Actually, I don't think they call it an "silent recall", it's
something like an "unadvertised extended warranty".

As related in a different thread, my wife's 1996 mustang GT (4.6 liter
SOHC V8) started overheating about three blocks from home. There was
no traffic so I turned on the heater and drove it the rest of the way
home. It was gouting water from somewhere around the alternator.
After carefully cooling it off with the hose, I shut it down and
started diagnostic procedures.

For awhile I followed a red herring -- an empty threaded hole in the
driver's side of the block just behind the alternator. Turns out some
blocks had this (depending on where it was manufactured) it doesn't go
into the water jacket, and in this model it wasn't used. (Thanks to
everyone who helped on this issue.)

Finally I gave up, put everything back together, filled it up with
water and started the engine. Since the engine was cold, I was able
to put my hand behind the alternator and see where the water was
coming from. (Kids, don't try this at home.)

As you probably know, the intake manifold on the 1996 Mustang is
plastic. What I didn't know is that part of the cooling system -- a
bridge between left and right parts of the block, just behind the
alternator -- is also plastic. This part had split along a forward
seam.

So, I went to the dealer and talked to the parts guy. He said "you
sure you want that? It's expensive". I said other than wrapping the
old one in duct tape, I didn't really have any choice. Then he said
"You know, the last one I pulled was for a recall repair." Well
that's interesting. He loaned me the phone, I called the insurance
company to get the VIN number (which I didn't have on me) and then
went around the corner to Service.

I asked the service guy what recalls were on this car, and he pulled
up two -- a parking brake assembly (common on Mustangs -- our last one
had a similar recall) and an.... let's see if I remember the term
exactly... "unadvertised extended warranty" on the intake manifold.
He asked why, and I said it had split open and was gushing water.

After a long time looking through books and arguing with the other
service people, they couldn't find any limit on the warranty (either
time or mileage) so he decided to cover it. I had the car towed to
the shop and they had it fixed in less than 24 hours. The new part is
aluminum.

If your car develops a similar problem, you might check on silent
recalls.


Ron
-
http://www.christianfamilywebsite.com
http://www.iswizards.com
Definition: Nelp: Contraction of "no help". Colloquial: Help
messages that are of no help whatsoever. Pretains to help files,
messages or documentation that convey no useful information, or
pedantically repeat the blindingly obvious.

Hardly an "unadvertised extended warranty." Every dealerships
and shop, authorized to do warranty work like ours, in the US and
Canada was sent a TSB notifying them of the 100K/7yr warranty.
That is why one should take their vehicle to a dealership for
service. The ONLY place were warranty work can be completed.
Certain you don't think you can do that at places like "Pep
Boys?" The only type of recalls that manufactures release to the
general public and media are NHTSA safety recalls.



mike hunt






"Ronald O. Christian" wrote:

opined in news:3F183C9E.92C20040 (AT) mailcity (DOT) com:

Dyin' to know the long slim thread between Mike Hunt and Neville
Chamberlain...

The Al Gore of his day.

had my 96' tbird done . same prob and result was a warrenty item that ford
claimed ran out 8 years after date of in service
"

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 18:35:23 GMT, "Nevil Chamberland"@mailcity.com
wrote:

I've read this through a couple of times, and it still reads like a
non-sequitor. I don't recall mentioning "Pep Boys", (don't recall
seeing one since I moved here from California) and although I'm the
grandson of a mechanic, the son of a service manager, and the stepson
of a competition driver, I don't pretend to be anything more than a
shade-tree mechanic. My interests lie elsewhere.

What we were talking about here was a competent amateur working on
what was ostensibly an out-of-warrenty car. That the warranty had
been extended on this particular assembly was a surprise to me, but
it's easy enough to check, as I outlined in my original article.
(Take the VIN to the service manager and ask.) It's not necessary to
drag your car to the dealer for every single problem on the off chance
it might be covered. Therein lies financial ruin. Of course, if you
work for a dealer, I can understand why you might feel differently.

Parenthetically, the statement that a dealership is "the ONLY place
where warranty work can be completed" is demonstrably not true. But
it's certainly one of those things the dealer wants you to believe.



Ron
-
http://www.christianfamilywebsite.com
http://www.iswizards.com
Definition: Nelp: Contraction of "no help". Colloquial: Help
messages that are of no help whatsoever. Pretains to help files,
messages or documentation that convey no useful information, or
pedantically repeat the blindingly obvious.

I see your story has changed from "it depends on which terminal I am using" to
using a lap top with a satellite hookup. How do you explain the posts after
business hours and weekends?
<MikeHunt2 (AT) mailcity (DOT) com> wrote

Nothing has changed except perhaps your perception of what
I have always said. No everyone works 9 to 5, our facilities
operate 24/7, except Christmas. Even then the network is
always active


mike hunt


Thomas Moats wrote:

Actually what I said was 'Every dealerships and shop, authorized
to do warranty work like ours,' see below. If you don't go to a
dealership you will never know unless you do as you suggest and
have one run the VIN#. According to what you posted it was only
because that you DID go to a dealership that you saved $800,
certainly not a bad thing. The reference to "Pep Boys" was a
type of shop that is NOT authorized to do warranty work and
unless the pay a subscription fee they do not even receive the
TSB's. You can have the last word



mike hunt



"Ronald O. Christian" wrote:

Microsoft is the least of our network problems, 3rd party vendor software are
the "problem" child in our network.
"John Alt" <JohnAltDoesntneedSpam (AT) charter (DOT) net> wrote

In article <mh6cnYh5L9-DHoeiXTWJiQ (AT) comcast (DOT) com>, moats (AT) comcast (DOT) com
says...
There's plenty of them. They run Microsoft