- A Ford harvest program requests that select Mustang owners submit to replacing one of their engine heads.
- The removed part would then go back to Ford for study and examination.
- It appears as though some damage could occur in cases where owners don’t submit to the request.
Imagine a letter showing up in your mailbox from the company that made your car, requesting you to bring it in for a crucial engine component replacement. That might sound a bit strange, but it’s exactly what some Ford Mustang owners are dealing with right now.
The Blue Oval has has initiated a “harvest program” to investigate a potential issue with the left-side cylinder head on certain V8-powered Mustang models. Owners who don’t participate in the program risk losing future warranty coverage for this specific component.
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Harvest programs are somewhat rare in the automotive world and not every brand calls them by the same name. At times, they’re a precursor to a recall. Other times, they’re unrelated. In this case, the program, dubbed 24H01, involves removing and replacing the left head on the engine along with the exhaust camshaft.
According to one letter sent to an owner and shared on Facebook, it’s all over a voluntary study Ford is conducting. Specifically, it wants to “evaluate the field performance and functionality of the left-hand engine cylinder head.” It makes no note of investigating the camshaft, even though it does indicate that it’ll be replaced as well. “Inspecting your vehicle will help Ford complete its investigation,” the letter says.
According to some owners, the program only includes 11 vehicles in total. Ford confirmed this to Carscoops. All were built between January 30th and February 1st of this year.
Here’s where this whole thing gets a bit odd. At the end of the letter, it says that “Ford Motor Company can deny coverage for any vehicle damage that may result from failure to have this service action performed on a timely basis.”
The language used by Ford seems to imply that there could very well be some sort of ticking time bomb under that head. If no problem exists, including this clause seems unnecessary.
The problem could lie with the cam or the head but Ford isn’t saying. We reached out in hopes of getting some clarification. Here’s what Ford told Carscoops: “As part of our commitment to quality, we are voluntarily conducting a study on eleven 2024 Mustang 5.0L vehicles to obtain field parts to evaluate the performance and functionality of the obtained left-hand engine cylinder heads. Ford is not aware of any warranty claims related to this program.”
