to know where your ground connections are, and if they're ate-up or not

 

Yea, the Tundra Max Crew cab is too long to fit in my garage so she has to stay out in the weather...I really hate that. (My 2005 Tacoma fit in there just fine!) Our Colorado Rocky Mountain weather ranges from -20 to 100 so batteries don't like that.

 

Yep -- there's a saying, 'heat and vibration are the enemy of all electrical components' -- fair enough, but should include temperature deltas as well

 

I'd say the ultimate replacement for the 19th century technology lead acid battery, would be Sodium Ion. It can handle the heat extremes and a quality item built from CATL cells would be something you could move from vehicle to vehicle as it dies rather than the battery

T1 Terry

 

USPS - the local yokels working here out in a relatively rural area can't seem to find their rear end using both hands, much less our mailbox - among a group of community mailboxes. Yet they can FREQUENTLY locate their rear end when it comes to sticking their head up it. Once again - we are several days late waiting on an item (Amazon doggy probiotics) that shows it was already delivered - days ago. So far, we've accidentally purchased for others in our community, a coffee been grinder, doggy probiotics, batteries & other things not remembered at the moment. Thank you USPS, for making non-government delivery services look so stellar.

 

see also: Schools

 

we have more trouble with Fedex than usps. ups is usually the best

 

Yep

 

Here, UPS makes so many screwups they routinely and administratively brush off, I call it UUPS. FedEx is usually prompt, but hella expensive for what they provide -- used to be the best by a long ways, back pre-Amazon-hegemony

At least with our normal USPS mail carriers, you can go to the PO and air a grievance that has a chance of actually being resolved; USPS has a much stronger comm'y connection that any of the big parcel carriers. They're also still less prone to f***ups than UUPS, and faaar cheaper than any of them, despite De-Joy screwing every PO out of resources they need to get the job done, in return for giant ugly trucks that are already obsolete, and holding the bag on delivering Amazon's massive waves of commerce anywhere near on-time.

Work on a bunch of them from the local PO... they're my age or older, so nearing retirement age... not a lot of Millennial or Zoomer replacements willing to work as hard as my generation, for the ideal. So maybe the last hurrah for actually good USPS service, at least where I live -- replaced by the comtemporary half-arsed, excuse-me-can't-you-see-I'm-playing-Pokemon-mfer, least-effort anti-responsibility crap in every other svc job

 

USPS is very good here in Central Texas and are the only service that goes by every mailbox in the US six times a week. Generally they are just as fast as anyone.

UPS is reliable but not used as much as they used to.

Fedex has become unreliable and will deliver to the wrong address or say there was no one home but then drop it off the next day without a signature.

UniUni is a new one you might get from ebay sellers. They use gig drivers (uber style) and are easily the worse service these days.

Home Depot now uses gig drivers as well but they are reliable. Veterans get free delivery of items small enough for a car to deliver, quite a deal combined with a veteran discount.

The big grocery store HEB also has gig drivers for delivery although HEB charges more per item and has a delivery fee.

Perhaps the most impressive delivery service is from Amazon 7 days a week with Prime. Low prices, huge selection, free returns (sometimes without reboxing) and almost perfect reliability. Mostly Amazon drivers but some gig workers and use of USPS. Without Prime you are paying a USPS type of delivery fee.