No letter here either. 2007 FEH AWD purchased Jan '07.

 

Different batches of batteries might have components from different suppliers. It's also possible they discovered this corrosion problem and made changes in the battery pack to deal with it.

 

I called my dealership, and they didn't have the service harness in stock. He said the part number was 7M6Z14A303B, and they'd get some in this week.

 

And many of us just got the letter on Thursday, so since it is a holiday weekend, yours may arrive in a couple of days. Dealerships haven't even heard of this yet, so it might be "in the mail".

 

A simple re-program could also hide any warnings that certain battery packs will fail prematurely. All Ford would need to do, is to re-program the system to ignore those particular early warning signs.

Would Ford do that? Well, Ford had a problem with the original '91 (and '92) Explorers rusting out their rocker panels. It was a "race" between rust going all the way thru, and the rust warranty expiration. For '93, Ford didn't fix the rust problem, but instead, covered the rocker panels with a plastic trim piece to hide the rust.

 

I didn't get a letter. I am hopeful that is a good thing.

It could be that Ford can track the battery packs well enough, to figure out those packs which Mr. Wong installed the resistor are corroding/failing, and those which Mr. Nguyen installed the resistor are not corroding/failing.

 

If its a corrosion issue, then it will take some time to happen. Perhaps they are just trying to meter out the response so they don't get everyone trying to get in at once and are getting those of us that are more likely to have a problem first... rather than the 07s first...

Or it could be that certain 07's used a different component like others have said.

 

Wow.

I thought the battery packs were never, ever, suppose to be opened in the field. If something went wrong, no matter what the cause, the entire pack was replaced.

 

Can't say I remember ever reading that. There are certain safety protocols that have to be followed when the high voltage system is accessed but I don't recall any prohibition on servicing the HVTB.

As an aside, Toyota had a service campaign to re-seal the cell caps of the early Prius HV batteries, and those were done "in situ"...

 

So this is a mildly confusing recall -- partly because it's new and partly because of the cruise control recall happening at the same time.

I call my dealer, told them about the letter and they said we'd just set up an appointment, bring it in, and they'd do it. Then I asked if they already had the part, and they said there were no parts. I explained that I was pretty sure there was at least one part required. They transferred me to 'parts' to have them look up the recall.

Parts finds the recall, looks it up and says that although the wording suggests there must be a part, they can't find any part listed. They spend a long time doing this. Finally I decide to call Ford.

Ford says the dealer is probably confused because of the cruise control recall. In THAT recall (which doesn't affect my '05) there will eventually be a part, but not available until November/December. Until then, they want the cruise control button (which apparently could catch fire) to be disabled. So the service is done in two parts. First you bring the car in and they merely disable your cruise control and give the car back (fixing nothing, but at least your cruise control button can't catch fire -- although you can't use the cruise control either). THEN when the dealer gets parts later this year, you come back for round #2 and they actually fix the cruise control.

Ford thinks that when I called the dealer, even though I told them what I needed, they heard "Ford Escape ______" and immediately assumed the more famous cruise-control recall must be the reason I'm calling... and for now THAT recall has no parts (since they're just disabling the cruise control).

Ford told me the dealer MUST have a part to perform our Hybrid battery corrosion recall, and that part is the service harness which IS permanently installed and TigerHybrid's post above gave the number (7M6Z14A303B). If your dealer doesn't have the part, there's no point in taking your car in since they must have the part to perform the recall service. They also mentioned that for SOME recalls the parts are automatically sent to dealers based on the number of vehicles they sold -- but for this recall no part is automatically sent... the dealer must order the part.

If you haven't already done so, I'd suggest you contact your dealers and have them order the part before scheduling service or it'll be a wasted trip -- or worse, you'll get your car back and find out that not only did they not fix your battery problem, but your cruise control has now been disabled! ;-)

Make sure they understand you are NOT calling about the cruise control recall.

Regards,
Tim