Our latest featured repair is two completely unrelated services: ball joint replacement and fuel pump replacement on a 1997 Ford F150.
Many of the repairs that we do at Pawlik Automotive are multiple services on different areas of the vehicle. It’s as if people save up their repairs. Sometimes that makes sense, but more often than not a vehicle comes into our shop prompted by an urgent concern and accompanying it are a number of “saved up” repairs. In the case of our Ford F150 the urgent repair was the fuel pump which caused several engine no starts. Lower Ball joints were the secondary repair but based on how badly they were worn could well have been the more serious of the two.
In spite of being located inside the gas tank, the fuel pump on this F150 was a reasonably low cost repair as the pump was sold separately from the tank assembly. The tank assembly consists of the fuel pump, guage sender, the lines, filter and mounting frame. Pumps for these are not sold separately.
Our client had a concern about the steering wheel shaking while driving on the highway. We performed a steering/suspension/drivetrain inspection and found severely loose lower ball joints. Lower ball joints were also a relatively low cost repair due to this truck being a 2 wheel drive. 4x4s always cost more due to the additional labour involved to access the ball joints.
Ford F150s are the top selling truck in North America. They are a fairly reliable vehicle though far from perfect.
For more on the Ford F series pick up click here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_F150
For some reliability reports on various years of F150 click here http://goo.gl/w68hh3
