Door cracks are a common complaint from owners of 1997 thru 2000 model year F-150's, and this brief article is to let F-150 owners know why this is happening and just what exactly Ford has been doing about it.

The background on all this is that late in the 1998 calendar year, Ford noticed that they were starting to receive an abnormal number of complaints about door cracks. They started doing initial investigations & testing both in-house and out in the field, and this continued for some time.

These tests ultimately revealed that the cause of the door cracks is the door skin itself not "breathing" when the window is raised or lowered, and to a lesser extent, when the door is closed. What happens is that due to the door skin not breathing, the metal in this area flexes back and forth minutely but repeatedly, and a "hinge point", as Ford calls it, forms in the metal due to the repeated flexing in this area each time the window is raised or lowered. Over time, after enough window raise and lower cycles, etc., this "hinge point" will cause the metal to fatigue and finally fail, by cracking.

We here at Performance Products have had the opportunity to speak to a number of engineers and others at FoMoCo about this, to see just what they found, and what they've done about it. To their credit, Ford immediately responded and tried numerous different types of repairs, from welding in additional metal in that area to the more typical standard bondo & paint repairs that would normally be used to fix a crack, and various other methods. This took quite a bit of time, as with each different type of repair technique, they would have to wait until a period of time went by after each vehicle was repaired to see just how well those repairs held up, and whether or not each different method of repair they tried was the best actual fix to cure the problem. Welding didn't work, adding more metal didn't work, and all this time, more trucks are being built and more doors are cracking. Their task was to find not only a fix for new vehicles being built so they would never have this happen in the first place, but to also be able to properly retro-fit and repair all the existing doors out there that are already cracked, and in addition, come up with a fix to prevent those doors that have not yet cracked from ever cracking in this area, three very different yet equally important aspects of "curing" this problem once and for all.

This has been a very time-consuming process, during which various engineers at Ford were tasked with making sure they came up with the best possible fix in each of these areas to insure customer satisfaction, and Ford spared no expense in doing this, so to speak, as they are all just as proud of the Ford trucks they build as we are to own them. For those with doors that have not yet cracked, they are using a pair of nylon blocks to reinforce the door in that area and eliminate the flexing of the metal so that the "hinge point" could no longer be created, by de-trimming the door and going in thru the door handle area. This is the retro-fit for existing trucks whose doors HAVE NOT YET CRACKED that they signed off on late in July of 2000.

There have been long delays in getting the newly-designed doors for new F-150's being built not only into production, but they have also decided to just replace each cracked door instead of trying to repair it in many cases, due to problems with having to blend the paint colors to match in the middle of a panel, which rarely works well on basecoat/clearcoat metallic paints. It was decided that due to the overall load on all the Ford dealership body shops across the nation to get the repairs properly done and paint matched, to just replace the entire door. This is results in a better quality repair for each individual dealership to do for each customer, and gives better long-term results.

Money was no object to Ford in determining the best way to repair all these doors, their concerns were to achieve complete customer satisfaction, and be able to get the repairs made to all these vehicles in as timely a manner as possible, an incredible logistic nightmare.

The new doors with the re-designed skins apparently just started shipping a few weeks ago according to our information, and there are some F-150 owners who have been waiting a year or longer to get these repairs. In speaking with various departments at Ford about this, we are convinced that Ford has been working on this as hard as with as much dedication and true concern as we would want them to, as this is a real point of pride with them to get this corrected on the world's most popular vehicle.

A lot of good people at Ford have spent the better part of the last 2 years working on this problem. If it were just getting a fix for the production line, that would be one task, and not an easy one, but far easier than dealing with all these existing vehicles with door cracks and all the time-consuming testing of the various repair techniques. There was simply no substitute for all the time it took to try numerous different techniques for making the repairs to doors that had already cracked, to test and determine which was the best method that would stand the test of time.

Here are a couple of earlier FoMoCo communications regarding this issue, starting of with a Special Service Message # 12071 to all Ford dealerships in the U.S.:

Message # 12071
Some 1997-1998 F-150/250 Light Duty vehicles may exhibit cracks in the door sheet metal at the lower rear of the belt molding. Engineering is investigating the concern. To address the customer concerns of immediate repair, the recommended action is to replace the door assembly. At the end of the 3rd quarter of 1999, a new service procedure will be available to address this concern. This new procedure will utilize a reinforcement plate and structural adhesive that will avoid major disassembly of the door. This will be updated when the procedure is finalized.

Now obviously some time has gone by and this is not a current message, we have not seen a more current release, so if anyone else does, please send us a copy and we'll get this info updated, contact Performance Products at (540) 862-9515 or FAX us at (540) 862-9485.

There is also a Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) from Ford on this that was posted in another F-150 Online article on this topic by "Tom in Tacoma", and it is as follows:

Service Bulletin Number: 996754 Bulletin Sequence Number: 845 Date of Bulletin: 9908 NHTSA Item Number: SB608461 Make: Ford Truck Model: F-150 (Author's note: this also applies to F-250Light Duty trucks, don't know if Ford has updated this section of this TSB) Year: 1997 (Author's note: this affects all F-150's & F-250 LD's from 1997 thru early 2000 model year builds as well!) Component: STRUCTURE: Door Assembly Summary: This outline bulletin addresses concerns with cracks in the door sheet metal at the lower rear of the window opening near the belt molding.

REPAIRS

To get your repairs completed, contact your local dealer to have them order the new door, or the particular parts/fix that is indicated for your vehicle depending on whether or note the door cracks have appeared yet. If you run into any problems at your dealership obtaining the needed repairs, contact Ford's Customer Service at: 1-800-392-3673