I Know I'm Being Screwed By Ford, But ...

[xr6me]

So I decided to give Ford Service one last chance after a number of poor customer service experiences at one dealership very close to the Sydney CBD, and took my T to another just north of the bridge where I used to take my EF sedan for about 5 years with mixrd but generally pretty good customer service and work. I booked it in a week in advance (and yes, I know, its close to Christmas and all the family people have their cars in so they can go on holidays etc etc and its busy), and dropped it off on Wednesday at 8am, explained the issue and went off to work with the promise it would be done for me by 4pm. At 3pm I received a call to tell me they hadn't started working on it yet and would I mind leaving it with them overnight and I could have it back the next day. A little disappointed, but not actually 'in need' of a car on Wednesday night, I agreed provided it was covered by their insurance etc etc.

The work I request:

~ Service (I just clicked over 66,000 and have now done about 10,000 in it myself so I felt it was time)

~ Investigate the random operation of the wipers, and quote on repair

~ Investigate the electrical smoke coming from the steering column when the wipers are haveing their random slef activation experience

Mid Thursday morning I get a call telling me the faults with the car. Cost to repair "about $590" for some sort of 'combination switch' (which is terribly descriptive!). To which I replied is it ok if I pay you "about $590 for the repair or do you want to give me the exact price for the part and labour and gst?" to which I get "oh, ok. Actually I've just checked and its $500 inc labour and gst." I confirm the price and proceed to ask what else requires attention. The list continues for a couple more hundred dollars (all overpriced I know, but its my fault for going to a Ford dealer and I had some mistaken belief I might have been paying a premium for quality service).

By mid afternoon on Thursday I receive a call saying "we've completed the install of the new combination switch, but to do it we disconnected the battery. when we reconnected the battery and start the car, it runs for only a about 2 mins before it stalls. do you know why it might be doing that?" ..... it takes me a few seconds to comprehend the fact that a mechanic is asking me why a car he is supposed know backwards isn't working. I, somewhat politely, informed the gentleman caller that the car certainly did not have such a fault with it when I left with them the day before, nor had I ever experienced such an occurance in the 9 months since I had purchased the vehicle. I asked what they intended to do to correct what ever it was they had done to my car to cause this fault and was told "yeah, well we'll run some more diagnostics and when we can work out what it is we'll give you a call with a quote for doing the repair." my reply (according to my work colleagues, quite loud by this point) was that I had no intention for paying for bad workman ship and that they would repair any fault with my car that was not present when I left it in their care and promptly said good day and put the phone down.

Later in the afternoon, 4.19pm to be exact, I called to find out what progress and if I should make my way across the Bridge to collect my car to which the 'service manager' told me there was probably no point as the car was in pieces in the workshop and the boys stopped working at 4pm. I asked when was someone going to call me and tell me this? When do you expect to know what is wrong with your work and when will it be fixed? to which I simply received "uh, I don't know but it wont be ready tonight."

The saga continues today and I shall update throughout my phone calls during the day, but if you have any ideas on what might be causing it please let me know.

Is it reasonable of me to expect that they should fix a fault at their own expense if it only occured after they had completed the service and repairs on the car (that is, it wasn't present before it went to them, and wasn't detected during the service)?

Is anyone intersted in possibly buying a possibly not terribly functional 04 BA XR6T Ute in Envy? Only 66,000kms on it.

[GOLDIE]

I want to know why they disconnected the battery to do a combinition switch in the first place.

I have done them and never had to do this.

As for not running I would say the computor has lost it memory and they need to reload it.

Ian

[senna_T]

Poor work from the service boys there mate, they should be fixing the other problems that occured, no question

Good luck with it mate, if you need any other help with ford service let me know

[ZAP]

I am glad that your expectations of Ford service was already low. It is good to see your service department trying hard to lower the bar.

The funnies thing is you think you were talking to a Mechanic, they are Factory Trained Technicians and know your Ford better than anyone else....apparently

Make sure you do not pay for anything that you are not happy with. We all await the next saga in this story.

[xr6me]

My 'Service Advisor' has just called with the "good news" (his words, not mine) that he has done a full shut down of my car and restarted it (I didn't realise it was running Windows!) and it has now run for at least 10 mins all by itself and hasn't stalled once. He refuses to offer any guarantee that the fault has been corrected nor guarantee that it wont happen again. He has promised to call me later and let me know more about what's going on with it. (Oh, and apparently this restart thing is the same as what they do when they first turn them on after manufacture .... which has me concerned that my 3 year old 66,000km engine may now read 0kms, thanks to the Factory Trained Technicians.) I can't wait to hear what comes next, and I wonder if I'll have a car for Christmas or if I should put in a request for a 5 day test drive of an XR5T (Mondeo variety).

[senna_T]

it won't change the odo reading, they have basically just reflashed the PCM/BCM with all the latest updates form ford for the BA, so it should run nicely now, but don't put it past them...

[xr6me]

Well the day is ended and I have my car returned to me, fully operable. I am much poorer, but thankfully no extra charges for 'restarting' the computer thingy whatsit.

I'm told the reason the battery was disconnected was a safety precaution while working close to the airbag in the steering wheel.

I'm told also, that they had never experienced having to do a restart on the computer on a non-new vehicle.

I left them with no misunderstanding that I was not happy with their progress to resolve the problem they created; and after being told that they had driven my car for 39mins requested their guarantee that my car had not been driven in the manner which I witnessed a police vehicle being driven in the yard when I arrived to collect mine. (Let me say no car should be driven at that speed so close to any building nor on ground full of pot holes and loose rocks!)

Thanks to those who responded to my earlier entries.

[tab]

That's f*cked....what was the final bill?

[mbjunior99]

I always knew there was a reason why I didn't take my car to Ford for service

[Adam]

From what I can tell the only thing they did wrong was not call you to say your car wouldn't be ready when they were diagnosing the stalling issue.

The reason for disconnecting the battery is a valid one.

You paid for no more than work than you requested. In your mind the price of that was high but I don't see how you can make that call.