Rear end Puked on Expedition.

[Deadman]

My 2018 expedition has had a chatter on take off for the last few months. I took it in once for this and the dealer couldn't feel it, so I took it on a 3,500 mile cross country trip and it got BAD at times. When stopped and slowly accelerating it would chatter and try to act like the locker was locked and it would chirp the inside tire on turns at slow speed. So I took it In on Thursday.

They pulled the cover and found the entire carrier trashed and the E locker failed. It is NON SERVICABLE, so they are replacing the entire rear end as a unit. The best part is the rear end is backordered. They have it on emergency backorder right now and as of this morning they had no confirmed part availability date.

For background, I'm 41 years old, my hot-rodding days are behind me! This expedition give me little to no joy hammering on it, so honestly I rarely even get on it. I haul my family and young kids around and its never towed much of anything. I have a 3/4 ton for towing and I have hot-rodding vehicles, so this ones been babied. It has like 25,000 miles on it. I REALLY HOPE this is an isolated incident, but I can only imagine there will be others.

If you feel a light vibration on "very light" acceleration from a complete stop, go get this addressed before your warrantys expire. Mines got 8/125K warranty so I'm not worried, but I'm sure its not a cheap repair.

It sits in my heated garage with Epoxy coated floor and if that rear end ever leaked fluid, I'd see it on my garage floor or my work parking area as I always park in the same 2 places.

Hopefully its fixed by the 4th of July! lol.

 

[5280tunage]

Damn @Deadman, sorry to hear this! WTH is going on? So many parts that shouldn't be failing on these, are. In the best case scenario parts are available and downtime is minimized, but that's not happening right now. I get it, all manufactures are having supply chain issues, but many of these parts aren't reliant on semiconductors. Hope you're not down for too long man, I'm going on 16 days without mine for it's latest service visit. Thank god I'm on their 0% interest or I'd be demanding a pause from Ford. In 12months, I've been down over 35 days... To say the least, I'm not in a good spot with trust, but I'd lose sooooo much money if I got rid of today (yes, there's folks on here that will point out the obvious that you lose money the day you buy a car) but there's regular loses from depreciation, to the crazy loses if you sell in the first 2yrs...

But a big thanks for the description of what to look for.

 

[Deadman]

Damn @Deadman, sorry to hear this! WTH is going on? So many parts that shouldn't be failing on these, are. In the best case scenario parts are available and downtime is minimized, but that's not happening right now. I get it, all manufactures are having supply chain issues, but many of these parts aren't reliant on semiconductors. Hope you're not down for too long man, I'm going on 16 days without mine for it's latest service visit. Thank god I'm on their 0% interest or I'd be demanding a pause from Ford. In 12months, I've been down over 35 days... To say the least, I'm not in a good spot with trust, but I'd lose sooooo much money if I got rid of today (yes, there's folks on here that will point out the obvious that you lose money the day you buy a car) but there's regular loses from depreciation, to the crazy loses if you sell in the first 2yrs...

But a big thanks for the description of what to look for.

The market is super hot if you wanted to sell, people are paying stupid prices for these things now. But then you need big bucks to replace it, because anything new is selling high as well if you can even find a car.

I don't need it, so honestly I don't really care its down. This is one of the only things thats ever really went wrong with it, except it failed a front CCD strut once.

I'm just glad the road salt is off, so I can run my 3/4 ton and my other toys and not feel bad salting them.

They'll get it fixed I'm sure. I bought this outright, so I'm not paying any interest on it or anything like that, but it sucks waiting on it.

 

[5280tunage]

I hear ya, many of us aren't in that position. This is supposed to be my "school bus" and daily driver... Its fun watching my groceries blow out the back of an F150 (loaner right now) since there's no room inside the truck with the kids...

 

[Alwaysthinkin]

Deadman, sorry to hear about your Expy problem. Sounds kinda ominous with you being such a good caretaker of your vehicle. Guess we will find out in time if others of us will end up with problems. At least I'll know what to expect if I start to feel that light vibration with light acceleration.

Regarding parts not being available. I think that is, sadly, pretty common these days. Hope we aren't entering an era of shortages.

 

[osteodoc08]

Just had the same thing happen to mine at 80K. Out of warranty. The dealer I bought it from had a third party “lifetime power train warranty” and we will see if it holds up. Unfortunately the dealer I purchased it from in early 2018, is 2 hours away. My local dealer couldn’t get me what I wanted when I was ready to buy so I looked regionally.

2018 Expedition Max HD Tow 4WD

 

[Nate2020KR]

Deadman do you think the sway bars could have affected the rear diff in any way? Maybe some kind of excessive axel load?

 

[Calidad]

Its easy to trigger that center console locker button not knowing its on. I would bet there are quite a few out there with toasted rear ends from being driven on pavement locked up likely owner/operator had zero idea.

 

[John I]

Its easy to trigger that center console locker button not knowing its on. I would bet there are quite a few out there with toasted rear ends from being driven on pavement locked up likely owner/operator had zero idea.

This happened to me once. I would like to think that it wasn't on for very long, but fact is I may have driven the 8-9 miles from home to work that way. As soon as I made the hard right turn into the office parking lot I knew something was wrong. I now check that indicator light more regularly.

 

[JExpedition07]

The locking function turns off automatically though once you exceed 25 MPH

 

[Deadman]

Its easy to trigger that center console locker button not knowing its on. I would bet there are quite a few out there with toasted rear ends from being driven on pavement locked up likely owner/operator had zero idea.

You can't steer it when its locked, I've never locked it other than In some snow and it kicked out as some speed anyway.

 

[Calidad]

You can't steer it when its locked, I've never locked it other than In some snow and it kicked out as some speed anyway.

On dry pavement you can steer. I’d say many drivers wouldn’t know why the handling feels different

 

[5280tunage]

Deadman do you think the sway bars could have affected the rear diff in any way? Maybe some kind of excessive axel load?

I would think there's less than a 1% chance sway bars would affect the rear end. If that were the case, this thing wouldn't be able to 1k pounds. Towing puts substantially more strain on the gear than spring and torsion resistance would.

 

[Deadman]

On dry pavement you can steer. I’d say many drivers wouldn’t know why the handling feels different

I guess my point was that I can feel it binding like crazy on dry pavement and I know that's not normal and I'd look and figure it out immediately. The way this "was" when I took it in, I almost couldn't turn around on dry road, it was bound up tight and ****** and bucked and nearly broke a Rear half shaft. I was fully expecting to break an axle.

 

[5280tunage]

I guess my point was that I can feel it binding like crazy on dry pavement and I know that's not normal and I'd look and figure it out immediately. The way this "was" when I took it in, I almost couldn't turn around on dry road, it was bound up tight and ****** and bucked and nearly broke a Rear half shaft. I was fully expecting to break an axle.

Thanks for details @Deadman, at least I know of one more thing to look out for. I almost need to stop reading the forum, with my own issues and everything I read on here, I feel like I'm walking on egg shells half the time.

 

[Deadman]

Thanks for details @Deadman, at least I know of one more thing to look out for. I almost need to stop reading the forum, with my own issues and everything I read on here, I feel like I'm walking on egg shells half the time.

This is one of the only thing mines had done, so I can't complain much.

 

[Calidad]

I guess my point was that I can feel it binding like crazy on dry pavement and I know that's not normal and I'd look and figure it out immediately. The way this "was" when I took it in, I almost couldn't turn around on dry road, it was bound up tight and ****** and bucked and nearly broke a Rear half shaft. I was fully expecting to break an axle.

Most people don’t even know when they have a flat tire even when the dash lights up. So yeah rear lockers toasted n this manner is likely a very common issue given button location

 

[sjwelds]

Most people don’t even know when they have a flat tire even when the dash lights up. So yeah rear lockers toasted n this manner is likely a very common issue given button location

I'd venture a guess that @Deadman is not "most people".

 

[Deadman]

I'd venture a guess that @Deadman is not "most people".

Ya old school car geeks notice stuff! lol

 

[NukeLife]

Well, damn.

I've been trying to pinpoint a problem I’ve been noticing. And now I’m convinced it’s this one.

Deadman, were your symptoms only in 4A? Or also in 2 and 4 locked.
Could you feel some light “stumbling” in the drivetrain under light acceleration?