So.... anybody ready to start talking about alternative gauges for the FGT?

[PL510*Jeff]

As I recall the Car b'que were's caused buy a poor connection on the fuel rail.

 

[hollywoodstunts]

DBK: What do burning 458's have to do with Ford's faulty design? I didn't buy an Italian car because I didn't want the headaches associated with them. The GT is not made in Italy. I bought an American car because they typically don't have the poor build quality or spotty reliability like Italian exotics.
Do Ferrari's have bad gauges? It really doesn't matter. I didn't buy a Ferrari. Are you saying that because the GT is a limited production vehicle, I should be ok with gauges that go bad? If so, we disagree. But I want a solution. Replacing failed gauges with more gauges prone to failure makes no sense to me. But Ferrari did replace every car that ignited due to glue.
I have a friend that has a kid. In the father's eyes, the kid can do no wrong. If I ever become a parent, when my kid screws up, I'll point it out. I'm not going to blindly defend my child. I don't think that's healthy.
The GT's a great car with a design flaw. I want that flaw addressed. If people want to believe their car is so good it can't be criticized, we have different points of view. Period.
If there are owners on the forum that get offended when people bring up problems with the GT, I offer no apologies. The car's not perfect. No car is. It has a problem that can be fixed if the right people put their minds to it. That's all I want.
David B: I'm bringing up a problem with the hopes of finding a solution. Sorry if you thought I went to a Ford forum to complain. I'm in search of a solution. The possibility that in 10 years many, many more people will be experiencing the same problem is very real. Not trying to sell my car. Not sure how you get from a design flaw to wanting to sell. I'm not looking to unload a burden, just fix my favorite car.

 

[Joehand1]

I am replacing my battery tomorrow with the platinum Diehard.

I'm going with Shelby's advice here, seems like this problem only started to be a problem when the cars got over 3-4 years old and sat uncranked for extended periods. (My gauges don't work when I first crank it after a week of sitting but will come back to life if I stop the car, REMOVE THE KEY, and then reinsert and start it..:confused)

Anyway, Shelby correlates this to a weak battery and he has more experience than anyone with this car, so I'm going with it. I don't have to understand it.

I understand what DBK is saying about the cost of ownership, but in my 38 years of driving everthing from Ford Econoline vans to 370 Zs, I've never had a gauge failure. So it is a little frustrating that this is occurring in our otherwise fabulous car...doesn't mean we don't love it....

 

[dbk]

DBK: What do burning 458's have to do with Ford's faulty design?

They have nothing to do with Ford's gauge problems. The point was that you wondered if Ferraris had gauge problems. Sure they do, if you count burning to the ground in a flaming heap of ashes. And if it doesn't do that, you'd have been killed with depreciation that cost 10-20-30x the price of a gauge. What would you rather have? I can't see the logic in wondering if you could have had a car that would have lost $50,000 in a year with no gauge problems vs. paying $1500 to fix one. My point is that there is no such thing as a perfect car, and if the only thing you have to absorb in the life of a car like this is a gauge for $1000, consider it a major victory. If you purely don't want to deal with any hassles, I would just sell the car, and I would definitely stay away from anything with a horse or bull on the badge.

I also explicitly stated "This is not to minimize the fact that it's a pain in the ass to have a gauge go bad. That said, the total cost of ownership of a Ford GT over the past 5 years is lower than virtually any car on the planet, even if you replaced all your gauges twice." I get it, it's a pain in the ass and it sucks. I was in no way excited to push my car around in the blistering heat after the halfshaft bolts broke at a busy intersection. But the notion that I'm blindly defending the car having a bad gauge is silly because I expressly stated the exact opposite. I'm a realist. The car is old. It's out of production. It does not carry a lifetime warranty. It's been a bulletproof terror as people squeeze ludicrous amounts of power out of it. It does things virtually no other cars can do. We just had a guy make 1105rwhp as his car crossed 40,000 miles on a dyno. Try and make a Ferrari make it 40 miles at that power level! Compromises exist.

I told you what you can do to assist. You can send me the gauge. I will give it to SVT. If there is a fix, I promise you will get the gauge back. I recognize that it's a bitch to remove the gauge, but if the problem is going to get addressed, it's going to take analysis to do it.

 

[PeakCompletions]

Honestly, DBK has excellent points (other than showing all the F Cars burning to the ground and my recent purchase :ack)...

There is honestly no better "supercar" out there... from the flexibility these cars give us for mods, easy maintenance, ford modular motor reliability and simplicity, and with the exception of half shaft bolts, and some gauge issues, an absolutely BULLET PROOF car...

I have modded numerous other cars and can attest to none of the others being this worry free...

I have had several GTs where the gauges didn't fire up... all low battery situations... luckily they all fired back up once battery was charged... in those cases, ALL gauges were dead...

except for a tach which went out on my Matte Black car (numerous dead batteries from sitting at shop, not to mention everything taken apart and put back together which compared to the many different procedures listed here was quite extreme)... all have been ok...

with that said... here is a GREAT alternative :biggrin

same price as a set of gauges and tells you everything you need to know :banana

 

[hollywoodstunts]

DBK:
"They have nothing to do with Ford's gauge problems. The point was that you wondered if Ferraris had gauge problems. Sure they do, if you count burning to the ground in a flaming heap of ashes."
I didn't want a Ferrari and gauges didn't cause the fires.

"And if it doesn't do that, you'd have been killed with depreciation that cost 10-20-30x the price of a gauge."
Since when does limited depreciation justify a design flaw?

"What would you rather have? I can't see the logic in wondering if you could have had a car that would have lost $50,000 in a year with no gauge problems vs. paying $1500 to fix one. My point is that there is no such thing as a perfect car, and if the only thing you have to absorb in the life of a car like this is a gauge for $1000, consider it a major victory."
If you could guarantee if only had to replace the gauges once, I wouldn't be trying to find a fix. Unfortunately, I have had multiple failures. And there's no reason not to expect multiple failures in the future.

"If you purely don't want to deal with any hassles, I would just sell the car, and I would definitely stay away from anything with a horse or bull on the badge."
Again with the suggestion to sell my car. Let me say it one more time. I don't want to sell my car. I just want the gauge problem solved. I bought American with the assumption that at Ford, quality is job one. Is that out the window with the GT's?

"I also explicitly stated "This is not to minimize the fact that it's a pain in the ass to have a gauge go bad. That said, the total cost of ownership of a Ford GT over the past 5 years is lower than virtually any car on the planet, even if you replaced all your gauges twice." I get it, it's a pain in the ass and it sucks. I was in no way excited to push my car around in the blistering heat after the halfshaft bolts broke at a busy intersection. But the notion that I'm blindly defending the car having a bad gauge is silly because I expressly stated the exact opposite. I'm a realist. The car is old. It's out of production. It does not carry a lifetime warranty. It's been a bulletproof terror as people squeeze ludicrous amounts of power out of it. It does things virtually no other cars can do. We just had a guy make 1105rwhp as his car crossed 40,000 miles on a dyno. Try and make a Ferrari make it 40 miles at that power level! Compromises exist."
Again, how does cost of ownership or performance justify a design flaw?

"I told you what you can do to assist. You can send me the gauge. I will give it to SVT. If there is a fix, I promise you will get the gauge back. I recognize that it's a bitch to remove the gauge, but if the problem is going to get addressed, it's going to take analysis to do it."
Based on what you said earlier, "Suppliers are generally not in a big hurry, and by 'not a big hurry' I mean 'have zero interest in' paying for any out of warranty OE diagnoses/replacements, etc." Who's going to spend time and $$$ to find a solution to for a limited production car that's five years out of warranty and out of production?
If you have someone at Ford willing to fix this, I'll FedEx my gauge to them Tuesday morning for 8am delivery. But you said there is "zero interest."

In closing, I don't want to sell my car, but I don't think an argument based on strong resale is justification for overlooking a design flaw. If replacing the gauge were a solution, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But it's not. There's a problem. Gauges keep failing. And I'm not ok with saying because it's the cheapest "supercar" that I should overlook this problem.
I love the GT. Just want my gauges to work.

 

[dbk]

When you said "Ferraris are way more exotic than our F150 based Fords" (which was pretty snarky) and then "I wonder if they have bad gauges" and then "I bet they don't" the implication was that Ferraris are more complex and don't have stupid problems like bad gauges. My responses was to show that sure, maybe Ferraris do not have this particular IP problem, but your Ford GT won't self-immolate on the I-5 or be worth 40% of what you paid for it. You invited the comparison, so if you want to duck under the point as it flies overhead, fine.

If you have someone at Ford willing to fix this, I'll FedEx my gauge to them Tuesday morning for 8am delivery. But you said there is "zero interest."

That is absolutely not what I said, nor is what I've been saying for months. I said suppliers have zero interest in fixing old and out of warranty items. Ford is not a supplier. I'm done trying to explain that if I am sent a gauge, I will walk across the street and physically put it in the hands of the Ford GT program manager. The program is long dead, they don't have any obligation to do anything, but he's already been willing to listen to me argue for some type of remedy and requested I gather any bad ones to see what they can figure out. They did not get far with their supplier but they've already been looking at them to see what they can figure out. Anyone that is serious about getting it fixed, I continue to make the offer.

In closing, nobody is saying being "cheapest" should make you overlook your bad gauge. I'm just personally of the opinion guys are generally either pragmatic, willing to rationally assess accelerated development schedules and weigh that against design objectives and deal practically with problems as they occur, or they are looking for a reason to shoot down every reasonable idea to solve a problem so they can continue to complain on the internet.

 

[laniakea]

Guys, I think we've beaten every ounce of life out of this thread from both engineering and a practical standpoint we possibly can. Pictures of burning F and L cars (although nice to see) do not lend any credence to what is taking place with our gauges. DBK’s offer is the best solution presently offered based on his proximity and ability to communicate with the folks at SVT. Shelby and I are on the same page, root cause and effect is the name of the game. What caused the problem originally, and what is the final result based on the root cause? We don’t know if the gauges are the problem or if there is a problem with the vehicle’s electrical system or one or more of its components. Whenever we as engineers have a pandemic of failures, we one thing; need data, data, data. There is no absolutely no substitute for having the defective part in hand to do our analysis. That being said I think it’s important that anyone with a bad gauge who truly wants to get this issue resolved needs to send their gauge to DBK along with a brief history of the circumstances surrounding the failure. He has offered to walk it across the street to SVT, provide SVT with all the information on each individual situation, and return the defective gauge to its owner, what more could we ask for. In a classified project some months ago we had a continuous failure of one particular gyro every time our project went to a certain altitude, in every instance NASA would not allow our team to take the suspected part back to our lab to do in house testing. Even though we spent millions developing and building the vessel from the scratch, it was their opinion that they were the most qualified entity to do the analysis of failure testing. At a cost of just under a million dollars a flight it was decided after the 4th failure we would be allowed to take all 4 of the parts back to our lab to take a closer look. As it turned out it was the suspected part sourced from a reputable supplier, all from the same lot that was causing all the grief. The next flight was successful. My point here is that there is not a better place for our defective gauges to go than to the company who designed and sourced the manufacturing of them. If it gets to a point where SVT or Autometer decides to discontinue their analysis then we as a community can explore our options from there. Rather than trying to re-invent what SVT has already done let’s all quit bitching about the gauge failures and do something about it.

 

[laniakea]

Honestly, DBK has excellent points (other than showing all the F Cars burning to the ground and my recent purchase :ack)...

There is honestly no better "supercar" out there... from the flexibility these cars give us for mods, easy maintenance, ford modular motor reliability and simplicity, and with the exception of half shaft bolts, and some gauge issues, an absolutely BULLET PROOF car...

I have modded numerous other cars and can attest to none of the others being this worry free...

I have had several GTs where the gauges didn't fire up... all low battery situations... luckily they all fired back up once battery was charged... in those cases, ALL gauges were dead...

except for a tach which went out on my Matte Black car (numerous dead batteries from sitting at shop, not to mention everything taken apart and put back together which compared to the many different procedures listed here was quite extreme)... all have been ok...

with that said... here is a GREAT alternative :biggrin
same price as a set of gauges and tells you everything you need to know :banana

Peak, what was involved in making this modification including parts and time involved. Also what would it take to put the dash back to the factory setup?

 

[SteveA]

Guys, I think we've beaten every ounce of life out of this thread from both engineering and a practical standpoint we possibly can. Pictures of burning F and L cars (although nice to see) do not lend any credence to what is taking place with our gauges. DBK’s offer is the best solution presently offered based on his proximity and ability to communicate with the folks at SVT. Shelby and I are on the same page, root cause and effect is the name of the game. What caused the problem originally, and what is the final result based on the root cause? We don’t know if the gauges are the problem or if there is a problem with the vehicle’s electrical system or one or more of its components. Whenever we as engineers have a pandemic of failures, we one thing; need data, data, data. There is no absolutely no substitute for having the defective part in hand to do our analysis. That being said I think it’s important that anyone with a bad gauge who truly wants to get this issue resolved needs to send their gauge to DBK along with a brief history of the circumstances surrounding the failure. He has offered to walk it across the street to SVT, provide SVT with all the information on each individual situation, and return the defective gauge to its owner, what more could we ask for. In a classified project some months ago we had a continuous failure of one particular gyro every time our project went to a certain altitude, in every instance NASA would not allow our team to take the suspected part back to our lab to do in house testing. Even though we spent millions developing and building the vessel from the scratch, it was their opinion that they were the most qualified entity to do the analysis of failure testing. At a cost of just under a million dollars a flight it was decided after the 4th failure we would be allowed to take all 4 of the parts back to our lab to take a closer look. As it turned out it was the suspected part sourced from a reputable supplier, all from the same lot that was causing all the grief. The next flight was successful. My point here is that there is not a better place for our defective gauges to go than to the company who designed and sourced the manufacturing of them. If it gets to a point where SVT or Autometer decides to discontinue their analysis then we as a community can explore our options from there. Rather than trying to re-invent what SVT has already done let’s all quit bitching about the gauge failures and do something about it.

Well stated, but I would take a slight exception to the last sentence. Bitching doesn't help but I don't think most in this thread have done that. One of the things I like most about this forum is our ability to stay civil when a disagreement or problem comes up from time to time. Having Talked behind the scenes to many owners there is a real disagreement as to how prevalent this problem is and I believe a continued reporting of the frequency of the problem is a must. However I also think we need to be careful not to be perceived as an unhappy ownership community and let this gauge problem become the next "control arm" problem thus damaging the value and reputation of this fantastic car. After reading the 13+ pages of this thread it is apparent this issue although a concern isn't a ownership deal breaker for any of us so let's not create an outsiders view of despair around the car. I also think it would be a good idea that if this thread is on going, to move it to the ownership section.

 

[hollywoodstunts]

Laniakea, I couldn't agree more about beating every ounce of life out of this thread.

DBK: moving towards a solution, are three gauges not enough to determine the cause of failure? Regarding the three that have been collected, do they not have a common problem?

Can the results of the analysis be shared so we could be that much closer to a solution? This is a simple system, gauges interfaced with a common control module. Lets find the solution and move forward.

Again, all I'm looking for is a solution that keeps my GT's dash looking stock.

 

[FENZO]

Supercar fires

My GT is on fire!!!!
(not mine)
I'm not a fan of the 'let's keep this secret so it doesn't affect the value' sentiment, but my guages all work so maybe my opinion doesn't count.

 

[SteveA]

I think all owners opinions should count, I just think they may change when and if and to what degree they start having the problem.

 

[dbk]

DBK: moving towards a solution, are three gauges not enough to determine the cause of failure? Regarding the three that have been collected, do they not have a common problem?

Can the results of the analysis be shared so we could be that much closer to a solution? This is a simple system, gauges interfaced with a common control module. Lets find the solution and move forward.

No, three gauges are not enough to determine the cause of failure. No, the problem was not common.

I'm not gonna get into the hypotheticals of what may or may not be a root cause because if there's one way to burn bridges with guys that stick their neck out to work on things they don't have to, it's providing incorrect or incomplete information.

 

[david b]

With all of the people complaining... we only have 3 gauges. Thats ridiculous. If you dont send in your gauge then in my opinion you are PART of the problem and not part of the solution. Pretty cut and dry.

Lets also not forget DBK is doing this for all of us on his time. For that thank you.

 

[dbk]

For the record, I totally understand not wanting to yank a gauge out if you don't have to. Not everyone has a Rich or Dennis around to mess with their IP and someone less competent could potentially scratch up their dash.

I'm working on getting an entire IP out of a car and that should go a long way in assisting with the issue.

 

[RALPHIE]

Thanks for all your efforts, Dave. :thumbsup

 

[Joehand1]

FYI, I just replaced my battery with the Platinum Diehard...the gauges are no longer acting funny, so far....

 

[laniakea]

Out of curiosity has anyone taken what is considered a bad gauge and put it into a car that all gauges are working properly? Just maybe the electronics in the car are just enough out of sync with the gauges and the gauges deemed bad may not be bad after all?

I’m just asking.

 

[GT35065]

For whatever it is worth, I had my GT500 to my local Ford dealer this week. I talked to the tech that replaced a couple of guages on a GT of a forum member. He said it is really no big deal, and that the guages are really easy to replace. The most interesting thing he told me is that he did not have to unplug the harness (up under the footwell). He said there is enough slack in the harness to R & R guages without a problem. It gave me more confidence on pulling my two guages myself. I still think plenty of blue tape around bezel is a must to avoid scratching. If I can get to it, I will send DBK my tach and temp guages.

Any body know if running car without a couple guages plugged in to the harness may cause any damage? I am reluctant to put my two new guages in until we know more about what is going on.