That day we all fear . . .

[Bryan Burch]

OK, picked it up today. $13800 in repairs so far. I say 'so far' because I've discovered 3 things are messed up so far. Hood is on crooked, retaining pins missing from rubber cover near windshield posts, and shifter broken. Hill start button assembly fell out while driving back to work. Seriously, if you are a tech and you break something, fix it. Don't assume nobody will care when it just falls apart.

 

99% chance I'm selling this thing.

[wmpwi]

This sounds like my nightmares. I know you'll be taking it back, but the problem is you never know what else they missed and it's always like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then when you finally do find something askew, it will end up being too late to take it back to them. I hate when that happens. I'd shoot for %100 you sell if you can.

[GrySql]

I liked what Eddie Sessum suggested, get the Dealer to take it as a trade-in on a new one.

I'd like to see the look on the face of the Sales Manager you tell that to.

[MaineFusion]

So sad to see all these beautiful new cars getting hit. People don't know how to drive or don't pay enough attention. The worst is in Michigan where you're HONKING at the person, and they STILL continue doing what they're doing (instead of, ya know....STOPPING.) Grrrr......

 

If people knew how to drive and paid attention to their driving, instead of everything else, 35,000 people a year might not die in the U.S. from vehicular accidents.

 

Honestly, the only way to address this issue is to engineer out the loose nut between the steering wheel and the accelerator.

[kuzzi]

 

If people knew how to drive and paid attention to their driving, instead of everything else, 35,000 people a year might not die in the U.S. from vehicular accidents.

 

Honestly, the only way to address this issue is to engineer out the loose nut between the steering wheel and the accelerator.

Every time I get on my bike, the first and last thing I do is make sure the nut connecting the handbars to the seat is neither too loose nor too tight. I've stopped mysef from riding a couple of times due to anger or me having a careless day.

[GrySql]

 

If people knew how to drive and paid attention to their driving, instead of everything else, 35,000 people a year might not die in the U.S. from vehicular accidents.

 

Honestly, the only way to address this issue is to engineer out the loose nut between the steering wheel and the accelerator.

Drugs and alcohol....

[MaineFusion]

Drugs and alcohol....

Just proves that ethanol is bad for cars.

[alpha754293]

 

If people knew how to drive and paid attention to their driving, instead of everything else, 35,000 people a year might not die in the U.S. from vehicular accidents.

 

Honestly, the only way to address this issue is to engineer out the loose nut between the steering wheel and the accelerator.

 

Actually, there's been a number of projects that's working on that. Google's of course, got their autonomous vehicles (which, BTW, HASN'T been without it's problems). My college housemate was telling me about a guy that he knew that was working on his Ph.D. dissertation for one of the underlying technologies for autonomous vehicles and back then, because the Intel processors couldn't do out-of-order execution, so the test car saw that there was another car ahead, issued the brake command, but because it wouldn't do OOE (based on priority of the task/process assigned) it slamed into the back of the other car, which turned out to be a CHP police cruiser. And because he was sitting in the passenger seat, they didn't really know what to do/how to handle it. (This was ca. 2004.)

 

I just watched a bunch of videos about how GM has retrofitted a Cadillac SRX with auto-lane keeping techology where once you get it into a lane that you want to stay in, you can basically set like a slightly more advanced version of the adaptive cruise control to tell it to stay in that lane.

 

Also watched another bunch of videos coming out of Carnegie Mellon University where it was an entirely autonomous Cadillac SRX (driving to/from the Pittsburg Airport). That was pretty cool! And it seems like their implementation is more advanced than Google's way of doing things, (but Google might actually be more robust).

 

So, it's happening. During my Ford corporate new hire orientation, some actually asked Alan Mulally (our CEO) about autonomous vehicles and he made a comment which I think is important to keep it mind with these vehicles is that the idea is that in the event of an emergency, the driver should be able to take over again. But he then also said that if you've been detached from the driving process itself, so you're no longer situationally aware of what's going on around you or to the vehicle for that matter, you can sound all the alarms and buzz the chair you want (to wake the driver up), but now, they might end up in a bit of a panicked mode where they don't know WHAT's going on and you're aksing them now to take over??? Yeah...like that's going to be a smooth transition. So...and I think that's a fair point that it raises with all of these autonomous vehicle technologies.

 

In fact, I think that it was either the GM video (which was filmed at the Milford Proving Grounds 5 mile circle) or it might have been the CMU video where one of the engineers actually commented that one of the challenges is going to be keeping the driver engaged in the autonomous driving aspect of it; pretty much specifically for that reason.

 

And given how inattentive drivers are nowadays (already) when they're RESPONSIBLE for being in control behind the wheel, that's going to be an even greater challenge I think.

 

But it's happening. There are a few projects going on.

 

Every time I get on my bike, the first and last thing I do is make sure the nut connecting the handbars to the seat is neither too loose nor too tight. I've stopped mysef from riding a couple of times due to anger or me having a careless day.

 

I don't think that he was talking about the physical bolt/nut. lol...

 

Drugs and alcohol....

 

Not always. Highway hynopsis is a real thing and people falling asleep behind the wheel might actually contribute a fair portion to that. One of my friends was telling me about one of her friends who got into an accident at like 4 AM (like...5 HOURS after she had already switched from alcohol to water) that had a really bad, terrible accident. She's fine. She survived. But the cops said that she must have fallen asleep behind the wheel and she was like MINUTES from her house too. So...yeah...it happens. And it's horrible when it does, because of liek the whole time dilation thing that happens when you go to sleep (what feels like a second, could be minutes).

 

I've gently and accidentally tapped someone before and that's when I made it a point that if I EVER START feeling tired, start looking for an exit (like the earliest moment I start FEELING it) and prepare to get off the road and sleep it off if I have to. (Which I've done before). A couple of times. Luckily, by the time I COGNITIVELY woke up again, I was able to slam on the brakes enough so that it minimized the speed differential between me and the other car so that there was no damage, but BOY...THAT was a scary experience I tell ya. So yeah...

 

 

Just proves that ethanol is bad for cars.

 

Unless it's PURE ethanol (a.k.a. rocket fuel). Leave it to the US corn lobby/subsidizes. I'm so glad that the EPA finally decided to delay the E15 mandate.

 

I think that a diesel-electric plug-in hybrid like the Volvo V60 that's available in the UK, France, and Belgium is really the way to go for the near-term future, because a decently engineered system should be able to hit 100 mpg-US highway EASY. Yes, the diesel emissions regulations in the US is more restrictive, so the vehicle itself would cost quite a lot more, but it's like that with EVERY NEW technology that comes on the market. Heck, at one point, the horseless carriage was more than a horse. So...it'll ALWAYS be like that. So don't plan on what the price is going to be TODAY - plan on what the price is going to be TWENTY YEARS from now (or something like that).

[wmpwi]

The replacement was built on 10/22 and supposed to have been delivered to the dealer on 11/12. That didn't happen. There is a good chance for tomorrow and if so, that would put the turnaround from a broken 2013 FFH to identical 2014 replacement at 52 days.

 

On the plus side:

• 2014 model year
• ~ 10k miles fewer miles
• Cleaner floor mats
• New car smell

On the negative side:

• ~ $5K difference between the settlement and new vehicle
• Re-tint the windows @ ~ $150
• Reinstall the shark fin
• Hyper paranoia when driving through intersections and open parking lots
• Having to find that singularly perfect place for the seat, mirrors, and steering wheel.

Net result: Worth the wait (assuming it's here in time for the weekend).

 

,

[djminfll]

The replacement was built on 10/22 and supposed to have been delivered to the dealer on 11/12. That didn't happen. There is a good chance for tomorrow and if so, that would put the turnaround from a broken 2013 FFH to identical 2014 replacement at 52 days.

 

On the plus side:

• 2014 model year
• ~ 10k miles fewer miles
• Cleaner floor mats
• New car smell

On the negative side:

• ~ $5K difference between the settlement and new vehicle
• Re-tint the windows @ ~ $150
• Reinstall the shark fin
• Hyper paranoia when driving through intersections and open parking lots
• Having to find that singularly perfect place for the seat, mirrors, and steering wheel.

Net result: Worth the wait (assuming it's here in time for the weekend).

 

,

Good luck - hopefully tomorrow will be the big day!

[wmpwi]

Nope. Maybe tomorrow. They're killing me here. :gaah:

[djminfll]

Are you kidding? You just be going crazy!

[wmpwi]

Are you kidding? You just be going crazy!

Now that Saturday has come and gone, crazy is in my rear view mirror.

 

Dealer says ' I was going by all the info from Ford that gets updated daily on incoming orders '

 

This isn't the 18th century where this stuff happens.

'Yessir, 'they're still a 2 - 3 day ride behind me and should be crossing the Mason Dixon Line any day now. I suspect you should see your automobile sometime before the holidays, though we're not sure which ones.'

 

We have f#@king satellite tracking for pizza delivery now. They should know within 1,000 foot of where my car is at any moment in time.

I probably should have ordered from Domino's

[Toz]

 

We have f#@king satellite tracking for pizza delivery now. They should know within 1,000 foot of where my car is at any moment in time.

I probably should have ordered from Domino's

This 10000 times This^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[murphy]

The dealer has a daily report available that shows the last checkpoint the railcar passed. Your dealer either doesn't know how to get it or doesn't want to be bothered with that amount of detail. The report uses railroad slang so it can be hard to determine where the railcar is in some cases. If you can get the dealer to give you the railcar number you can track it yourself. It is in the first report on the railcar after loading.

[acdii]

Once the rail car is in the yard, the updates stop. The dealer wont know where the car is until it arrives to their lot. Sorry, but this is going to be the worst part of the wait. Until its offloaded it can remain on the car for who knows how long, but once off the rail car, it can't sit for more than 5 days before it gets delivered, and since its by independent truck, there is no way to track it.

[MaineFusion]

wmpwi,

 

Is it there yet?!

 

Is it there yet?!

 

:waiting:

[wmpwi]

n o p e . . .

 

Probably last seen a little east of Peroia, IL

 

:banghead:

[djminfll]

Wow, I'M frustrated, and it's not even my car!

wmpwi, if it makes you feel any better, when I was getting mine, when my dealer last told me that it would be about 2 more weeks, he called me the next day to say, "Guess what? Your car is here!"

So maybe it will be sooner than you think......

[wmpwi]

Thanks. I appreciate your frustration over my frustration. I've never been very good at waiting, but it's been somewhat exacerbated by the dealer " . . . I'll see what I can find out and get back to you." That was 3 days ago. I've been a bit distracted by having the power out at my place and a projected back on line date of 3 to 4 more days.

[alpha754293]

Now that Saturday has come and gone, crazy is in my rear view mirror.

 

Dealer says ' I was going by all the info from Ford that gets updated daily on incoming orders '

 

This isn't the 18th century where this stuff happens.

'Yessir, 'they're still a 2 - 3 day ride behind me and should be crossing the Mason Dixon Line any day now. I suspect you should see your automobile sometime before the holidays, though we're not sure which ones.'

 

We have f#@king satellite tracking for pizza delivery now. They should know within 1,000 foot of where my car is at any moment in time.

I probably should have ordered from Domino's

 

Well...Domino's doesn't so much track the pizza as it tracks the car that has your pizza. It isn't like putting a lo-jack on the pizza.

 

And you'd have to turn on your car to turn on the GPS signal to track it.

 

And like it's been said, the rail company is separate from Ford as is (often) the truck company that has the car carrier (stinger) - and even then, they might just get a list of the cars that they need to load onto the truck, and the driver of said truck may or may not know what the cars are (kind of like sending a messenger boy - "take this message to this person." And they don't know what the message says (or at least not necessarily so).)

 

The dealer would know, so if there was a mix-up when they loaded the cars onto the trucks, they might only find out about it when the truck arrives at the dealership and has the wrong one on there.

 

Thanks. I appreciate your frustration over my frustration. I've never been very good at waiting, but it's been somewhat exacerbated by the dealer " . . . I'll see what I can find out and get back to you." That was 3 days ago. I've been a bit distracted by having the power out at my place and a projected back on line date of 3 to 4 more days.

 

PM me your VIN and let me see if I can find out where it is for you. Chances are, I'm using the same system that the dealership is using, but yeah...

 

If it makes you feel any better, employee purchases sometimes and be delayed delayed delayed. It could be 8 months or more before we get our cars. I pretty much stopped worrying about when the exact delivery date is and so long as I have some set of wheels (if your dealership will provide you with a loaner until your new car arrives, for example) - then my mantra is "it'll get here when it gets here." Think of it like a bit of "Zen" to it. But it's also a bit of "no use stressing about something that you have little control over".

 

But definitely PM me your VIN and I'll look it up for you.

[wmpwi]

But definitely PM me your VIN and I'll look it up for you.

 

I appreciate you're willingness to check and honestly, I have no doubt you'll see the same thing my guys is seeing, but you and I both know where we are w/ technology these days and if it were a priority for Ford, we'd know. That said, I just suck at waiting. That's all. Thanks for checking.

 

Oh, today I was advised that it was last seen in Wayne, MI which I am told is where they occasionally wind up for some reason and some of those get a quality control review and sometimes a run on the track to make sure everything is working to spec. So there's a chance of that I guess.

Edited November 19, 2013 by wmpwi

[wmpwi]

Truth be told, I know there's only so much that anyone has control over when traveling on planes, trains, and automobiles (or trucks for that mater), but we're all exposed to FedEx, UPS, and other industries that contribute to a conflated perception of our technical capabilities. So much so that we often forget that the chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. I track people for a living so I sort of get use to needing to know where everything is at all times. And yeah, I too get sucked into the "we should be able to do that by now" mind set, but when all is said and done, It will eventually get here and I probably won't even remember all the bitching I did.

[djminfll]

And yeah, I too get sucked into the "we should be able to do that by now" mind set, but when all is said and done, It will eventually get here and I probably won't even remember all the bitching I did.

I agree 100%! Nobody spend more time bitching and complaining when my car was on order, but as soon as I drove it off the lot, all was once again well with the world!

[wmpwi]

Well s#!t, that's cuz you're in FL

 

<snip> but as soon as I drove it off the lot, all was once again well with the world!