I've got a problem with my climate control system where I'm experiencing air leakage in the foot well even when the dial is set to head/face. Obviously not a problem in the winter, but in the summer there's enough ice cold air leaking on my foot that after about 10 or 15 minutes it becomes uncomfortable and annoying. I took it to the dealer and they said this it typical. I don't know why I'm surprised, but I am a little. Do you other Tribute owners also experience this?

Another problem with the A/C is that when the blower is turned up on high and an attempt is made to move the temp dial from one extreme to the other, it gets stuck and won't move. However, I discovered that if the blower is turned all the way down, then the temp adjustment dial moves freely. Weird.

 

shotty engineering, I have the same problem but since it not a safety issue so I dout ford will make a fix. I think it would involve a redesigned HVAC housing. Then of course removing the dash to swap out the old one. The later modles may not have this problem if they don't and the part numbers from the dealer match they may have fixed this in the newer models, and those housing may work, but good luck getting ford/mazda to admitte there is a fix.

 

As long as we're talking about shoddy engineering, I've got a little list for the Tribute:

1 - Cold air leakage for A/C in footwell.
2 - Tires are way too noisy and we've never been able to balance them properly.
3 - Brake rotors woefully underdesigned are are warped within 10K miles.
4 - Heated seat switches on side of seat - difficult to reach and can't see whether they're on or not. Sometimes passenger seat is accidentally left on for weeks. It's also too easy for someone not familiar witht he car to hit this button while adjusting the seat and never know they switched on the heater.
5 - Can't see the indicator light for the A/C switch button in daylight. I literally have to cup my hand over it and peer in to see if it's on.

Having listed all those nitpicking complaints, one still gets a lot of value in a useful SUV and it's not half bad looking.

 

your list mirrors mine except we don't have heated seats.

 

I love the heated seats but wish Mazda/Ford had taken the extra 10 minutes to wire switches into the dash or console. Oh well, at least the option is there to have them.