My Freestyle came with a broken seat recliner handle. The seat has motors to move it fore and aft, but reclining the seat is a manual affair in my trim level and the handle that did this was broken.  The recline of the seat was a bit more than I would have liked, I could have lived with it had I no choice, but I did have a spare $17 to put into additional driver comfort.

This seemed to be an easy fix -- get a new handle, push onto axle, call it a day.  Getting the new handle was the slightly more expensive than anticipated, as I couldn't find an after-market part via mail order that I knew would fit.  Even "hassle free" mail order returns seem to have some level of hassle.  

I would need to contact a Ford parts dealer, so I used my standby Tasca Auto Parts. Plugged in my VIN and a few clicks later, my order was placed.  A few days later, the part arrived at my door and I was even surprised the color matched.  Must have been color information encoded in the VIN, as I didn't make a color selection when picking the part.  I wouldn't have fussed about the color as long as it worked, but it's nice that it matches.

Worth noting that bag says "Majority Content made in USA".  Considering the bag contains one plastic, injection moulded part, I'm wondering what minority content was from outside the good-ol-USA.  This wording was probably carefully selected as a result several meetings at the legal department whose job it was to approve what appears on product packaging.


Here's the old and new parts.  The part broke in a predictable place given how it's used.  Installation was super easy, line-up the handle so the key was oriented correctly and press.  That's it.  I'm now much more comfy as I head down the road.