Originally posted by ToltecSVT: Anyway, like i said I did some research: I called my brother (the little &@#$@# works in engine development at Aston Martin -what a beyond cool job- but used to build cars from crates for Export Inventory Control at Ford) and he made some calls. The thing is, not a single Contour in Canada received the "third supplier" gas tank. We aren't talking about a year to year change or anything. There were actually three suppliers of gas tanks for the Contour program. One was added in midrun of '98 model year and because of import/export logistics and blah, blah, blah (i don't always listen to everything my bro says)...that specific supplier's gas tank never went on a Canadian export. that same supplier became the sole supplier in 2000 and that among many other reasons added to Canada not getting any Contours in 2000. I will place the following disclaimer: "At least, that what my brother said."
That makes sense and would explain the situation, however it makes you wonder, would Ford use a supplier that made parts outside of their specs? It wouldn't make sense for Ford to use parts of one design from two vendors and entirely differently designed parts from a third vendor and then mix the parts up within the same year model runs.
Brullen and Performance Fords are trying to get their arms around this situation and in the future will probably list multiple sku numbers for their systems based on model year and country of origin but I haven't heard of similiar fitment problems with Bassani, Bosal or Borla. Just food for thought.
