In reality, the scenario is more so the other way around. The 2024 McLaren 750S leverages the same tie rod ends as several types of the Ford Focus. That’s right, these two drastically different cars share the exact same type of part, and they’re not the only ones like this.
This story comes to us from an almost legendary mechanic who often posts to Reddit under the handle FixItSteven. He works on everything from Ferraris to Porsches to McLarens, as is the case here.
Handling cars like these means that he sees things most mechanics don’t such as $1,400 oil filter housing gaskets, wheel spacers on wheel spacers, and wheels with tuning forks that resonate with the brakes to produce a wild squeal at all times.
In this particular instance, he was in the midst of lowering a light-blue McLaren 750S when he noticed something funny. The tie rod ends said “Fo Mo Co” on them, the stamp (or in this case casting) of Ford Motor Company. The part number appears to be EV61-3289.
That comes back as the same one used for several different Focus variants including the wagon and hatchback. “I’ve noticed that Ford logo on other McLarens but never bothered to look up the crossover until now. I always assumed it was from an ’05 GT or something cool, lol,” he tells The Autopian.
This isn’t the only time that one might find a mainstream brand’s part in a high-end exotic. Back in December of 2023, FixItSteven showed how he could incorporate a BMW clockspring into the steering wheel of a Rolls Royce to save the customer over $2,000 bucks.
He also points out how Lamborghini, Volkswagen, and Audi sometimes share integral parts like the steering rack. Sure, the completed cars might have drastically different purposes and capabilities but sharing some parts can cut costs across the various brands.
In this case, it’s just a bit odd since Ford and McLaren aren’t corporately connected in any major way. The two did collaborate in the past in Formula 1 racing but it’s been a while since that happened. We’ve reached out to McLaren to perhaps shed a little light on why it uses this particular tie rod end and how they chose it.
It’s not terribly uncommon, and in cases like this where the two cars sharing the part are in vastly different price classes, it’s pretty much always the case that the part in question wouldn’t benefit terribly from being made of some expensive forged material — in other words, it doesn’t necessarily need to be exotic in-and-of-itself to be on an exotic car. Sure, maybe McLaren could make a lighter component, but if this tie rod is capable of withstanding the forces that a McLaren 750S can generate, and it’s an off-the-shelf part that meets the company’s specs sent to the supplier, I undersand just runing the standard part and focusing in-house engineering efforts elsewhere.
@legitstreetcars Who knew that the coils from a McLaren MP4-12C were the EXACT SAME as the coils from a Nissan Sentra? #LegitStreetCars #McLaren #NissanSentra ♬ original sound – LegitStreetCars
Who knows, maybe the Mac will need an alignment or a new part a bit sooner than it would if the tie rod were sitting in a Ford, simply based on the lateral force that a McLaren 750S is capable of when compared to a Focus (save for the rally cars!), but McLaren has engineers to read the supplier’s datasheets, run the analyses, and do the testing.
I remember watching a video review of the Veyron and being amused that an alarm chime in it was the same as my ’01 Jetta TDI.
Great now we’re gonna have turds who say their Focus or Sentra has Mclaren parts and hike up the price by a couple grand (at least).
I had to replace the brake light switch in my VW Polo, and found that in addition to bing used in practically every other VAG car from the period, it’s also used by Porsche. I wouldn’t be surprised to find it on Lamborghinis too.
A lot of this is to do with crash testing, Ford have tried to smash
that tie rod into in many times. Slamming a Ford Focus into a chunk of concrete is called product development. Doing the same with a McLaren 750s is a quick way to bankruptcy. McLaren have learned a lot since the F1. Still the benchmark best quick car, but every bit bespoke? this way lies madness and a £70,000 annual service cost is just a bit pricey.
They gave up on getting their own branded parts when the castings kept coming back misspelled Maclaren, MacClaren, and so on. They asked Austin, sorry, Aston Martin what they did when people inexplicably had so much trouble getting their name spelled right and they told them to just buy OTS parts from Ford.
I heard that Alpha Romeo had the same issue.
Can’t find the part about how this relates to a Nissan Sentra?
I think it was the Nissan Senna parts they were putting on the McLaren Sentra?
Wasn’t there an article on this very website about how they engineered the Tesla Model S to use Land Rover steering bits?
Parts is parts
Shouldn’t be a surprise in any way. Why would you tool up to make such an ordinary part when there is something out there already that would do the job? Ferrari’s have TONS of boring Fiat parts in them, and Porsches of course share all sorts of bits with VWs. McLaren, being an independent has the global parts bin to choose from.
The real trick is figuring out which parts come from normy cars, which will save you an utter fortune if you ever have to replace them. Amazing how much markup that McLaren or Ferrari or Porsche box adds.
I know those tie rods! I’ve replaced a couple on my Focus over the years.
IIRC Ford’s “control blade” suspension setup on these cars was pretty impressive for what it was, so much so that Toyota of all companies licensed it from Ford.
Pay $250k for a car, get a car with parts from a $25k car.
What a bargain!
This surprises me very little. It’s been an open secret for a long time that McLarens are shoddily made, even beyond the usual British car making foibles. There are countless videos out there of detailers pointing out mind numbing panel gaps, and if you peep their forums pretty much every single first generation of one of their cars is basically still a beta product when it gets delivered. The Artura roll out has been an abject disaster.
So, yeah. I’m not at all surprised to see there’s a vital part of one of these that’s taken out of an econobox parts bin. I understand why people like McLarens. It’s a matter of heart rather than mind. They’re gorgeous, they’re fast enough to tear a hole in the space time continuum, they sound magnificent, and they’re unique. Plenty of rich douchebags have Ferraris, Lamborghinis, limited run Porsches, R8s, et cetera.
Not very many have McLarens. They’re definitely a unique choice and even my 1% loathing self has to tip my hat to anyone who’s willing to take the leap of faith and get one. They’re just so damn cool. I skip past all the red Ferraris and the assortment of Huracans at every Cars and Coffee to go gawk at the McLarens.
…but would I spend my own money on one? Ugh. I’ll never be in a position to afford one so my opinion is irrelevant, but in all honesty I don’t think I would. They really seem like a huge pain to own and the idea of dropping $300,000+ on a car that might not work and could have panel gaps that make Elon green with envy just doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe I’m boring, but I’d probably get the most special Porsche I could find instead. I would be a very basic rich douchebag due to my risk aversion.
They may well be shoddily made, but I don’t think using parts-bit pieces for non-differentiating parts is really a great example of that. There’s nothing that special about the tie rod ends, and no reason to custom-make them instead of just picking one that’ll work just as well.
It’s pretty common across exotics, really. Usually it’s from the same parent company when that’s an option. Steering racks, EGR valves, air pumps, HVAC parts, probably catalytic converters, door lock actuators and window motors, starter motors and alternators, spark plugs, etc.
This happens on Mat Armstrong’s youtube channel all the time. I can understand how low volume parts for a Rolls Royce would be expensive, but it’s absurd how they mark up a Volkswagen part 10x just because it has a Rolls part number.
Wouldn’t that be a BMW part? Or does Rolls Royce actually use VW parts?
It would be a BMW part. VAG owns Bentley.
Correct. It was a Bentley on Mat Armstrong’s channel. Oops.