Getting into bad Territorys

Following a spate of problems with paint, rust, brake hoses and front suspensions affecting their vehicles, the Ford owners are angry.

But none are angrier than Tina Heraudeau who is furious with Ford after the front suspension on her Territory collapsed after a mere 14,000 km.

The young Melbourne mum of two is so shaken after the incident late in 2008 that she is now afraid to drive her 2005 model Territory.

"I don't feel safe in it," she told Carsguide. "I'm scared to drive it."

Fortunately the right-front lower control arm ball joint failed at low speed as Ms Heraudeau was pulling away from the kerb, but she now fears it could happen again, this time at a higher speed that could leave her and her family in grave danger.

"I just heard metal crunching on the ground as I pulled out from the kerb," she says.

"I couldn't move it, it was stuck and going nowhere with its nose sticking out in the traffic.

"I looked under the car and that's when I saw that the whole front axle was lying on the ground.

Her concerns were raised when told by a mechanic at her Ford dealer that it wasn't the first ball joint failure he'd seem, before adding that he wouldn't allow his wife to drive a Territory because it wasn't safe.

Further adding to her fears is Ford's reluctance to explain what caused the ball joint to fail and its inability or unwillingness to assure her that it won't happen again in the future now that her car has been repaired.

Ford repaired her car under warranty, no question, but Tina Heraudeau wants the company to assure her that the car is now safe to drive. She has vigorously pursed the company for such an assurance, but so far none has been forthcoming.

"They couldn't confirm to me whether I was driving a safe vehicle," says the frustrated mum. "They couldn't tell me what had happened to my car and why, and they still can't."

In her efforts to get to the bottom of the failure Ms Heraudeau has contacted the dealer, Ford's warranty centre and the company's Customer Service Centre, but with no satisfactory response there she has also been in contact with the RACV and the Victorian Government Consumer Affairs Department, who recommended she contact Carsguide.

Ms Heraudeau believes the Territory's front suspension is flawed, and that the replacement ball joints could just as easily fail as the ones originally fitted on the Ford production line.

Her suspicion is heightened by the fact that the dealer replaced not only the ball joint that failed, but also the one that didn't fail.

The fact Ford changed the design of the front suspension on the recently updated Series II Territory only serves to underline her concerns there is a design flaw in her car.

Ms Heraudeau is not the only Territory owner to have experienced front suspension failure.

The Herald Sun has had numerous reports from Territory owners who have had ball joints fail on their cars, or wear to the point they need replacing at very low kilometres.

Carsguide reader Steve Smith told us that both front ball joints on his 2005 Territory were replaced by Ford under warranty at 45,000km and again at 90,000km.

They also needed replacing at 140,000km, but by then the warranty had expired and Ford refused to cover it.

Smith's Territory has now racked up 170,000km and his dealer has told him that one of the ball joints is showing signs of wear again.

"The ball joints have failed on four occasions," he says.

"Surely this is a design or manufacturing defect that Ford should cover."

Other owners are being told by their dealers the ball joints need replacing when they take their cars in for servicing in the region of 30,000-75,000km, a number have discovered the flaw when they have taken their cars in to have the front brake hoses replaced under the recent recall.

Carsguide understands the ball joint problem is not a new one; that Ford has been aware of it for some time and so far chosen not to do anything about it. An inside source involved in the front suspension design of the Territory who wished to remain anonymous told Carsguide that Ford has known about the issue with the ball joints from early on in the Territory program.

What's more he says it will be an ongoing problem for the rest of the life of the Territory; owners face replacing the ball joints on a regular basis.

While that's an expensive frustration for current owners, particularly once the warranty expires, it's likely to become an even greater safety issue once the cars pass into the hands of inexperienced, younger and sometimes cash-strapped owners who aren't as concerned about having their cars checked and serviced as are owners of new cars.

In a recent meeting with Ford president Marin Burela Carsguide presented him with a fistful of emails from owners expressing their concerns, not only with the Territory ball joints, but also the front brake hoses on the Falcon that are prone to failure, along with rust and paint problems.

In the meeting Burela was urged by Carsguide to initiate a recall on the Territory to fix the front suspension problem, and the Falcon to replace the front brake hoses.

Burela's response was that neither issue had shown up as a problem on Ford's field monitoring system, which he assured Carsguide was the most sophisticated in the industry, one that would surely identify a problem if it existed.

As an example he told Carsguide he authorised the recent recall on the Territory's front brake hoses when the monitoring system only showed a failure rate of around two per cent, even though he felt the failure rate wasn't high enough to justify a full recall.

What he failed to say was that while two per cent seems a very low failure rate when it's just a number in a report, it actually represents something in the order of 2000 cars that have suffered a brake hose failure.

When questioned over the thoroughness of Ford's testing regime Burela claimed it was the most stringent of any used by carmakers around the world.

But he couldn't explain why the same system didn't identify a problem with the Falcon rear brake hose that went into production when it was too short and failed as a result.

That failure caused Ford to issue an alert to dealers to replace the Falcon rear brake hoses when cars came in for service.

Owners knew nothing of the potential problem that could severely reduce the braking power of their cars at any moment, and owners who chose to have their cars serviced at places other than Ford dealers were left out in the cold.

Burela's claims that his company's testing regime is beyond question are also questionable in the light of the Territory front suspension problem.

Ford's testing regime failed Tina Heraudeau and her family, and every Ford owner, as did the company's field monitoring system that has failed to identify problems that clearly exist on the Falcon and Territory.

Perhaps it's a case of too many statistics and too little concern for the plight of owners like Ms Heraudeau who simply wants to know she is driving a safe car, that the children are not being put at risk when she's driving them to school in her Territory.