Ford sued, said to hide truck fuel tank defect

Keith Browning · March 17, 2012

(Reuters) - Ford Motor Co has been sued for allegedly selling trucks with defective fuel tank linings over a 10-year period, and hiding the problem from consumers even as it warned dealers.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in a New Jersey federal court said fuel tank linings on 10 E- and F-series truck models made between 1999 and 2008 would "separate and flake off."

It said this would clog fuel systems with debris and rust, causing a sudden loss of engine power, and potentially causing vehicles to buck or kick or suddenly stall.

Ford in 2007 issued a "secret" technical service bulletin to dealers advising them of the problem, but neither recalled the affected trucks nor offered to repair them for free, the complaint said.

"Hundreds, if not thousands," of drivers have experienced the defect, it added.

Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans Zwiebel declined to comment immediately, saying the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker has yet to be served with the complaint.

The F-series pickup is the best-selling U.S. car or truck, while the E-Series is a truck-based full-size van.

The complaint seeks class-action status on behalf of the vehicle owners, and alleges fraud, breach of warranty, and unjust enrichment, among other charges. It seeks compensatory, punitive and triple damages, and other remedies.

The plaintiffs are Chester, New Jersey-based Coba Landscaping and Construction Inc and its principal Galo Coba. Lawyers for both were not immediately available for comment.

The case is Coba et al v. Ford Motor Co, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey.

(Reporting By Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Richard Chang)

Keith Browning · March 17, 2012

The interesting thing for me here is that Coba Landscaping was a long time customer of Warnock Ford, the company I "used" to work for. I have worked on all of their Ford trucks and quite likely replaced a tank or two and an untold number of injectors. Haven't seen this customer in a couple of years now however. Of course, the dealers have nothing to do with this issue but I found this interesting indeed. I know I have seen repeat tank failures on a number of trucks and I wonder if this is also the case here. The age of Coba's trucks place them well out of the warranty period including AWA.

I wonder where this will go.

Aaron · March 17, 2012

Is this kind of like a "my junk broke, and i dont want to pay for it" situation, Keith?

Keith Browning · March 17, 2012

In my opinion yes, and no.

Yes - we often see customers complain about repairs after warranty. Some appeal directly to service managers and others contact Ford Customer Service and lodge a complaint -all with varying results. Many are justified and some are abusive to the system.

No - in this case I personally am of the opinion that these fuel tanks are an issue and would like to see some kind of an inquiry and study... if this has already been done the results should be made known. I am not sure I buy the use of bio-diesel or additives excuse for tank lining failures from what I have seen.

joshbuys · March 17, 2012

Two questions...

1) What is the TSB #?

2) When did this problem start occuring?

The first time we started seeing this problem at my dealership was shortly after the FEDERAL government mandated the switch to ULSD fuel. Is this coincidence? I've never seen a repeat repair on a fuel tank, even when the problem first started.

Bruce Amacker · March 18, 2012

I agree that tank problems are a pattern failure just about nationwide, but some areas of the country have more troubles than others. I attribute this to the tank not being able to handle some commonly used additives in diesel fuel.

"Secret TSB" means SSM to me but I don't remember one right now.

Posted Image

Keith Browning · March 18, 2012

There wasn't a TSB specifically for delamination however TSB 07-24-4 addressed water intrusion in aft-axle tanks due to snow packing on top of the tanks that let water enter through the tank vent. The fix is a severely overpriced rubber tube. That TSB has been superseded to TSB 09-14-4 which eliminated the fuel tank part number. I attached a copy of the TSB to this post for your reading pleasure.

Also, we have discussed this topic several times... just do a search for "delamination." As far as these tanks go, there are TWO different issues that I see. One is flat out lining separation where entire areas of the tank are stripped and large pieces of tank lining sit on the bottom ff the tanks leaving the shiny steel exposed - this is seen more on the Econoline midship tanks. The other second failure is predominately found in the 40 gallon aft-axle tanks in the F-Series trucks. The upper surfaces of the inside of the tank rust and cause the lining to flake off in small particles and rust breaks off in granular type particles. Observe these pictures...

Delamination Example

Rust Example

tsb09-14-04.pdf

joshbuys · March 18, 2012

Delamination Example

Seen this more times than I can count, more so on aft axle tanks than midship, never seen the rust issue you displayed, but perhaps that is environment? But like I said before, we didn't start seeing these problems until after the switch to ULSD....coincidence? I don't know for sure, but it seems awful suspicious in my eyes.

dieseldoc · March 18, 2012

I am also curious about the change to ulsd josh. I do a lot of pump and injector work at the cummins dealer I currently work for. we have seen a lot of pump and injectors coming in with leaking shaft seals, etc. I asked the other guy I work with in the pump room and he said he saw the same rush of leaking seals and injector failures when we made the switch to low sulfur. I think the fuel definitely has something to do with it. I resealed the filter base and all the engine fuel lines on my 96 7.3 in 2005. now that we have made the switch to ulsd a few years ago those lines and seals have started leaking again one by one since about 2008. I personally dont think it is coindidence that things like this happen after switching the composition of the fuel or lubricant.

Jim Warman · March 19, 2012

Flashback to the early to mid 80s. New gasoline additives were being formulated that were "electronic fuel injector friendly". A familiar sight had the delivery driver donning a respirator, goggles, gloves and an apron to add the contents of a one gallon metal container to several thousand liters of gasoline. IIRC, static electricity was one of the reasons given for not mixing the contents of the can at the loading terminal. (Don't shoot me - I am simply the messenger).

Gasolines that were familiar to carburettor mechanics contained a great deal of waxes (olefins) that would condense on fuel injector pintles and nozzles, affecting their performance. Back then, selling a fuel injector cleaning was a viable, productive and profitable service. Today, only the wallet flushers continue this process.

I cannot imagine what other effects these additives may have had (even in the minute doses we saw) on what we considered as "state of the art" back then. IIRC, most fuel tanks were galvanized with little else in the way of protective coatings.

Having said that, the world has no shortage of lawyers looking for "payday". Give them a sucker to fleece... <cough>, I meant victim to champion, and the justice system can squander whatever funds are seen as fit in the pursuit of easy gain.

What is the difference between a lawyer and a catfish????

Not having seen much in the way of fuel tank delamination (even though I recall some sort of corporate message(s) regarding delamination and what may or may not have been added to the tank. The two instances I recall deal with gas powered vehicles.

There are at least two sides to every story...

cbriggs · March 19, 2012

We have never seen a tank delam here.

joshbuys · March 19, 2012

We have never seen a tank delam here.

Do you use ULSD up there or are you still using the good stuff?

Bruce Amacker · March 19, 2012

We have never seen a tank delam here.

Chris:

Like I said before, IMHO this problem appears to be regional, perhaps driven by what additives are used locally. I have seen major problems along the whole west coast, Chicago and Virginia for starters (but certainly not limited to these areas). I have customers who state they have spent a hundred grand changing tanks out, destroying their annual budget. Here's some shots I took at Virginia DOT last year when we were teaching there, they were in the middle of changing out tons of tanks:

First indicator:

Dead horses at the dumpster:

Brad Clayton also has a bunch of great shots.

Sidebar- about 2002 IH had a problem with tanks that had rust in them trashing injectors, and they quickly owned up to the fact, replacing tanks and injectors by the score. I'm guessing they backcharged their tank supplier but I'm not positive about it.

:grin: