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Comments
We went from a 92 Ranger to our Freestyle last January and haven't looked back. Our Ranger has (we actually kept it) the 3.0 liter engine with 145 hp. Going to the 203 hp Duratec was an upgrade to us. Never felt that the Freestyle is underpowered.
By the way, my '69 Mach I is at the paint shop getting completely stripped, fixed and repainted Corvette Victory Red. I'll put the interior back in this winter.
Regards.
It is truly a matter of perspective; after all the Freestyle was never designed to be a high performance vehicle. It is great at what it does and, thank goodness, I didn't have to get a full-fledged minivan!
:shades:
I'm looking foward to test driving the Freestyle on Friday. The only thing that upsets me is that I don't think I will find exactly what I want on the dealership lot. I've been searching dealership inventory for weeks now and there are few that even come close. I hate the thought of waiting, but I do plan on keeping it for another 15 years so I definetly want to get exaclty what I want. It always seems to me that the inventory on the lots seem to have all or none when it comes to options, etc. Nothing in between.
There is no point in getting into some useless argument re specific rpm's/full load situations as this can be very subjective as it applies to each individual case.You have the FWD, myself and others have the AWD, some small difference there as well as total passenger weight and other loaded goods. It's much ado about nothing.
The Freestyle is just a great family car. Nothing more. We are very satisfied with the Freebie and that's the bottom line.
Here's a previous post on high RPMs and the solution:
"Re: Tranny Issue [jpc99] by jpc99
I got the car back today and it appears that the two issues were related. Since I had a bad ABS sensor this was causing issues for the CVT. According to service there are speed sensors in the ABS system that feed info to CVT."
Having the CVT's wider "gear" ratio of 5.xx:1 provides more torque multiplication than a 4.xx:1 automatic transmission, putting more of the 203 Freestyle horsepower on the ground, where it belongs. :shades:
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0511/10/C01-377888.htm
Maybe dump the "dirty" factory fill immediately? :confuse:
Sometimes those assembly workers may leave part of their lunch in it.
The service guy made a quick call to the Ford resource center and was told that a "kit" is coming out SOON and to call back next week for details on price and availability. And since it is the OEM heated seats, they will be identical to the Limited version (in-dash switches) and be covered under the Ford warranty.
I will update everyone next week after I call them back.
So what will happen to the CVT. Does this mean that Ford developed the CVT and only used in on SOME 500s and Freestyle for 2 years? Why Ford did not use the CVT on Fusion? It seems that it cost a bunch of money to develop something as complicated as a CVT and only use it for two years. What will happen to all of the people who purchased a Freestyle with a CVT? Will CVT be discontinued at the end of 2006?
If CVT was such a great idea, why Ford did not announce that the new 3.5 engine will be mated to a CVT. Are there some real problems with a CVT that it will be discontinued after only 2 years? I know that GM had all sorts of problems with CVT, and now Ford is discontinuing the CVT after only two years. It does not look good for CVT or the people who bought cars with CVT.
1) CVTs came from a world of lower powered engines. The 3.5 L Duratec may have crossed the torque capability of the existing Ford CVT design. It should be noted that the Nissan Murano uses a CVT for the Murano and the engine does put out 250 HP. It should be noted that the six-speed transmission in the 500 was not given top marks for finding the right gear and smoothness by the car magazines.
2) GM had all sorts of problems with their CVT because they used a "fabric belt", not steel links like in the Freestyle CVT. If GM codesigned the new 6 speed automatic, I hope they did not use the same design people as with the GM CVT.
3) The CVT (IMHO) will live on (at least for the 3.0 L Duratec) in the Mercury version of the Freestyle.
4) The Ford CVT probably cost more to produce than the new 6 speed. Money motivates Detroit.
5) "What will happen to all of the people who purchased a Freestyle with a CVT?" I will have had my Freestyle with CVT for one year as of December 1st with zero issues. I expect the same for the next ten years or so. :shades:
The development of the CVT wasn't a waste, the majority of the units are being shipped for units in Fords in Europe.
So, with all of the engineers looking at every aspect of my car, I would assume it should run forever!
We'll soon see!
probably not.
The heated seats in the Limited are not any different than the SEL and SE, they just have the heat pads installed.I would imagine it will be the same as any aftermarket seat heater:
-take the seat out and remove the hog rings that hold the seat covering underneath the seat.
-slide the heating pads into their respective "heat zones" and put the seat covers back on.
-add the seat control switches to the dash panel and wire them up.
"I don't know if this at all doable, but does anyone know if a non LTD Freestyle can be retrofited with the memory feature for the seats? I know that the LTD has a door mounted switch that allows two drives to have separate settings for the drivers seat, mirrors and pedals. I have a SEL and was just wondering if the driver's door might already be wired up for the controller. Just add the controller and you're ready to go? Of course, the SEL doesn't have adjustable pedals, but the memory seats would be way cool. Thanks"
My Ford dealer's parts counter can't find a listing for it.
Thanks
I'm ready to buy !
5F93-74674A00-A GW
1
DGFUA 5029
There is also a paper tag with the number 1201221
My part is the shale color. Hope this helps. Did you remove your rear console, or just need a replacement for the cover? There will be a couple of other holes in the carpet not hidden by the cover.
I suppose that if that's all I'm concerned with, I probably shouldn't be complaining. HA!
Inside Line
Steve, Host
The nice thing about having the memory settings is that when I unlock the car with my remote the seat, mirrors and pedal all move to my settings. I don't need to adjust anything. So it seems quicker than doing it manually to me.
I test drove the SE and really was an interesting trans -- I thought it had plenty of power.
thanks
http://www.mercuryvehicles.com/metaone/default.asp
A number of design features from the Meta One are expected to make it into the production vehicle. :shades:
Time to schedule some time with service . . .
John
" separate recall caused by the separation of fuel tank straps involves more than 123,000 Ford Freestyle crossover vehicles, Ford Five Hundred sedans and Mercury Montego vehicles.
The automaker discovered the problem during durability testing of a future model of the Five Hundred at very high mileage.
The company's investigation found that the manufacturer of the strap changed to a weaker grade of steel in December 2004 that could not meet Ford's durability requirements. Ford declined to disclose the supplier's identity.
At mileage levels of 100,000 and more, the automaker was concerned the strap would separate and cause the fuel tank to drop.
AP Press"
Steve, Host
Right On!! Ford needs to stop using their beancounter mentality to put pressure on their suppliers to cut costs.It makes you wonder sometimes if the thinking is to get away with some small savings on parts which nobody is going to see anyway and it has backfired on them. Recalls are the most dreaded news to bear especially at a time when the public perception indicates Ford's reputation has fallen somewhat in disfavour. Just telling like it is.
Have accepted some of the other shortcomings on our Ltd AWD but this looks to me as a serious safety issue. :mad:
Fact is, manufacturers I don't think care too much about durability after 100,000 miles. In fact they want you to buy a new one long before then.
Ford did catch the problem and took the proper steps with a recall with absolutely no customer suffering from the bad straps, so don't be so quick to point the finger. You will be pointing a lot of fingers at every car manufacturer on the globe as none are immune from recalls.
I agree. The straps are something that could fail after 100,000 miles. It was only revealed because of long term testing that Ford was doing as a quality measure. It was probably part of their audit porcess of their suppliers.
For a short time in my younger days I worked for an environmental testing lab that tested automotive components for failure. Some of the vendors would put incredible pressure on the lab to obfuscate negative data on some of their components.
Sometimes manufacturers get caught by bad data from their suppliers. Where I currently work we used an expensive Japanese bearing in one of our applications. After making our product for several years one of our bean counters found a Korean bearing that by all specification was as specked out to be the equivalent of the bearing we were using. They switched to the new bearing without consulting engineering, manufacturing etc. In the field the service engineers started seeing a increasing fail rate. It took a while to figure out what was going on. Clearly on paper the Korean bearing looked to be the equivalent of the Japanese bearing, in reality it wasn't.
So who knows? Perhaps this part supplier making the straps bought from their vendor steel that was supposed to be the equivalent of what they were using. Or maybe to make extra profit they intentionaly bought a lower grade steel.
I am just glad Ford caught this and is correcting it before I put a lot of miles on my Freesytle.