Ford Motor Company FORD MOTOR COMPANY’S UNFAIR BUSINESS PRACTICE Newark California

Were you a victim of Ford’s Dual Fuel Tank fiasco? Ask any expert mechanic, “I have a Ford van with two fuel tanks and one day at a gas station when I removed the front gas cap, I shockingly saw gasoline from what I thought was a nearly empty front tank start to overflow with gasoline and splash all over the ground!

What do you think the problem is?” Without hesitation, the mechanic will reply, “That’s a Fuel Tank Selector Valve malfunction.” The mechanic will further explain, “One of the reasons you no longer see Ford vans with dual fuel tanks is because of this problem. This valve selector problem is a notorious and common problem with these dual fuel tank vans, and has stranded many motorists.

What Ford knows but is not telling the public is that this problem can be fixed in about 20 minutes for around $20 in parts plus a small labor charge! What usually happens is that the customer will go to a Ford service center where the dealership will replace the valve with ostensibly a “new” valve for around $500 and add another $500 for labor.

But here lies another problem. Ford stopped manufacturing these valves many years ago so any leftover valves in inventory could well be over 20 years old. These valves contain rubber O-rings and after 20 years these O-rings deteriorate. So the Ford dealership is replacing your faulty valve with potentially another faulty valve. And you just paid around $1,000 for that.”

So I’ll ask you what is the secret solution Ford is hiding? “Today, the best solution which admittedly requires some minor tradeoffs is to bypass the selector valve and to hook up one of the fuel tanks to the master fuel pump. In effect, you will convert your dual fuel tank van into a single fuel tank van. But the good news is you will never have to worry about being stranded from a faulty selector valve.

I have more bad news. Ford service centers REFUSE to perform this bypass procedure. They claim liability issues. But Ford makes special fuel line connectors just for this bypass procedure. I really think Ford is engaged in an unfair business practice and it is much more lucrative to keep replacing these faulty valves at $1,000 a pop rather than permanently fixing the problem for $20 in parts plus a small labor charge.”