general problems of the 2008 Ford E-350

I was driving on i215 in salt lake city utah at 65mph when I hit a small bump in the road and the front end of the truck began shaking violently and I could not regain control before it ran me off the road into a ditch narrowly missing a concrete barrier and another vehicle. There was no impact, however I am not sure how I kept it from rolling the truck. This has happened to me in three other Ford trucks ranging from 2006 to 2008 that I used to drive at work. And now my personal 2008 f350. I hear that they call it the death wobble. I want to know why there is no recall for this.

I was have problems with the front end of my vehicle, I brought the vehicle to my mechanic to investigate the problems. He inspected the control arms, ball joints and rebalanced the tires. He basically didn't do anything to change the problem. The following day I was driving the van to work and noticed the front end getting worse. I then called into the shop to make another appointment. When I was driving to the mechanic the van steering went and the van became uncontrollable, since I was only a few miles away I managed to get it to the shop. After further investigation by the mechanic he told me that the steering box was bad and indicated it was very unusual for a 2008 with only 60,000 miles. I told him to fix the vehicle and when he went to the parts dealer to pick up a new steering box they indicated they are selling allot of these over the past couple of years. When he remove the steering box from our vehicle for further investigation he noticed that the failure was a fractured mechanical part. Which means it was a catastrophic failure, usually a steer box will get loose due to wearing components and eventually fail. . . This broke!!! he asked me to check will Ford to see if this steering box in 2008 e350 vans is a recall item, which it wasn't. He told me if this failure was at highway speeds it would have resulted in an accident and may have been fatality. I looked for recall information and found nothing, I'm now reaching out via the NHTSA to highlight this issue in hopes that they can alert people and bring it to the attention of the manufacturer. I also wouldn't mind some pay back for the $1,200 bill I received from our mechanic.

The steering on this van is very "loose" causing it to wander and require constant correction at all speeds. At normal highway speeds, hitting any bumps causes the back of the vehicle to skip or shift requiring significant steering correction and causing the vehicle to be very unstable. Mechanical inspection reveals no failure with any parts. (shame on Ford for this vehicle).

Excessive steering wheel play.

This is not a failure or a malfunction but a complaint about the steering play in the 2008 Ford e350 vans which is a result of the design of the steering.

There has been no crash to date. The complaint is related to the poor driving performance of 2008 Ford f350 12 passenger vans. The steering control is very poor and may cause accidents. There is so much "slop" in the steering that you can feel the vehicle sway back and forth while driving. In some cases, at higher freeway speeds, the van starts to fishtail (like a travel trailer with too much weight in the back). We have asked our local Ford dealership to look at the problem, but, the steering is still bad. I have owned many Ford vehicles and have never encountered this type of problem before.

Excessive sway and dangerous to drive at highway speeds.

The contact owns a 2008 Ford E-350. While driving 60 mph, the vehicle began to sway from left to right, making it difficult to remain in the intended lane. The vehicle was diagnosed by the dealer, but was not repaired. The failure mileage was 100. Updated 5/19/08 updated.