Yeah mate, that worked...

Bit of background noise, so not sure... and the TV is on here, so Ill check again tomorrow...

Gday everyone,

Ive got a big update concerning the outcome of this very annoying clicking/ticking noise which was in the front of my car.

As everyone knew it spent 8 weeks at one dealership close to where I live, where they tried to locate it.

On complaining to Ford customer relation centre, they suggested that I take it to another dealership.

I then took it to Macarthur Ford, Campbelltown, where they refused to look at it the first time. After this visit I wrote a letter to the dealer principal. Within a day I received a apology from a bloke from the dealership, willing to sort the problem out. But because I rang Ford CRC first, they had already organised an engineer to help fix the problem!

I left the car at Macarthur Ford for 2 weeks. I was given a good loan car. In this time the service lads checked everything the engineer told them too.

- Take off the left hand front guard and check a canister, which apparently can break at its plastic mounts, and hit part of the body. Making the noise I described.

- Check for broken welds in that section of the body, particularly where the a-pillar, and 2 front panels meet, and often rub together.

- Check the intake plumbing for the air conditioning of anything out of the ordinary.

- Take the front wheel off and look inside the arch.

- Remove the airbag and other panels.

Plus many more things they tried to tell me when I couldn't get down quick enough.

On friday arvo the dealer engineer rang up and said they had checked absolutely everything the ford engineer told them to, and they they couldn't replicate the noise anymore. I drove up to sydney yesterday to pick up the car. The bloke who had done all the work was keen to stand by his job and go for a drive to check that everything was up to my standards. He was honest and said "the rattles we can hear now are only plastic internal ones, which most cars will have. He also said they didnt want to take the risk of removing the dashboard again, because it induces more rattles in the car. I really appreciated this blokes honesty, and standing by his work. He said the dealer principal also drove around for 40 mins to make sure the noise was gone.

The verdict: On the test drive I found a bump which would normally cause the noise. On going over it, THERE WAS NOTHING! They had got rid of the cursed flexing noise! Good on them!

The solution: It was two front body panels rubbing together. They lubricated it, and also separated them by a few thousands of an inch. End of story!

They done a fantastic job on the car, not only did they keep the car clean, but they got 11l/100km when driving around campbelltown, so its nice to know they didnt thrash it!

You wouldn't even know the front guard came off. Everything was put back on in the right spot, and all interior trims and fittings are fitted flush! Macarthur Ford, I will be back!

FMD finally! So now you shake NOT rattle and roll! WOOT

glad to hear you finally had a good outcome dude.

how stupid are some of these businesses? bet you wont be recommending the dealers who stuffed you around, they wasted their time on the initial pointless checks, and they had to do it properly in the end anyway!

going to the top always gets results, as the guys on the floor dont give a toss about your problem, just how far away is 5 oclock so they can get the hell outa there... the dp on the other hand cares ALOT about keeping happy customers...

happy motoring dude!

Edited 21/02/09 11:07 PM21/02/09 11:07 PM by fordriver1

Jesus what a saga...fantastic that you got the desired result in the end. Shame you have to jump through so many bloody hoops to get there though!

read through this post, glad to see you finally got it fixed.

Gday guys,

Thanks for all your help along the way and how to take the right steps to solve the issue