While the Ford F-150 is a popular pickup truck on the market, it sure has seen quite a few problems over the years. It’s dealt with issues ranging from engines to transmissions to leaking oil. On occasion, Ford has had to answer those complaints in court. The most recent one deals with an interior issue. Car Complaints reports that three plaintiffs are demanding compensation for the problem they find frustrating. 

The Ford F-150 is dealing with yet another lawsuit

Ford has seen its share of lawsuits over the last several years. One of the most recent was with the excessive oil consumption of its 5.0-liter engines on the 2018-2020 F-150s. Now, the automaker is being sued once again, this time for an interior issue. 

Three people out of Delaware are suing Ford because the dash on the F-150 XL and XLT trucks warp, peel, and bubble around the defrost vents. The timing of the defect comes very quickly after the purchase or lease of the truck, sometimes within a week or two. 

One of the plaintiffs leased his truck in May 2018. A few months later, when the truck hit about 3,000 miles, they noticed the dash had warped and was starting to creak and rattle. He also noticed the bubbling occurring around the defrost vents. 

What did the automaker do in response to the dash problem

One plaintiff went to the Ford dealership several times trying to get the issue repaired under warranty. When they contacted customer service about the problem, they were told that there was no fix for the dash, so it couldn’t be covered under warranty. Sometime after the call, the plaintiff found that there was a service bulletin out for the same issue they were having. 

They mentioned the service bulletin to the dealership repair department, and they said the replacement parts were on backorder and there would be approximately a three-week wait. 

The lawsuit claims that Ford knew about the warping of the dash back in April of 2015, where it issued a special service message to its dealers, saying they shouldn’t attempt to repair the issue. Finally, in 2019, Ford sent out the service bulletin reporting that dealers should replace the warped ones with new dashes. 

However, the lawsuit claims that Ford refuses to replace the problem dashes with higher-grade ones. They say that Ford uses the same cheap dashes that were originally installed, which would only cause the problem to come back shortly after the replacement was put in. 

What happened to the previous lawsuit against Ford for the F-150 dash

This isn’t the first time Ford has been sued over the same exact issue. A lawsuit was filed in 2019 in Florida. Like this new case, there were three plaintiffs alleging that Ford knowingly installed cheap dashes in its F-150 trucks. 

The higher trims of the F-150 didn’t have a problem, since they had higher-quality dashes installed. The XL and XLT models got the cheaper end of the stick. 

In the previous case, a Florida judge ruled in favor of Ford, at least partially. The plaintiffs weren’t living in Florida, and they couldn’t be connected to the state in any way, so the lawsuit was silly. The Judge agreed but only removed one plaintiff. The other two cases were to stand.

They also said that Ford had known about the problem with those trucks for quite some time, having ample time to remedy the situation. Ford was charged with violating Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Services Act as well as the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, according to Ford Authority’s website. 

Ford F-150s have been experiencing these warping issues since 2015. The automaker is facing a new lawsuit concerning the dash after having just completed another court case about the same problem. Will they finally step up and resolve the dash problem by replacing the cheaper dashes with higher-grade ones? We’ll see.