When Pat Clynes pushed down the gas pedal on his Ford Explorer during a drive in Houston, Texas, in July 2022, an otherwise routine day became the start of what he later described as a nightmare. The car failed to accelerate like it usually did, triggering immediate concern that something was wrong, Clynes said. Since he thought the car was under warranty, Clynes brought it to a Ford dealership, where an employee later told Clynes it would cost nearly $1,400 just to identify the problem. Weeks later, the dealership identified the problem as engine failure and said it would cost another $10,000 to fix, due partly to pandemic-induced supply chain…