Originally Posted By: Trav
Ford sued Dana, gt paid and didn't fix the truck, they claimed it was road salt.
Any links or sources on Ford getting paid by Dana? Just curious since I have never heard of that. It seems like if they won a settlement, a requirement of that would be compensating the affected owners. No real point to suing Dana over sold trucks unless owners are beating down the door. They could have lost, so there had to be something actually at stake.
It seems like there is a threshold of salt exposure on the Dana framed trucks where the rust protection gets totally compromised and goes to [censored]. My 2002 Ranger definitely has a Dana frame, and has seen light salt every single year of its life (was in NC until 2012, usually about 2-3 saltings a year in the piedmont), and is totally rust free. You can still see numbers printed on the frame in white paint from the factory. I don't know if my 1994 Ranger has a Dana frame or not, but it doesn't have anything beyond surface rust where paint/wax coating has worn off. My 1995 Explorer from PA must not have had a Dana frame, because the body rotted out beyond repair on top of a totally solid frame, front to back. Totally rotted body, no frame rot. Go figure.
If Ford got anything, it should have gone towards affected owners. I doubt a court would let them cut and run, but who knows. Not saying Ford wouldn't do it, I'm just not sure they could get away with that.
I think madRiver nailed it on why Toyota had to absolutely make sure this got taken care of. Ford frankly has more leeway in the situation to not handle it properly. In different situations, other manufactures, including Toyota, would do the same. Stuff like this is always calculated and weighed.