Dealership woes

[hybridbear]

Our car is at the dealership right now, since Tuesday, to get the remaining trim pieces replaced. We have had a recurring check engine light with code P06B8. The dealer hooked up their computer, read the code, tried updating to the latest IDS calibration and shorted out our PCM and killed it. We were supposed get the car back yesterday, then today and now we don't know when we'll get it back because they don't know when the new PCM will arrive.

 

I'm really fed up with both this dealership and with Ford right now. I love the way the FFH drives, the comfort, the gas mileage and more. But I'm really disappointed in the quality and the dealer. Once they complete this ticket for all these issues I will not be going back there.

[Toz]

wow, when it rains, it pours! Thats some bad luck. Hope your part comes in soon. Glad you live in an area that had more than one dealer. If my local dealer turns out not to be to my liking, the next closest one is 45 miles away.

[aschulz261]

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the dealer here is competent when I need them. So far, I have only had them do the software update. That was accomplished without any drama. My next nearest dealer is a boat ride away to another island! I WISH I only had to go 45 miles to find another dealer.

[Toz]

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the dealer here is competent when I need them. So far, I have only had them do the software update. That was accomplished without any drama. My next nearest dealer is a boat ride away to another island! I WISH I only had to go 45 miles to find another dealer.

ok so it might be weird, but that makes me feel a bit better.

[Sleddog]

That's about what I drive to get to my dealer. I will not go to any of the dealers closer. I have had bad service at all 3 of them. The last one I went to, the closest one, damage the front bumper paint changing the headlights on my Focus. That's in additon to getting grease all over both the front and backseats. The marks looked like cat paws. The service advisor actually implied I had a cat that got in my car and did it (my malamutes eat cats, I don't have any small animals anywhere on my property, they have very high prey drives). Turns out they had a hole in one of the service bay walls and a cat was wandering the service area at night and sleeping in cars.

The service department did not mention the paint damage or the grease. They were more then willing to let me take the car. I will never go back to them. That's flat out lack of attention to detail and not wanting to pay or fix their mistakes. That's bad practices, and it starts with the service manager not doing his job.

Any dealership that screws up a service procedure or does damage to a car does not deserve anyone's business.

Edited November 24, 2013 by Sleddog

[aaronj1159]

The dealer I bought the car at (one of those huge ones with 15 different brands) was far and away easier to buy from when compared to the "little guy" down the road, but the service department is the exact opposite. I couldn't take my car there for anything, be it trim issues or TSBs, without them breaking something else. Then they'd have to order the part they broke, and I'd have to bring it back in 2 weeks, and the cycle began again.

 

I finally started taking it to the previously mentioned "little guy" and have had no service issues since. And now that I'm technically a customer of theirs, maybe they'll actually want to sell me a car the next time I'm looking...

[hybridbear]

Overall I'm really fed up with Ford dealers right now...the experience at the one that sold us the white FFH hasn't been good either. I figured I'd sum up my bad experiences in one post since Kim asked about it and others have probably seen my frustration come out in my comments at times...

 

Morrie's Buffalo Ford (Buffalo, MN)

Back when FFH production first started, I watched constantly on Ford.com for inventory tracking to see when a FFH would arrive in Minnesota. I called all the dealers that showed they had one inbound to try to find out when it would arrive. Finally one arrived. It had the exact same features as our black FFH that we ended up ordering. The dealership let us do an overnight test drive. We setup the TCH test drive for the same day so that we could do a direct comparison. We were able to park both the TCH & the FFH side-by-side in the underground garage at our apartment to go back and forth from one car to another examining them. My wife & I both took a vacation day from work to do this. This was a major purchase and we knew it was very important to make the right decision.

 

In the evening we brought the FFH back to the dealer (Morrie's Buffalo Ford in Buffalo, MN). Coming in I had researched our Honda Accord Hybrid and knew what a fair trade-in price was. The dealer with the FFH was unhappy that we had X-Plan pricing because they were planning to sell this car at a $2-3k markup MORE than MSRP. They low-balled the trade-in offer, offering us about $3k less than what I considered fair. We walked away. We had put down a deposit on this FFH and planned to buy it. However, at that price I told them we would be selling our car privately. I asked for a few weeks to try to sell our HAH privately and they said that was fine. We agreed that if we hadn't sold the HAH by the end of the month that we would figure out something else.

 

A few days later I get an e-mail from the finance guy saying that they sold the FFH we had a deposit on and that they would find us a different car. I was incensed because we had put down a deposit and I had in writing from the salesman that they wouldn't sell the car to anyone else and that we had until the end of October to make a decision. The salesman apologized to me and said that the dealership manager was not willing to sell this car for X-Plan when they could sell it a few grand above MSRP so they sold it even though I had a deposit on it.

 

I gathered up all my documentation of how we had entered into a contract that we were going to buy the car and I reported them to Ford Corp, the MN Attorney General and the BBB. I also left a negative review on dealerrater.com describing what they had done. At this point I set about finding another dealer to do business with. Since this dealer had tried to screw us on the trade-in, and since we hadn't been successful in selling the car privately, I decided I would find a new dealer based on who would give us the most in trade and then we'd use X-Plan to order a car exactly how we wanted it. I started shopping around and we found the dealer who ended up selling us our FFH. They were willing to give us a fair trade-in value, $2k more than the other dealer offered after many negotiations. And this dealer was willing to give us that value 2 months from now when our FFH would arrive! They also would sell us the car at invoice price, which beat X-Plan by a few hundred dollars. Thus, we ordered a Tuxedo Black FFH with the exact same features as the silver one that had been sold out from under us. We added the Luxury Pkg, moonroof and back up sensors and that was it.

 

Morrie's Buffalo Ford ended up giving us coupons for free oil changes in compensation for their bad behavior. I got a call from the dealership manager who tried to sell me a car saying that they wouldn't do that again, etc. I told him that it was too late and that I already went somewhere else. In exchange we were given membership in their "Buy Happy" Program which includes 12 free oil changes over 3 years.

 

Freeway Ford (Bloomington, MN)

This dealer is the closest to our home, so when the check engine light came on when we had owned our FFH less than 2 months I brought it here. I also described to the dealer the clunking noise we experienced which was discussed extensively in this thread. The dealer claimed that the noise was normal and didn't document it or report it to Ford. This is why I don't trust dealers to document issues like the Navigation POI right dash screen issue, they're liable to just say that it's normal and blow it off. The noise continued for many months until Ford released the TSB related to this noise and the TSB repair was completed.

 

Apple Valley Ford (Apple Valley, MN)

This is the dealer who sold us the black FFH. The salesman did a good job, but service was horrible. We made 7 trips to AVF for issues, numerous times they caused the problem by breaking stuff or failing to fix stuff correctly.

 

Each trip is 32 extra miles on the FFH plus the miles driven by the dealer. By the time I add in the gas they waste it's at least 1 gallon of gas and 40 miles each trip. Considering that the most recent trip had me drive out to the dealer, sit around for an hour waiting for a car, then drive the FFH to work so that they could drive it back to the dealer that trip was close to 100 miles and 3 gallons based on my trip odometer pics. The SA told me he had a rental lined up when I confirmed with him the day before. Then I show up at the dealer and find out that they don't have a rental scheduled with Enterprise. My SA was off that day so another one was helping me. He called Enterprise in the morning to find out that Enterprise didn't have any cars. So then he starts trying to put me into one of their loaner vehicles. The problem is that the keys for their loaner vehicles are kept in a locked cabinet and no one can find the key. He offers to put me in one of their used vehicles. I tell him that it doesn't matter to me. He comes back about 15 minutes later and says that they can't do that either because no one can find the key to get into the cabinet of used vehicle keys either and the employee who he knows has that key is also off that day.

 

When they installed the correct leather shift knob they failed to hook up the wires for the shift knob so the Grade Assist didn't work. When I brought the car back for them to fix their mistake they broke a couple of the center console pieces. I told them that we wanted our car back since we were going out of town for the weekend and didn't want to drive some 20 MPG rental. The SA told me I could come pick the car up. I show up to pick it up and he tells me that I can't have it because the center console is still all taken apart. So I have to go home and come back the next day. Eventually they get the needed trim pieces in but then they damage more while installing them and have to order more replacement pieces.

 

Another issue we had was a rattle in the headliner. They took the headliner off, found a broken clip and replaced it. That solved the rattle. However, they got a stain on the headliner and they scratched up the glasses case area trying to uninstall/install the headliner. I pointed the issues out to my SA who promised they would clean the stain and replace the sunglasses holder. Numerous times since I was at the dealer and each time I reminded him when dropping the car off. They never bothered to fix either of those issues.

So, these trips have all been outside of other dealer trips for oil changes and have cost us 11 gallons of gas plus 420 miles extra on the car. Most of the rentals have only gotten about 20 MPG so the trip to & from the dealer in each rental is 1.5 gallons plus the additional gas burned getting 20 MPG instead of 50 MPG. Thus, each rental has cost us about an additional 2.5 gallons while driving it compared to the gas we would've burned in the FFH. So that means 4 gallons times 9 trips and we have 36 extra gallons of gas in rentals. That means the cost of these trips has been 47 extra gallons of gas and an extra 420 miles on the odometer of our FFH. 47 gallons of gas times $3.30/gal equals $155.10 in gas cost because of these issues.

Then add in the cost of my time. Each time dropping the car off at the dealer takes at least 1.5 hours round trip. Each time picking the car up takes about 1 hour round trip. 9 trips times 2.5 hours per trip equals 22.5 hours. Add in the extra hour spent on this most recent trip and we're at 23.5 hours. Add in all the hours I've spent calling the dealership to ask about when our car will be done, since they have never once called me, and we're realistically at about 30+ hours of my time lost to these issues. For example, when the PCM died on a Wednesday, no one bothered to call me. My SA was off on Thursday, and no one called me. On Thursday I called the dealer to check on our car and was told that he was off and that no one else knew what was going on. On Friday I called to ask when our car would be done. I was put on hold while someone went to track him down. After spending about 15 minutes waiting on hold I gave up and called back. I was again put on hold while he was tracked down. After about 5 minutes waiting this time, the SA who answered told me that he was at lunch and that I should call back later. When I did finally reach him on Friday he told me that the PCM needed to be replaced. They ordered it on Wednesday, but didn't know when it would arrive. He hoped that it would arrive on Monday. He acted surprised that no one had called me on Thursday to tell me what was going on, and he apologized for not having called me on Wednesday. But, this is just one example of the headaches I've been dealing with on every trip to the dealer.

Roseville Midway Ford (Roseville, MN)

This is the dealer who sold us the white FFH replacement and took our black FFH lemon in trade. The salesman was again very helpful, but service has been awful.

When test driving I noticed that the trunk did not close smoothly. I requested that this be addressed before we picked up the car. When we came to pick up the car the salesman told us that the trunk had been adjusted. However, the trunk was not fixed. Apparently no one bothered to test the trunk after they adjusted the alignment to see if it had solved the issue because it clearly didn't.

Second, the trunk cargo net hooks were not provided. This was a widespread issue that even included a notification from Ford to dealers to alert them to make sure vehicles with the cargo net included all the clips. You can read about that here. The dealer failed to check this before delivery so that meant they had to order the clips and we had to pick them up.

Third, there were some bubbles in the paint on the trunk at the time of delivery that needed to be addressed. A few days after we took delivery I brought the car back so that they could repair the trunk. At the same time they were supposed to again address the closing issues with the trunk too. They failed to do anything about the trunk closing issues. The paint work looks great, but they ordered and installed the wrong hybrid badge. Instead of installing the correct trunk small hybrid badge, they installed the large hybrid badge off the front doors on the trunk. I pointed this out when I came to pick up the car. They said they would order the correct hybrid badge.

Fourth, the correct hybrid badge comes in so I bring the car by to install it. I wait while they do it. What they said would take "less than 15 minutes" took more than 90 minutes. When they're finally done I am hurrying to get back to the office so I just get in and go. That afternoon I discover that while they did install the correct badge, they installed it in the wrong spot. They now finally did look at the trunk closing issues again and determined that a new latch is needed. The latch has been ordered.

This Friday I will be going back for them to fix the hybrid badge issue and install the new latch. They claim they can just remove the badge and reinstall it in the correct location. I'm not sure if this will work so I am expecting to have more issues with this dealer.

Take a look at the location of the hybrid badges. You can clearly see the difference.

 

I sincerely hope that Tesla's business model succeeds. Franchised dealers need to go, in my opinion. Ford would do well to reevaluate their standards for dealers and how they evaluate dealers. I have found four dealers that have not made me happy and I'm not looking forward to driving far to try out different dealers. I tried calling Ford Customer Service after the issues with Morrie's Buffalo Ford, but I doubt that it did any good. What finally got them to respond was when they were contacted by the BBB.

 

[Eddie Sessum]

Ford dealers break more than they fix from my experence. Its why I went with a lincoln this time around. They have ONE tech that does anything to do with trim, interior,body etc. Gotta do it right because you cant blame anyone else.

 

 

I had a dealer that had to change a battery under warranty. The whole side of the truck had the paint scraped off right next to the battery. Denied it forever and kept putting me off and having me drop off the truck than say they couldnt fix it for one reason or another. When you tell the service manager about an issue and before you leave the shop after he denys the stuff he is screaming at the top of his lungs in the back of the shop. You know he is lying to you.

 

 

Ford is upgrading there quality but the dealers are killing the rep.

 

 

Also make sure that you check when you pickup a car that all of the work done is on the printed ford paperwork. That way you can have some form of recourse.

Edited December 31, 2013 by Eddie Sessum

[Sleddog]

I travel 40 miles to my dealer. The ones around me are a bunch of hacks. The dealer I go to still manages to screw things up. The service manager actually used this excuse "Everyone has a bad day" after one of their screw ups. That's just what I want to hear when they are working on one of my vehicles. So when I take a vehicle in, I ask if the tech that will be working on my vehicle is having a bad day. The service writers usually give me a weird look, then I explain the reason behind my comment.

[GrySql]

As long as we're bagging on Ford Dealers I can say that the experiences I've had with my local rural Dealerships have not made me confident that they can repair a FFH.
The SA does not build confidence when he lifts the hood and exclaims "Wow, never seen one of these new ones!" .
Nor does having a sales manager call their Service Department a 'bunch of idiots'.
That was said to me just before the same sales manager told me to leave his Dealership and take my car to the Dealer I purchased the car from because it had the wrong gear shift knob.
Then, for the finale, he finished up with 'maybe next time you'll buy your car here so you don't have to drive so far to get a mis-built car fixed' - he was a towering beacon of sales proficiency.
Naturally I took the cue and left, for good.

So, like some others here I began a search for a Dealer I could trust.
The search ended up back where the car was purchased, 68 miles away through terrible Los Angeles traffic and surprisingly, that has been a good decision for us.

I can definitely say that there is at least one competent Dealer and I use them.
My Dealer won the 21012 Ford President's Award for Sales and Service, the Dealership has their own little cafe on site where they give you a free meal, a beautiful waiting room with free internet and comfortable seating and super clean.
This is the Dealership that Ford had Mike Rowe do the Ford Service commercials at, with over 50 service bays and super trained SA's, car handlers, Tech's, Service Manager and the Service/Facility Director, all friendly and available.
I've had a number of problems and they have always exceeded my expectations with things like:

The wrong gear shift knob was elevated by them to the area CSM and upward to the Fusion Marketing Manager and got the job done, including a TSB.
A rental car so we could go shopping while the car was being fixed for 2 hours, other rental cars including the gas to drive them to home and back if my car was kept overnight.
The SA happily emails me about issues I need answers to, updates and suggestions. They turned my DRL's on for free, the first time it was accomplished on this Forum.
One time the Service Director took my car home for the night just to make sure all was perfect, filled my FFH's gas tank afterwards (and filled it other times too).
Get this, they know and respect this Forum and even ask questions like 'have you guys come across this problem' if they are in the least confused about a FFH problem.
FFH Forum member gkinla can verify everything I've written here, we sometimes run into each other there.

Searching for perfection in this world is futile, getting your money's worth is not easy either.
In this case, we gladly make a day out of it when getting my car serviced even though it is a long day and over 160 miles by the time we're done.
My Dealer tries very hard to do the best job possible and I can't ask for better than that.

 

And last, but certainly not least, my wife doesn't mind going there - so I get to use the HOV lane!

[hermans]

A "free meal" is a beautiful thing. I really like the dealer I go to and the best point - they are 1 mile away.

Edited December 31, 2013 by hermans

[aaronj1159]

The dealer I bought the car from has been much like the Apple Valley example hybridbear described. Good sales dept.... service can't stop breaking my car though. So I decided to take it down the road to the smaller dealer that basically refused to sell me a car, and they've been great from a service standpoint.

[acdii]

It is amazing when you think about it. A dealerships bread and butter IS the service department. If their service department cant do a good job and keep customers, then that dealership wont be around long. You can always tell a good dealership by the employees time on the job. When you go in year after year and the same people are working there, you know they are doing a good job, if the dealer has a high turn around, especially in sales, you know they are scrambling. With my dealer, both the service people and the sales staff have been there for years. In fact at least 3 of the sales people were there when I bought my first truck from them in 2003. The ladies in the money room have been there since before the new owners took over, they were there when I got my F150 from that location in 2001. They sold to the current owner in 2003, and I was one of their first customers. Paid cash for the F350 too.

[Eddie Sessum]

It is amazing when you think about it. A dealerships bread and butter IS the service department. If their service department cant do a good job and keep customers, then that dealership wont be around long. You can always tell a good dealership by the employees time on the job. When you go in year after year and the same people are working there, you know they are doing a good job, if the dealer has a high turn around, especially in sales, you know they are scrambling. With my dealer, both the service people and the sales staff have been there for years. In fact at least 3 of the sales people were there when I bought my first truck from them in 2003. The ladies in the money room have been there since before the new owners took over, they were there when I got my F150 from that location in 2001. They sold to the current owner in 2003, and I was one of their first customers. Paid cash for the F350 too.

 

The biggest dealership here has let a couple of there salesman go because they wouldn't introduce sales to the service department. Said it would look bad on them in the future and wanted to keep his customers returning to him in the future for new cars. You know it's bad when you see that.

[hybridbear]

Well, it didn't go well today...no one bothered to order the hybrid badge for the trunk because someone thought they could save the money and just reuse the old one. Since this is all coming out of their pocket since they've screwed up they are trying to do it as cheaply as possible. They installed the new trunk latch but that didn't fix the trunk closing issue. Something else isn't right. Perhaps it is the alignment. It feels like you really have to force the trunk closed. It doesn't close smoothly like the trunk did on our old FFH.

 

However, the salesman has asked me to hold off on completing my survey because he wants to get everything fixed so that I am happy and give them all 5s. He said he is going to get the owner of the dealership involved now to make sure that we are compensated for the issues that they've caused and the time I've wasted because of their mistakes. I told him that I want to give them all 5s on the survey so I will wait and give them the chance to make everything right before I complete it. I'll keep this thread updated with what happens.

[thavil]

hybridbear - My FFH's trunk was also hard to close when I bought mine. Measure the gap on each side with the trunk closed, you will probably see a noticeable difference. My dealer took one look at the gap on mine and sent it next door to the body shop as they knew they couldn't fix it themselves. My trunk closes fine now.

Edited January 5, 2014 by thavil

[hybridbear]

hybridbear - My FFH's trunk was also hard to close when I bought mine. Measure the gap on each side with the trunk closed, you will probably see a noticeable difference. My dealer took one look at the gap on mine and sent it next door to the body shop as they knew they couldn't fix it themselves. My trunk closes fine now.

The issue is that the trunk appears to line up perfectly on this car. My guess now is that perhaps the trunk is trying to close too low and the difficulty is because the rubber stops are stopping the trunk before the latch catches.

[MaineFusion]

I sincerely hope that Tesla's business model succeeds. Franchised dealers need to go, in my opinion. Ford would do well to reevaluate their standards for dealers and how they evaluate dealers. I have found four dealers that have not made me happy and I'm not looking forward to driving far to try out different dealers. I tried calling Ford Customer Service after the issues with Morrie's Buffalo Ford, but I doubt that it did any good. What finally got them to respond was when they were contacted by the BBB.

 

I also hope Tesla's business model succeeds. I'd love to be able to afford a Tesla it is a beautiful car that burns no petro. The fact that I wouldn't have to deal with a dealer is icing on the cake.

 

I don't think a company like Ford could unwind their dealer network, however, they need to do something. I've been less than impressed with the service departments at the Ford dealers in my area.

[hybridbear]

Yesterday they fixed the trunk. I had to diagnose what part of the trunk needed adjusting for them to fix it, because they still couldn't figure it out, but at least once I told them which parts needed adjusting they could do the adjustment. The side rubber stoppers that are mounted right near each tail light were catching the trunk and preventing it from closing all the way. Now it closes just like our old black FFH did. Our salesman told us that this coming week we should get a call from the owner of the dealer and that he wants to offer us some free oil changes for the inconvenience.

[GrySql]

Yesterday they fixed the trunk. I had to diagnose what part of the trunk needed adjusting for them to fix it, because they still couldn't figure it out, but at least once I told them which parts needed adjusting they could do the adjustment. The side rubber stoppers that are mounted right near each tail light were catching the trunk and preventing it from closing all the way. Now it closes just like our old black FFH did. Our salesman told us that this coming week we should get a call from the owner of the dealer and that he wants to offer us some free oil changes for the inconvenience.

Don't ya love being smarter that an entire shop full of 'Techs'? It really is amazing sometimes. The forum srtikes again!

I sure hope they do something nice for you, you earned it.

[hybridbear]

Don't ya love being smarter that an entire shop full of 'Techs'? It really is amazing sometimes. The forum srtikes again!

I sure hope they do something nice for you, you earned it.

They are doing something nice for us...

7yr/100k PremiumCare with $100 deductible is our gift as their apology. I am very happy with this because the price for this on Flood Ford is $1115. It would be nice to have a $0 deductible to be completely worry free, but I am not optimistic that they'll go that far...

Edited January 23, 2014 by hybridbear

[acdii]

Wow, good deal!

[hybridbear]

They agreed to do the 7yr/100k PremiumCare $0 deductible. They are registering it now and will mail us the paperwork. I am very happy. I am going to write a positive review of the dealer for dealerrater.com & other sites as well as giving them all 5s on the Ford survey. :happy feet: :bliss: :yahoo: :dance: :headspin: :thumbsup: :woot: :mademyday: :woohoo: :rockon:

[corncobs]

Now it's an awesome deal!

[inco]

Go buy some lottery tickets....more good luck might follow. :worship: Lucky SOB :happy feet: :happy feet: