Here are two pictures of the broken axle on my wife's 2000 Ford Windstar. I purchased this van new and it has been well cared for by a Ford dealer.
Fortunately this broke in the driveway! This could have resulted in a fatal accident if it had happened on about any highway. The Ford dealer we use for service said he saw no signs of any misuse. He recommended I call Ford "Customer Service". To be polite, that was not very productive use of cell phone time! They basically said it was out of warranty at 90,000 miles and it was not their problem.... They use some sweet woman's voice to basically get tell you tough snit and get you off of their phone system. They were not even interested in calling the dealer or having someone look at it. It is basically "my problem".
Here are two pictures Joe emailed me. What do you do? You can't even sell this vehicle for anything other than scrap like this. So I'm supposed to spend $1,000 or more with Ford to fix this thing so I can get $2,000 for it????My wife is certainly not interested in driving this vehicle ever again.
As an American engineer and former SAE member, I am embarrassed that this type of thing would be possible with a 2000 model year US-built vehicle. So much for Ford "quality". It must have started bending from rust thru the axle a couple weeks ago. My wife noticed a vibration and took it in to the dealer. She tells me they test drove it and told her she needed spark plugs and wires!
Quality and design problems in door latches, head gaskets, etc are annoying and bad enough but this axle failure for no reason other than poor design is DANGEROUS. This could have caused a major injury accident.
Jim at Dawn
Edited by Jim 4/30/2009 03:30
 (Ford Windstar Broken rear axle 042809 A_1.jpg)
 (Ford Windstar Broken rear axle 042809 B_2.jpg)
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 Ford Windstar Broken rear axle 042809 A_1.jpg (115KB - 1384 downloads)
Ford Windstar Broken rear axle 042809 B_2.jpg (81KB - 1823 downloads)
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Ford Windstar Broken Rear Axle Pictures
