Well I'm still about 3 weeks away from taking truck to dealer, BUT had a almost catastrophic deadly/disaster situation. While backing alongside garage yesterday, I heard a load noise in LF. Popped off hubcap and there lists a broken wheel stud. Figure this to be odd, but an easy fix. Called local dealer while doing errands here in town, no studs, but dealer in city has them about 12 miles away.....RATS!). So finish my errands and go to city dealer. While on city streets and pulling onto their lot, hear a load noise again in LF. Pop cap off and there sits broken stud #2. Now it's like "WTH is going on"? Get the studs but they are course thread and mine were fine. No lugs on hand but Lincoln dealer across the street "has" them. Go there and no they have the fine thread nuts. In between I called tire shop up per stud dealer to see if they can get me in last minute to put them in (guess more to it than just beating the H out of them to remove 'em and they said er, uh, er, can you be here by 3? Yup!. Well seems the studs were packaged wrong from Ford. So after about 20-25 minutes and not ahead any, I head to tire shop.
Now I was here last in early Sept for new tires and went to TN/back and there around town and such, w/o any probs whatsoever and about 4500 miles as well. They get me in in very short order then call me into the bay (this can't be good). Sure enough. Upon arrival, of the remaining 6 studs/nuts, 5 nuts were loose, the 6th was only barley tight, and the studs themselves, the threads were compromised. To make matters worse (thought this was bad 'nuff), the holes in rim were oblonged, so rim was toast as it would never get 100% tight. Now it's a really "WTH" moment.
In talking w/ tire shop, I recall being at Ford dealer last month and I told them about the noise (topic of this post) and recall them telling me in return then the brakes were 50%, rust on rotors and slides pins may need lubing.......basically some brake work. Looking at some serious bucks here and no problems back in Sept, now I'm thinking dealer pulled this wheel off to look at things and didn't tighten/TQ things back up. Call dealer to see exactly what they did and if a wheel was taken off. They said I said RF and I said I'm 99.9% positive I told them LF. After all, kinda hard to hear a squeak/squeal in RF I think going down the road. But they are saying RF and would have to have the office pull paperwork out to see what the tech did. As far as I'm concerned, they took LF off and boo-booed.
So tire shop is going to replace the 8 studs and put spare tire on for now and in my belief the Ford dealer will confess they erred and both reimburse me for this part, provide a new rim and cover cost of switching tire over.
In the end, I may not have a bad hub/bearing afterall as this all just came about last weekend. Kind of a peeing contest if you will I think between me and Ford dealer as to what they said I said and what they did. BUT the tires/rims have not been removed at all since Sept, drove over 4k miles and not a problem 1. Truck goes to dealer and 1mo later this? Tire shop said it's usually 2-4 weeks before you see end result like this from not being tight, and it was at dealer on the 19th of Nov.
If not caught yesterday, I had planned on using truck today for a 120+ miles trip and towing a trailer. One can only wonder the "what if's" if the other studs broke off at 55-60mph and/or towing?
Another up[date to follow.
