goinbroke2 Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 I've been gone 6 weeks now doing army stuff and I'm back. A guy I know comes up and says he's owned 3 cars in his life (he's 26) All three were honda accords. This guy is hard core anti american. He had to tell me he just bought a new....Flex SEL. I obviously raised my eyebrows and said "you bought a what"? He went on for 10 minutes about how great it is etc,etc. He's already on a flex site (I'm guessing on here since I told him about it) and know about 3 or 4 "known" problems already and is watching for them. The down side is the dealership service, or lack thereof. Basically went into a dealership for 1/2 hour and was never even talked to. No they weren't busy, just chatting amongst themselves. Couple other stories too. This is STILL a problem, the best cars in the world won't fix everything if the dealers treat people like crap. All in all though, made my day. Yup, ford is definately being noticed as the one who "pulled up their socks and that's why they're not bankrupt like the others" Now about that toyota driver...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldZephyr Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 The down side is the dealership service, or lack thereof. Basically went into a dealership for 1/2 hour and was never even talked to. No they weren't busy, just chatting amongst themselves. Couple other stories too.This is STILL a problem, the best cars in the world won't fix everything if the dealers treat people like crap. True enough. I talked to a friend who has been an import owner, and urged her to go to check out the Fusion or Escape or Taurus. She's not really sophisticated about cars. So she went to the place where we bought our Taurus, expressed an interest in a Ford Escape Hybrid, and the salesman basically mocked her, saying "oh, you're one of those environmental types . . . we only sell one of those a year . . . ", etc. Needless to say she was turned off and she left, and was going to write off Ford. I had to remind her there are other Ford dealerships and not to confuse the salesman at the dealership with the quality of the car. I think she was ready to buy but she was so turned off that she is keeping her old car for now. I know there are lots of good dealers and good salespeople, but this made me cringe, especially after I had urged her to take a look at Ford products. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron W. Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 The people that experience this type of "service" need to take the time to write a letter to the dealer principal. Not in anger though just facts so that changes can be made within the company, without this information the D.P. and G.M. quite often don't see or know about these things happening. p.s. letters to the DP or GM also are appreciated when things are handled well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pcsgrp35se Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 This is the way I was greated at nissan, toyota and some other import dealers I went to. They couldn't care less if you wanted to buy a car. Every Ford dealership I went to in NJ jumped when I walked in the door. The othe day I went thru the front door to get to the parts department and again, was greated by someone and they asked me if there was anything they could do to help. They knew I was not buying a car since my fusion was parked right in front of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deanh Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 customer service...two sided coin though, one can take instant help as overly aggressive, and too long a wait as "don't give a rats"...happy medium somewhere i guess.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
97svtgoin05gt Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 This is the one thing and ONLY ONE that I will praise Saturn for. Apparently they have a training program they put their sales people through so that fair treatment of customers is pretty equilly set up across the dealer network. We know you generally get treated well at Benz and Lexus, of course you can't get out of there for less than $40K but still, when someone has a bad SALESPERSON experience, that is reflected poorly on FORD as a company. It shouldn't, but it does. Its just the way it is. Ford really should try and do something like CBT for customer service. Just an idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Going_Going_Gone Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 True enough. I talked to a friend who has been an import owner, and urged her to go to check out the Fusion or Escape or Taurus. She's not really sophisticated about cars. So she went to the place where we bought our Taurus, expressed an interest in a Ford Escape Hybrid, and the salesman basically mocked her, saying "oh, you're one of those environmental types . . . we only sell one of those a year . . . ", etc. Needless to say she was turned off and she left, and was going to write off Ford. I had to remind her there are other Ford dealerships and not to confuse the salesman at the dealership with the quality of the car. I think she was ready to buy but she was so turned off that she is keeping her old car for now. I know there are lots of good dealers and good salespeople, but this made me cringe, especially after I had urged her to take a look at Ford products. I can relate to that...my sister-in-law recently bought an Escape. She asked about the Escape Hybrid and her salesman told her that, in his experience, they were primarily bought by people who wanted to advertise their "greenness" and didn't mind spending extra money to show off and told her that she would be money ahead with the standard 4-cyl. S-I-L ended up buying the 4-cyl and is quite happy. My wife and I will be in the market for a more economical car and are comparing the Fusion 4 with the Fusion Hybrid. I did the math and, even if the Hybrid averaged 41 mpg and the 4-cyl 30 mpg, it would take well over 100,000 miles of driving even if gasoline went up to $4.50/gal just to save in gas the extra the hybrid costs. Being a practical guy, I am no longer considering the Hybrid even with a tax credit and a higher sales tax writeoff it's still not a smart move for us. Maybe this salesperson was just pointing out that it would ""cost" your friend money to buy a Hybrid and she thought he was being disrespectful. This sounds like honesty since his commission on a Hybrid would have been more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snooter Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 True enough. I talked to a friend who has been an import owner, and urged her to go to check out the Fusion or Escape or Taurus. She's not really sophisticated about cars. So she went to the place where we bought our Taurus, expressed an interest in a Ford Escape Hybrid, and the salesman basically mocked her, saying "oh, you're one of those environmental types . . . we only sell one of those a year . . . ", etc. Needless to say she was turned off and she left, and was going to write off Ford. I had to remind her there are other Ford dealerships and not to confuse the salesman at the dealership with the quality of the car. I think she was ready to buy but she was so turned off that she is keeping her old car for now. I know there are lots of good dealers and good salespeople, but this made me cringe, especially after I had urged her to take a look at Ford products. this has happened to me more then once..i have never been so rudely treated as i was at a dodge dealership once..since then all i have owned are honda's...honda knows how to treat a customer respectfully even if that customer is a lady Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packardbob Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 I think one of the funniest things that has ever happened to me was at a Honda dealership. The paint on my friends' Ridgeline started to peel and he took it to the Honda dealership while he was looking to replace his POS Jetta Diesel. Anyway he looked at a car, drove it and asked them about the paint on his ridgeline. The service dept manager came out and looked at it, determined it was out of warranty but said that Honda would help pay for it because Honda is "like the coolest company in the world, they take care of their customers..." Anyway the next time we visited the dealership he was told that Honda wouldn't cover any of it, and when he wanted to test drive the car again before he bought it, they asked him if he was serious or just screwing around. So that same day we drove six hours to Denver and he bought a new Honda there and decided he would just have to pay for the paint by himself. While waiting for him to fill out his paperwork, I listened to the salespeople in the showroom selling their Hondas and I must say they do enjoy making their products look better by pulling cheap shots at other manufacturers. All but one, the salesman that sold the Accord to my friend was just hired away from a Ford dealer that closed up, he drove a Ford Mustang and said he would always drive a Ford. He said Honda builds a good car, but they drive a very boring car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardJensen Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 Honda usually does pretty good on the customer service end of things.... Regarding the salesman being 'generous' by 'looking out for' the sister in law.... Don't jump to conclusions. If the dealer had a hybrid on the lot, yeah, the salesman is doing his job by prequalifying a potential customer for a high demand item... OTOH, if he's got 4-cyl. Escapes on the lot and his next allocated hybrid ain't coming for a month, well, he's trying to sew up a commission today instead of having to do a lot of hand holding and invest a lot of time keeping the sister-in-law interested until his allocation shows up (forget about custom orders--dealer allocation is first priority almost always--------ask anyone who wanted an '05 Mustang in the fall of '04) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timmm55 Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 I was at the gym talking to a friend (he has a BMW) and he said a mutual friend bought a new Fusion Hybrid, trading in his BMW. He's in Real Estate, we agreed it was a perfect car for a lot of in town driving AND to make a statement to clients. I've never had service done at the dealership I bought my Mustang at. I like the service better at Kearny Mesa/Pearson Ford. You'd think I bought a high end Excursion, they are right there, the service is fast and they seem more knowledgeable....they knew how/why/where a vibration was coming from AND had a kit for it. The other dealership did the "they are all like that" BS. I'd buy a car from KMP Ford next time, all things ($$$) being equal, which is the whole point! My boss bought a new F150 from them though. Another friend who had a couple of Honda CRXs and a Toyota Celica bought a new T-Bird a few years ago, but bought a new Mini last time (The T-Bird gets the garage :shades: ) to go along with the Escape Hybrid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bored of Pisteon Posted June 24, 2009 Share Posted June 24, 2009 Some of these assholes at these dealerships regardless of what brand they are representing don't deserve to have a job in the first place. I don't plan on being a "new" car customer for a long time because of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goinbroke2 Posted June 24, 2009 Author Share Posted June 24, 2009 Well, it's parked outside the shop here and amongst other vehicles seems "normal". Still attention getting but not as much of an impact to me as I thought it would. Of course silver with white roof doesn't "pop" like the black ones I've seen and I've been all over them since they came out too I suppose. Everybody else here though is talking about it and it's basically 50%-50% love/hate. Half (like me) love it and the other half absolutely hate the looks. But EVERYBODY loves the interior. Even the anti-ford guys or pro import guys had positive comments. The common concensus though is that ford is definately not like the "other two" and is certainly on par with imports. Although this admission could be classed as a win by the import lovers because I argue ford has beat toyota in quality and is a statistical tie with honda. (no even thinks of any other vehicles like hyundai or whatever as being quality) So I guess I could claim victory in that everybody is agreeing fords equal the jap cars and the import lovers can claim victory because they lowered ford to "equal, not better than" imports. Oh..and gm&mopar? well....nobody here knows how bad the quality is, just that they need a lot of upkeep LOL! Also, this wasn't supposed to turn into a dealer bash but obviously there is some underlying tension, no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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