VirtualMirage

I recently got this problem fixed during my first oil change at the dealership, along with updating the SYNC. Although they couldn't repeat the problem, my description matched a TSB that was out for the vehicle to a 'T'. Since my description of what I was experiencing was so spot on, they decided to apply the TSB fix. It had to do with the heat shield on the front left driver's side resonating on hard right turns at parking lot speeds. The fix was to bend/relocate the heat shield, which probably took less than 30 minutes to do.

So I just noticed this the other day and unfortunately haven't been able to test it further (since it is the wife's daily driver), but here is what I am noticing: If I take a right turn, say a 90 degree onto another street, and straighten out the steering wheel quickly I hear a squeak coming from the front left side upon straightening. I managed to do it 3 times in a row. But I haven't been able to reproduce the sound when I turn left. I figured I would keep an eye on it and if it persists I would take it to the dealer. The car is new, bought with less than 100 miles on it in February, and now has about 1500 miles. But I wanted to check on here to see if anyone else has noticed the same thing or if there is a known issue about this. Any input or advice would be great. Thanks! Paul

I thought I read somewhere that Ford was going to start going to 10K mile oil change intervals on most of their vehicles starting either with the 2012 or 2013 models. They said that their research on their new engines has shown little to no difference in wear between their current 6K-7.5K oil changes and the 10K oil change intervals. Of course, you'd still want to do more frequent oil changes under more severe conditions (towing, frequent stop/go, driving consisting of short trips instead of longer trips, etc.).

C_Bova, You mentioned you used to tune your Speed6. We may have, at one point, ran in the same circles online and possibly tuning vendors. I used to have an '07 6s V6 and did a lot of beta testing with CP-E (they are about 2 hours from my house), who made a lot of performance options for the 6 community. I was the first '07 to have their MAFci fitted and tested, the first '07 to get the engine mount working by them, and only one of two 6s V6s to have the Standback tuner working on their ride. I spent many late nights at their shop with their engineer and crew trying to get this stuff working. I was one of the first proponents to try and get a Fluidampr crank pulley made for the car (car ran noticeably smoother with this at all RPMs, especially at the top end), amongst other projects. In the end my total mods consisted of what I mentioned plus a bored throttle body, stainless steel headers, coil ignition wires, transmission cooler, and a few other things. I loved that car. Anyways, two engines later I ended up getting rid of it. The first engine went due to a rod bearing failure (the weak link in the duratec 30), which I firmly believe would have failed on me modded or not seeing as how it went (I didn't have all the mods mentioned on at this time). That was luckily covered under warranty as seen as a manufacturer defect with the engine. Engine number 2 failed less than 10,000 miles later. The dealership's shop failed to reattach the oil pressure sensor and did not inspect the catalytic converters when they replaced the first engine. The cats were so backed up from oil consumption that the increased back pressure created blow by around the piston rings, messed up the rings, and began consuming oil again. I was consuming around 1 quart of oil every 100-200 miles. Interestingly enough, the cylinder that had this problem was the same cylinder number that failed from rod bearing failure on the first engine (cylinder number 6). They taped up my dipstick and had me drive around in 500 mile intervals and come back to evaluate the loss. Over a 600 mile stretch I consumed 3-4 quarts of oil out of a 6 quart capacity. That engine, and the cats were replaced under warranty again. After being on engine number 3 I felt I couldn't trust the car or the workmanship (who forgets to attach the oil pressure sensor or inspect the other connecting parts?), so I decided to get rid of it and downsized to a Mazda 3 5-door (my second 3 that I have owned). Anyways, I didn't mean to thread jack. What I was trying to get at is C_Boya is definitely correct about the diameter of the MAF housing. It needs to match identically, otherwise face a world of trouble. The only way you can go with a larger or smaller MAF housing and not have any issues is to get the car tuned to adjust for the difference. Also by going the tuning route, you'll see a more noticeable improvement in performance. Otherwise, you might actually get worse performance since everything is not matched accordingly. Now one thing you could do for some potential gains, and can leave the stock MAF housing and intake in place, and have little to no risk of throwing a CEL (or causing a rough ride) is to modify the throttle body. Of course, if the throttle body has room for growth. But its usually not a mod you can do at home unless you've got precise equipment that can route out the bore. The easiest and least invasive option (with the least amount of improvement) is to swap out the throttle body plate with one that has tapered edges and use flat head screws to secure it (using locktite, of course). Some will even go as far as cutting out some of the top support bracket, leaving only the bottom and some of the top edges to hold the plate in. This will reduce resistance within the throttle body and increase surface area a little bit. The next step is one of two paths: The first option is to bore out the throttle body horn or tapering it out a little more. The results tend to be a little more torque and a small HP gain, but mostly in the low to mid range. The second option, and one that usually requires a totally separate throttle body, requires boring/tapering the throttle body horn and boring out the throttle body itself and using a larger plate. It requires removing the plate and the support brackets to do. Some throttle bodies don't have enough metal to do this, while other can around an extra 3-5mm of bore diameter safely. The larger bore will give you more top end HP and TQ, pulling harder to redline, at a slight sacrifice of low end HP/TQ. Since the increase in potential airflow is made behind the stock MAF housing, the car's ECU is doing all the proper adjustments for you and is reading the incoming air properly (so long as you don't go overly large and exceed what the car is able to deliver in fuel or adjustments). I had a bored TB (from here) on my 6 and the difference was noticeable. It pulled harder to redline and my 0-60 times (using a DashHawk for measurement) were on average .3 seconds faster, with some being only .25 and other as high as .5. But to put things in perspective, the TB used on the 3.0 V6 was the same diameter as the one used on the (60mm). The bored throttle body added an extra 4mm in the body itself and an extra 5mm at the horn. Because of the smaller stock TB, the V6 seemed to suffer at the top end (starving for air). The extra surface area helped counter one of the faults with this particular TB where at 100% throttle it would actually open past 100%, effectively closing back up. Maybe something like that isn't needed for our car. Maybe the throttle body size is better matched? If I recall correctly, though, the 3.7L V6 is using the same size throttle body as the 3.5L V6 at a diameter of 65mm per the Ford Media PDFs. The throttle body in the Mustang 3.7 is 68mm. I'd be curious if the Mustang's TB is a straight bolt on to our engine and if so, if the larger TBs that are already out for sale for the Mustang will work on our car. Just curious...

I just bought a 2012 Ford Edge Sport AWD on Saturday and upon inspection yesterday, mine has the single muffler with dual tips. I think the manufacture date for mine is November 2011. I, too, remember seeing it listed as a true dual exhaust on their website prior to the 2013 update (which the 2013 info still shows true dual). I was also getting my information from the PDF posted on their media site (PDF here). One of my coworkers who owns a 350z mentioned his car was the same way, even though it was considered a true dual exhaust. The stock setup on the 350z was two pipes, two cats on each side (I think one in the header and one post header), with a mid-pipe and crossover that met into a single muffler that had dual tips in the back. Despite all this, looking at how the rest of the exhaust system is setup, it is still pretty close to a true dual. If it wasn't, then instead of have two exhaust pipes going all the way back to the muffler, we would instead be seeing a single pipe going to the muffler with two tail pipes and the two headers collecting together via a y-pipe close to the engine (like on my Mazda 6s V6). Still, it'll be interesting to see what Ford's response is to this and why they switched the muffler design. Paul

Hello fellow forum members! Our family got larger on Christmas day, which required us to look for a larger vehicle. While we loved our 2010 Mazda 3s Grand Touring 5-door hatchback, there just wasn't enough room to have a baby carrier car seat behind the passenger seat and room for someone to sit up front. Because of this, the wife had to sit in the back. Our other car is a 2004 Mazda 3s 5-Door hatchback which we still plan on keeping for me to use to commute to work in. I've been researching for a few months now and was settled on either an Edge, an MKX, or a Volvo XC60 (Turbo I6 R-Line model). I nixed the XC60 when I came to the conclusion that I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for at the dealer for what I want to pay and that my insurance premiums would have gone up more than I would have liked. It also didn't help that if I needed to have warranty work done, I would need to drive almost 2 hours to the nearest dealer whereas the nearest Ford/Lincoln dealer for me is about 15 minutes away. The MKX was my ideal choice (and only a few dollars more in insurance), but all the dealers around here kept tacking on the ugly wood trim option and so many other features I didn't want (which would make the price higher than I wanted to pay). So the Edge Sport was kind of the compromise, offering a little of both of what the Edge and MKX offer while at a lower price point than the MKX and quite a bit cheaper in insurance. The two things I wanted that the Sport doesn't offer stock that I had to settle without are the HID headlights and the trailer tow package, but they weren't deal breakers. The tow package wasn't needed but was more so for planning on potential future needs. My last three cars all had HIDs, with the 3 we traded in having adaptive headlights, which I loved and notice the difference. But these headlights seem to be pretty good, so we'll see if I can leave them or will upgrade them in the future. So on Saturday we traded in our 2010 Mazda 3 for a 2012 Ford Edge Sport AWD in Candy Red trim. It's pretty much loaded. The only options we didn't get were the DVD entertainment system and the all weather floormats (which I intend on picking up soon). I feel we got a pretty great deal on it, with exception to me thinking the dealer was trying to screw me on my trade in (which I managed to get them to meet me in the middle of what I was looking for). We started our search using the USAA car buying service, which I must helped immensely finding exactly what I was looking for. After the $1500 incentive and some additional discounts the dealer gave we managed to get the car below invoice and just little about dealer cost. It would have been even more savings if I financed through Ford and got an extra $1000 incentive, but Ford's interest rates couldn't match what I could get elsewhere. I feel the new car has already almost paid for itself when last night in the wintery mix our little girl had a major blowout, requiring a thorough cleaning and diaper change. We stopped at the Wawa but they didn't have a changing station. So we ended up folding the front passenger seat flat, making for an instant changing table. I can see that feature being very helpful on future driving trips. We are looking forward to many more adventures in our new car. Paul