Big Brother Is Watching Your Fg

[seduced]

There is inconsistancy between Ford dealers though. It cant all be Ford themselves. Some dealers will do everything under warranty no worries at all, while others will only do warranty work if you can prove that you have never been past 3000rpm, your stereo has played jimmy barnes at least once, and your boot is full of beer cartons with "I love my ford dealer" written across them......and in the end they will call it abuse and charge your first born to repair it.

Whats the difference? Money surely has to play a significant part within dealerships.

[tmac450]

That still comes down to Ford. They need to take charge and impliment proper procedures for dealers. The dealership is essentially a franchise of the Ford brand, as such they should be made to adhere to Ford guidelines or loose the franchise. Every other franchise type business does it, why can't Ford.

[310_FSX]

Tough break mate, It would of been a regional Ford engineer that does the rounds that brought his laptop in and plugged it in to your car to get the result of a flash tune but from what I gather it gets worst, Lower your car and lose warranty on all suspension work including steering, Plug anything into your ICC and lose all warranty on it, Splice any wiring into your cars electrical system including the radio or speakers and lose all warranty on the cars electrics including ICC. I did once ask someone if a proven flash voided warranty on the cars computer and was told yes. I guess its Fords way of cutting costs and trying to stay alive in these tough economical times but they wont be having to many repeat customers and to many cars sold if they dont fix up or rethink their policy on warranty approval procedures with the FGs.

I think you have half answered a question I was going to ask, I have an FG F6 and I was considering a flash tune... I told myself when I got this car that any mods I had done would be straight 'bolt on' or easily reversed for services / warranty issues as Ive heard too many stories and dont want to risk loosing my warranty. My question is; If you have a flash tune(say for example an x-flash) but you save the factory program and re-install it for services / warranty claims can Ford tell you have altered the factory program and void your warranty?

[smicky]

Sorry - here also...

Play = Pay!

Buy a house and do renovations - I bet the builder are not going to cover an non company trained builder to go and knock out walls and frame work...

Buy a new plasma or LCD - "within factory specs"... expect it to run at 1080P signal when its not designed to but someone told you (or you read on the internet some guy on ebay) told u how to make it bigger, better, harder and faster? just open it and play ----> here....

Not a single PC builder anywhere in the world that I am aware of will cover software issues under warranty... simple fact is in a PC application, software is kinda of like tires - wear and tear... try to over clock it - and burn the CPU or something out and expect it to be covered under warranty - no chance... it was built to perform to a spec - simple as that...

same as a car - having been involved with a ford dealer I would have thought you would understand mate, guys coming in with cars and blame it on ford... yet they crashed it 2 months ago - or ripped out the exhaust system, bolted on a 5" crazy ful sik stainless steel mandrel bent system with hotdogs and whatever else - but now there is an issue with the throttle body?

Or build the beast to do 0-100 in 3 seconds, boys go test it in george st on a saturday night and then pull up in 10 meters, fry the stock optioned brembo's, and shatter a rotor - then say ford... why would u replace it?

Car wasnt designed to stop so hard from so much power... simple... (meaning constant crazy heavy cornering on factory breaking system and components)...

maybe you did nothing to lower the car, or effect the handling, but you did build this 0-100 in 3 sec T as mentioned, and then throw all this power into a corner drive out foot flat to the floor and question what happened to the rear sway bar or something... or brake system dies from all the heavy breaking and cornering...

Adding a DVD player, may infact cause power issues of some other kind... Current/power draw on another electrical component that none of us know about... Short something out in one way or another... Who farking knows - cars now days are like human bodies... Most dealers dont have 5 mechanics that repair everything, but rather 1 or 2 for special things. 1 maybe for wheels, suspension and steering. 1 for electrical. another for the cooling system, and another few for the general mechanical crap... drop oil, filter, and top up (prob the junior still in nappies)!

Faulty components may not be directly related - but who knows what could happen.. its all linked in some way shape or form...

I remember Subaru telling me once when I spoke to them about my GT...

"MRT have never done any mods to any Subaru which have caused any non warranty work to be carried out" 9or something like that I saw on there site...

SVM - being a Porch dealer as well - laughed and said - hhhmmm lets think about this...

MRT - nice guys, good business, know there Subys.... good for mods, and work from a nice looking office/workshop in rhodes... 3 maybe 5 R&D guys...

Now consider this - Subaru, not only offices and state of the art design, building/factory, and billions of $$$ for R and D - world wide/ millions of cars on the road as test vehicles (as every car serviced by a dealer sends in reports)... now who would you trust with your car?

Factory spec knowing that it 'should' do what its designed to, or a modded car by your local MRT?

I looked and said - well said... I understand...

2 months later sold the GT and got the RSpec!

Next - who knows... Aston maybe?

(nothing against mod shops/tuners... but again its simply - You play, You pay)!

As for the pic - id be happy for pic to be kept on file... they might even look into them further for R and D for there own needs!)

Sorry mate, no offense intended in any of this but yeah...

Im still stock as a rock, and when I get bored and what more power - then its time to upgrade!

BTW - dont worry mate, ive had warranty work knocked back due to the belief I track the car... total BS, the car has never seen the likes of any track - closest the RSpec has every gotten was being parked on the hill at eastern creek once, and in the car park at EC go karts!

quickly sorted that out with them... but yeah... go figure!!!

Edited 26/11/09 02:48 PM by smicky

[bunna]

Money is not the only reason to knock back warranty work. The other is to reduce their warranty percentages, etc for industry stats., making models look better than they actualy are.

Warranty is by no means our only method of external tracking. And remember - a lot of warranty work is knocked back due to complete misdiagnosis by the dealer. Classic example - customer complains about a B-pillar creaking issue, dealer wants 4 grand to cut and shut the door, weld up internal panels, etc. 10c worth of grease on the door latch later and the issue is fixed (for at least 25000km anyway).

Dunno about you guys but if I had something like a dash rattle I'd be very nervous about a dealer doing as they please with it, rather than checking in with the people that have the most experience in these matters.

I remember an interview with a Expensive Daewoo exec in Wheels a few years back where they admited that it is often more cost effecient to release a car with known defects/problems then wrooy about fixing them as warranty claims. The majority of customers wouldn't have a clue what sounds were wrong or right in the cars, or they just accept any faults and don't care because they treat their car like crap anyway. He said their research showed that less than 10% of their customers were fussy enough to pick most things up, therefore it's much more efficient to only have to make good 10% of the cars, rather than 100%. Even when official recalls are issued, less than 50% come back on most occasions.

When you lose upwards of $10k a minute if you start holding up cars, well, the maths isn't that hard is it? Traditionally in this country Ford and Expensive Daewoo haven't been able to build em quick enough, so quality didn't matter, and the public knew that and accepted it because of the relative cost of the vehicles. Obviously now the game has changed, and not just here. Ford's whole global quality strategy has changed. Ford America is winning awards left right and centre for quality - they've caught toyota and are pushing past, and now those philosophies are being transferred globally. New car customers already tell us the falcon sedan is better than the aurion (the Late model camira is joke), but there is clear work to be done on territory (older design).

But despite all that, the public face of the company - the dealer, still leaves a lot to be desired. unfortunately, whilst I can directly influence the quality of a car as its built (and I do - that's my job) I have no bearing on the dealer or what happens to it once its out of the plant. So I apologise to all!

[Slymeat]

I had to have some warranty work done on my ICC they said no problems book it in and we will do it. No photos were taken and the work was done without any problems they even had a good look on the day I drove up but needed more time to fix it.

[macca2042]

I used to work at a Expensive Daewoo dealership and I had heard of things like an exhaust voiding warranty on the engine and auto trans, a simple modification.. even though a hsv has more than 40kw more and same trans and engine.. only time I had anything like this was on a ve ss wagon that was lowered and needed a new strut, service manager actually told me that he wouldnt tell Expensive Daewoo that it was infact lowered.. id say its upto the dealership on what customer service they offer with warranty

[Mr_4.0]

So you have a leaking diff?

[ZAP]

This IS a 2 year old thread