Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for a system that could estimate the remaining useful life of parts that may be used in future Ford vehicles, Ford Authority has learned.
The patent was filed on September 1st, 2021, published on January 7th, 2025, and assigned serial number 12189383.
The Ford Authority Take
Modern day vehicles are capable of informing owners when they need all sorts of maintenance items – whether that be air in the tires, the oil needing to be changed, or any other number of measures. However, Ford sees a future when vehicles can do much more in that regard, given its recently published patents outlining ideas for things like a brake fade indication system, a tire monitoring system, and a parts theft detection system. Now, this newly filed patent aims to outline a system that could predict the remaining useful life of parts, something that Ford CEO Jim Farley has hinted at in the past.
This proposed system would rely on the concept known as predictive maintenance, which involves constantly monitoring the condition of certain parts in a vehicle to determine when maintenance might be required. This can be done locally via sensors placed throughout a vehicle, or by using connected vehicle technology, which would lean on a cloud-based vehicle health monitoring system. Either way, this particular system would be able to predict when maintenance items are needed by collecting additional data from other vehicles, too.
As Ford points out in this patent, it could use connected vehicle technology to obtain wear data for the same model in many circumstances, which would give it a pretty good idea of when a part is getting near the end of its useful life. This could help prevent breakdowns from occurring – something owners would certainly appreciate – and also reduce downtime in fleets as well, making it seemingly viable for use in future Ford vehicles.
Comments
Beyond the fact this is more creepy stuff from Ford’s desire to have a Total Surveillance System of a product that you supposedly “own,” does anyone think this information will honestly be used? This is platform to upsell unneeded parts and services before they actually need to be replaced. And it will add more sensors, more initial costs, more maintenance costs, and more complexity (which Farley says he is against). Overall, it is bad idea.
Ford has been using planed obsolescent for decades!
They need to work on quality control, instead of telling customers they bought a piece of crap!
Will it tell customers before the recall?!?
Remember:
Found On Road Dead,
Fix Or Repair Daily,
F@#k On Raw Deal,
The bad old days of Ford are back.
Will it tell you before the engine Grenades with a few thousand miles on it?
Kinda of like a TSB
The only thing guaranteed from Ford is their future vehicles will be recalled. Given Ford’s permanent quality control issues, this program will never get off the ground.
I can tell you exactly the life expectancy of a part. It’s called the warranty.