2015 Ford Focus flat tow damage
I had a 2015 Ford Focus that Ford said it could be flat tow behind a RV . My Ford Focus came lose from my RV . The unibody broke from the weld . The whole front of car came off . The car was still und...
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That's pretty bad! I'm glad you were moving slowly, that would have been bad if you were on the highway!
Some interesting things I can see in the photos:
Photo 1 - the welds are all still intact to the connection plate.
Photo 2 - The frame tube is where the failure occurred. It looks like there might be some rust at some of the fracture locations, indicating a long term fatigue failure.
This tells me it was probably not a manufacturing defect, rather a design problem. Not necessarily a Ford design problem, just that the member sizes weren't adequate for the added stress of being towed.
On the other hand, Ford states that it CAN be flat towed. I suspect that they didn't have a full grasp of the stresses involved. If memory serves me correctly, 2015 was the first or second year the Focus was flat towable.
Anyway, sorry this happened to you, hopefully others can learn from it. Sure makes me glad I got rid of mine a few years back!
Some interesting things I can see in the photos:
Photo 1 - the welds are all still intact to the connection plate.
Photo 2 - The frame tube is where the failure occurred. It looks like there might be some rust at some of the fracture locations, indicating a long term fatigue failure.
This tells me it was probably not a manufacturing defect, rather a design problem. Not necessarily a Ford design problem, just that the member sizes weren't adequate for the added stress of being towed.
On the other hand, Ford states that it CAN be flat towed. I suspect that they didn't have a full grasp of the stresses involved. If memory serves me correctly, 2015 was the first or second year the Focus was flat towable.
Anyway, sorry this happened to you, hopefully others can learn from it. Sure makes me glad I got rid of mine a few years back!
