Hello Forum,<br /><br />I am a newby to this group, but not to Ranger ownership. Over the years I've had five and currently have three of them, one of which is a 2002 Edge that I bought new. The latest, a 2010 Sport 4x4 with 4.0 and manual shift, I took delivery of last week. I bought this truck sight unseen from a dealer in Chicago and had it shipped to California. Why did I buy a vehicle without a test drive you ask? Well, I wanted a black 2010 or 2011 Ranger Sport 4x4 with the 4.0 engine and a standard shift. And, it had to have under 40,000 miles. A search of the US yielded only two choices, both in the east, with nothing on the west coast. One of the options had an iffy CarFax, so I passed on that one. That left only one option, Chigago. The dealer photos were beautiful and the truck is as it appeared, but!<br /><br />I've never owned a vehicle from the east, so I was a bit shocked at the amount of rust on the underside, although I was aware of what salt and snow can do. I'm hoping there is no frame involvement and it will be just a question of replacing some parts and a new spare tire and wheel. The BIG problem is wind noise. Because we live in a mountainous area, the car transport company would not deliver the truck to the house. So, I met the carrier at a shopping center along Interstate 10 and took delivery. On the drive back home, which included both freeway and city street driving, the interior wind noise level was insane. You could not carry on a conversation or listen to music with this sound. It seems to be coming from the passenger side of the windshield. Upon close daylight inspection, I could see that someone (dealership, previous owner?) had applied a large amount of silicone sealer at the A pillar. This obviously did not work. I Googled the phenom and it seems that this can be an issue with some Ford Rangers. As I have had four previous Rangers and none of them had this problem, I'm a bit perplexed about what to do. I bought the vehicle "as-is", so calling the dealer will be useless, this is my problem, buyer beware! Has anyone else experienced this problem and what have you done to remedy the situation. I checked Ford for recalls, but did not see any. This sound could be coming from another place, but it's most pronounced at the windshield.<br /><br />Thank you,<br /><br />SM

 

Welcome to the forum

Pretty much any vehicle with a windshield can get rusted out lower corners, so there is a leak in there under the silicone, windshield will need to be pulled to repair it.
All windshields have a trough around them, covered by trim molding, and water will get in that trough and run down to the lower corners, and it sits there, if the paint and primer degrade then that water starts to rust out the steel and that water leaks into cab
On this late of a model it is odd to get that issue, but your report of under side rust would mean it is possible.
Water will leak down inside the cab and can short out Smart Junction Box(passenger kick panel) causing all kinds of odd electrical issues including no start.

"Back east" the roads are salted during winter, salt in water aids oxidation/rusting of metal.
Remember back to high school chemistry, you connected a light bulb to power via two probes stuck in a glass of water and nothing happened, no light up
Then you added some salt to the water and BINGO, light bulb lights up
Same principle with rust, water doesn't rust metal very fast, but if you add salts(minerals) to that water it will rust 100 times faster


As far as the noise, check hood gasket rear, also door gasket on passenger side.
Also give the firewall a good once over for holes, you could put a temporary cover over the grill, cold engine, then go for a drive to see if noise is coming from engine bay air flow at speed

 

Thank you for the excellent information. The truck and I have a date with the local Ford dealer next week. Fingers crossed.

 

Pretty much any windshield/glass company can pull off windshield, clean up trough and repair it, repaint/seal trough, re-tape and put windshield back in for less than Ford dealer