How to repair a ashtray in a 2004 Ford F-150 Crew Cab Lariat

Pop out the ashtray. Remove the ashtray assembly (the housing). if you flip the ashtray over and look at the bottom you can see a small spot where a piece of plastic has broken off (this should be obvious). In the ashtray housing there is the latch mechanism with the broken "nipple" probably stuck inside of the mechanism. Get the plastic piece out and discard it. Reinstall the housing only.

Now, get a TINY ( I mean really small, like 4mm long and maybe 1/4-1/2mm diameter) screw handy. Drill a slightly smaller hole right through the ashtray where the piece of plastic was before it broke off. screw in the screw from the TOP of the ashtray so it only pokes out of the bottom 1.5 MMor so. Put the ashtray in. If it still doesn't "catch" screw the screw in a little further so it sticks out the bottom a little more. If it binds you've ******* the screw in too far so back it off. You get the drift.

This takes about 30 minutes. It's hard to explain but once you look at the bottom of the ashtray you'll understand the concept. Hope this helps somebody out there.

They normally have what looks like a small cog at yhe hinged part the automatically close when you push it close and you have to push it for a soft opening sometimes this cog snapps a pice off and they dont stay shut i think you can buy them or a scrapvdealer might have a second habd unit to replace it with hopebthis helps ivan

It sounds like the spring mechanism on the tray is either bent or broken. You can try removing the tray and bending the spring steel to increase the friction or you may have to purchase new or used ash trays.

The trim panel around the radio / HVAC controls needs to be removed to get to the screws.

To remove the trim panel, open the ash tray and pull on each lower corner. There are 3 spring clips on each side holding the trim in place. The 1st time you do this, they are a bit hard to pull out.

The black circles in this picture are where the spring clips are


If you can just hang the panel to the side or have someone hold it, you can get to the 2 screws on the top of the ashtray assembly ( there are just above the black sides of the ash tray in the picture above ). The ash tray is pulled out and down, it is farther in the dash than it looks. Once out, you can take a look at the springs on the side / back that hold it in, to see if they broke off or fell off.