Can't deal with the bouncy ride anymore after two weeks with the Mach-E. What do I do?

[Fat Mach]

Since I don't own an MME yet, I'm just paraphrasing what I've read about the "bouncy" ride. From what I gather, people are experiencing either 1) Ride harshness or 2) Harmonic motion amplification over evenly spaced road undulations (this second one seems to be the one that is more common).

That said, I did not experience this in the very short test drive I took with a Premium 4x/ER MME. The roads I drove on were definitely nowhere near high-quality, but the car seemed OK to me.

OK, thanks for the explanation. I can see either of those conditions being unwelcome if you've not experienced them on previous vehicles. The harmonics is what I feel typically on concrete road sections and bridges.

Sponsored

 

[Guy]

They look good but they don't look like the stock rims. Did you replace your rims also?

Yes.

 

[Al-E]

Finally able to grab a video at night. This is the bouncing up and down on smooth (to my eye) roads that’s especially tough at night with the added visual element of seeing the lights rock up and down constantly. ?

skip to the last 5 seconds to see the weird lock/roll back and forth the car does every time it comes to a stop. I have to assume this is related to the bouncyness because it’s nearly impossible to come to a smooth stop without the car jerking back and forth like I slammed on the brakes. It can be the longest, slowest, most controlled stop and yet always makes this exaggerated motion at the end. I’m not using 1 pedal and I do use auto hold. It’s the same with or without autohold on and in every drive style. I don’t use or plan to use 1 pedal anytime soon so if that works it’s still not a solution.

 

[idkhow]

Finally able to grab a video at night.

Okay wow, I may have what's described as ' Harmonic motion amplification over evenly spaced road undulations' - aka a tiny bounce barely noticeable, more on par with a soft suspension vehicle. Maybe 500ms-1s longer, where a harsher bump is smoothed / spaced out, but this just looks like something's wrong.

 

[Al-E]

Okay wow, I may have what's described as ' Harmonic motion amplification over evenly spaced road undulations' - aka a tiny bounce barely noticeable, more on par with a soft suspension vehicle. Maybe 500ms-1s longer, where a harsher bump is smoothed / spaced out, but this just looks like something's wrong.

Oh crap really? I guess I’ll take it in once I move

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

@bellyer was the OP on this thread way back in the day ... what did he end up doing about this around the roads?

 

[idkhow]

I thought people didn't like the spongy ridge, but I got some slight verigto watching that, something's not right. You checked for those spacers between the springs right? They're red or yellow, some were forgotten to be removed at the dealer.

Just seems like something where you can demonstrate clearly which should make their job easier, as bringing these cars to local Ford dealers even in NJ feels like being in Doc Hollywood.

 

[Al-E]

I thought people didn't like the spongy ridge, but I got some slight verigto watching that, something's not right. You checked for those spacers between the springs right? They're red or yellow, some were forgotten to be removed at the dealer.

Just seems like something where you can demonstrate clearly which should make their job easier, as bringing these cars to local Ford dealers even in NJ feels like being in Doc Hollywood.

Yeah I did. Believe me when that came up in the thread I got so excited figuring that was the problem but nope.

Also getting the air pressure down to 39 from 46 seems to have made things worse?? It might just be my imagination though as I was so excited to get the car I probably didn’t notice, but after 1,000 miles I’m definitely picking up on these things. So it was probably just as bad with more PSI, just noticing it now.

 

[bellyer]

@bellyer was the OP on this thread way back in the day ... what did he end up doing about this around the roads?

Glad someone captured a video of the way it looks at night. It actually seems worse at night because of the headlights being so sharp and direct in terms of the way the beam just cuts off straight out in front of you. It is really bad when you end up with jersey barriers around you in close proximity to you on either side or ahead as you approach a bend.

What did I end up doing about it all? Nothing. For the most part, I have had to just force myself to tolerate the situation and to try to avoid roads or section of roads where I know I face this bounce or where I have lots of potholes, etc. The ride is truly awful on stretch of road like what @Al-E showed in the video. When I can't avoid those stretches or just don't even realize that I am approaching a road like that, I just breath and tell myself that I will get through it soon enough. ?

I have had Ford look at the vehicle. They found nothing wrong, but I also don't think they took the car to any stretches of road where you actually run into this harmonic bounce. One Ford rep told me to stress that we need to have anyone and everyone who runs into this kind of issue to make sure they report it to their dealer and tell the service department where they can go experience it, so that it can be looked into and maybe, just maybe, they will eventually find a way to either fix this through a recall/TSB or they can at least potentially fix it in future models of the car. Please schedule time with your dealer service department and ask them to send out a Field Service Engineer from corporate to look into this too. I can share information like my support case number that you can also add to your ticket to compound the complaints about this.

@Al-E , thanks for capturing the night time video. That is really when it is the most noticeable because of the headlights. I had never run into an opportunity to capture the video at night, but have lots of daytime footage. Good luck and let me know when you get the dealer to look into this on your MME.

 

[mkhuffman]

Glad someone captured a video of the way it looks at night. It actually seems worse at night because of the headlights being so sharp and direct in terms of the way the beam just cuts off straight out in front of you. It is really bad when you end up with jersey barriers around you in close proximity to you on either side or ahead as you approach a bend.

What did I end up doing about it all? Nothing. For the most part, I have had to just force myself to tolerate the situation and to try to avoid roads or section of roads where I know I face this bounce or where I have lots of potholes, etc. The ride is truly awful on stretch of road like what @Al-E showed in the video. When I can't avoid those stretches or just don't even realize that I am approaching a road like that, I just breath and tell myself that I will get through it soon enough. ?

I have had Ford look at the vehicle. They found nothing wrong, but I also don't think they took the car to any stretches of road where you actually run into this harmonic bounce. One Ford rep told me to stress that we need to have anyone and everyone who runs into this kind of issue to make sure they report it to their dealer and tell the service department where they can go experience it, so that it can be looked into and maybe, just maybe, they will eventually find a way to either fix this through a recall/TSB or they can at least potentially fix it in future models of the car. Please schedule time with your dealer service department and ask them to send out a Field Service Engineer from corporate to look into this too. I can share information like my support case number that you can also add to your ticket to compound the complaints about this.

@Al-E , thanks for capturing the night time video. That is really when it is the most noticeable because of the headlights. I had never run into an opportunity to capture the video at night muselg, but have lots of daytime footage. Good luck and let me know when you get the dealer to look into this on your MME.

The consensus that I have seen in this forum is that eventually the fix will be new shocks/struts. Once the car has been out for a while, and maybe very soon, aftermarket shocks will emerge and people will try them to see if the problem can be mitigated. I wonder if Ford will pay for new shocks if that does fix the problem? Rhetorical question, but I bet some people will get Ford to cover it under warranty. I doubt most will, though, because that will be a very expensive warranty repair for Ford.

 

[Cnote]

Glad someone captured a video of the way it looks at night. It actually seems worse at night because of the headlights being so sharp and direct in terms of the way the beam just cuts off straight out in front of you. It is really bad when you end up with jersey barriers around you in close proximity to you on either side or ahead as you approach a bend.

What did I end up doing about it all? Nothing. For the most part, I have had to just force myself to tolerate the situation and to try to avoid roads or section of roads where I know I face this bounce or where I have lots of potholes, etc. The ride is truly awful on stretch of road like what @Al-E showed in the video. When I can't avoid those stretches or just don't even realize that I am approaching a road like that, I just breath and tell myself that I will get through it soon enough. ?

I have had Ford look at the vehicle. They found nothing wrong, but I also don't think they took the car to any stretches of road where you actually run into this harmonic bounce. One Ford rep told me to stress that we need to have anyone and everyone who runs into this kind of issue to make sure they report it to their dealer and tell the service department where they can go experience it, so that it can be looked into and maybe, just maybe, they will eventually find a way to either fix this through a recall/TSB or they can at least potentially fix it in future models of the car. Please schedule time with your dealer service department and ask them to send out a Field Service Engineer from corporate to look into this too. I can share information like my support case number that you can also add to your ticket to compound the complaints about this.

@Al-E , thanks for capturing the night time video. That is really when it is the most noticeable because of the headlights. I had never run into an opportunity to capture the video at night muselg, but have lots of daytime footage. Good luck and let me know when you get the dealer to look into this on your MME.

Yeah I did. Believe me when that came up in the thread I got so excited figuring that was the problem but nope.

Also getting the air pressure down to 39 from 46 seems to have made things worse?? It might just be my imagination though as I was so excited to get the car I probably didn’t notice, but after 1,000 miles I’m definitely picking up on these things. So it was probably just as bad with more PSI, just noticing it now.

I also want to thank you for getting the video. I had downloaded some daytime examples from my dash cam but I pretty much gave up on this thread until recently (mine bounces like that even on the highway which tends to be fairly smooth so it's not just "bad" roads for me). I have had dealers look at it to make sure there was nothing wrong and they concluded that there was nothing they could do and that the suspension seemed stiffer than most ice Mustangs they worked on after they test drove other Mach Es.

I guess I just don't understand how headlights bobbing up and down like that can be considered normal when I have not seen other vehicles having the issue (and I've been watching other vehicles like a hawk to see if I notice this same behavior).

I contacted Ford on this forum and they logged a ticket only for it to be closed saying "nothing we can do." So I continue to bounce around hoping I will get used to it or notice it less until something in the aftermarket becomes available because I do love everything else about the car.

 

[Fat Mach]

You guys have actually verified with your own eyes that there are in facts struts (shocks) at all four corners, right? That video above makes me think either the struts aren't on there, or they are infant mortality.

 

[bellyer]

You guys have actually verified with your own eyes that there are in facts struts (shocks) at all four corners, right? That video above makes me think either the struts aren't on there, or they are infant mortality.

Yes, there are definitely struts there. Ford has thoroughly examined my Mach-E and has come back saying that everything is normal. I would bet that every Mach-E owner out there would have these same issues, too, you just have to be lucky enough to find the right roads to experience this awful bouncing on. It definitely is not everywhere, but there are some stretches of certain roads that are pure nausea-inducing torture and the headlights really do make it even worse and more noticeable.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

My personal opinion about this is is that this is a combination of the car's inherent design characteristics, the various idiosyncrasies of people (we all have them), the types of roads, and the state of roads. They can all come together in a perfect storm.

We have exactly 1 concrete road on island. It's 3 miles long and is about 7 years old. Everything else is asphalt. I've found exactly one section of asphalt road near here that was worn enough by heavy trucks that it induced some of this bounciness. It didn't bother me at all, your experience may be different on concrete roads. FWIW.

 

[pt19713]

I guess I just don't understand how headlights bobbing up and down like that can be considered normal when I have not seen other vehicles having the issue (and I've been watching other vehicles like a hawk to see if I notice this same behavior).

If you haven't test driven a Model Y, give it a try and you may find the Tesla's ride stiffer. Supposedly the 2021 models ride softer and the 2020 Y are stiffer.

Hopefully the aftermarket will offer better options.

Sponsored