The Old Folks Home

getaclue said:

Went grocery shopping yesterday, with a couple of the grands. When we finished up, got into the truck, and one of the grands was shutting the truck door while I was starting it up, when all of a sudden there was an explosive sound. It was like an incredibly loud clap of thunder coming from the sound system. It startled the heck out of us.

We were about to head home, when I noticed I had no sound from the speakers. The dealership was nearby, so I headed there to make an appointment to have it looked at. The service tech did a reset on the computer system, and the sound system started working. The service tech mentioned that in exceedingly rare instances, they had heard reports of feedback from the speakers going back to the amp, causing that to happen. It was probably a one time event, and the reset seemed to have fixed it, so unless it happened again, there was no need to schedule it for servicing. In the event it happened again, let them know, and they would have to replace the amp.

Bang & Oulfsen has been one of the top names in sound systems for many years. It was an upgrade that cost extra. In the back of my mind, it was rattling around that Ford had only put in B & O speakers so they could claim it was a B & O sound system, justifying the extra charge, but used the cheaper, inferior, amp that was standard without the upgrade. I suspected the amp replacement involved installing the more expensive B & O amp, or a more expensive high end amp that's compatible with the rest of the sound system.

I came home, and told Dh what had happened. He began doing a bit of research. This morning, he called our dealership. They gave him a similar spiel to the one they told me. He let them know that it was not a rare incident. In fact, there is a class action lawsuit, involving over 3,200 people, that have not only experienced this, but had their hearing affected, or had been injured from their startled reactions to it. It only affects the 2022 and 2023 models with the Bang & Oulfsen surround sound systems.

Something else Dh had not told me, when he took the truck to Home Depot last week, the loud noise happened to him, but it didn't knock out the sound system. When it happened, it turned the volume all the way up, and he couldn't turn it down, so he turned the truck off. When he turned the truck off, and restarted it, he was able to turn the volume down. No harm, no foul, so don't mention it to wifey, right?

Understand, it's not music coming out of the speakers, like as if one had simply turned the volume up. It's an explosive sound, like claps of thunder, coming out of the speakers at full volume.

The truck is not to be driven, and they will be sending a wrecker to pick it up, next Tuesday morning to replace the amp. All this because Ford cut corners.

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