Come on now, can you really say the brand sucks? Ford makes a good truck, they use good components. Yes some times thing break prematurely and you may get lemon or have issues but in the grand scheme of thing they are pretty good truck.
Have you had many issues in your 22k miles? Seeing your post history it does not seem so.
Your warranty ran out and you knew when it would happen. You know that when your warranty out that you are responsible for parts and labor. You also know that you had the option for the extended warranty.
There were holds on truck production in 2021 and 2022 because of adaptive steering, the adaptive steering components were/are much in demand and somewhat limited in supply. Well with that knowledge you know what that does to parts pricing.
Whether AS or engine or transmission or radio, componend does not matter, warranty is warranty.
Now...let's revisit the extended warranty option.
So why in the world would you blame Ford for your issues knowing all this.
The 8 year 100,000 warranty is only about 2500 bucks.
You bet and you got the losing hand, don't complain now.
I would have just kept my mouth shut but your last line tilted the scale for me..you came to a Ford forum with Ford people and say "starting to think the Ford brand sucks"
Once again...what do you expect?