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Ford Dealership Service Departments


Are You Satisfied with Your Ford Dealer Service Experience  

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  1. 1. Are You Satisfied with Your Ford Dealer SERVICE Experience?

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akirby...er no, did you miss "sloppy workmanship is the individuals fault"? Of course its his fault, and he works for the dealership...I haven't missed the point at all....but sloppy techs isn't the ONLY service issue is it?....

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akirby...er no, did you miss "sloppy workmanship is the individuals fault"? Of course its his fault, and he works for the dealership...I haven't missed the point at all....but sloppy techs isn't the ONLY service issue is it?....

 

It's the only one I was talking about for the last 3 pages.

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I understand wanting to save money and do your own repairs. If you have the tools and know how, I think its great. The thing that gets me is customers buy absolute crap parts and say look how much cheaper it was. The dealer was ripping me off. If you are going to compare prices use quality parts. If you get two ball joints with the same part number in two different boxes and they dont look exactly the same, thats not quality parts. The house brand parts are not the same as oem. If you can rebuild a front end for $100. Thats upper, lower, tie rod ends and sway bar links, you put crap on your car. Just because it has a lifetime warranty doesnt mean I want to change it for a lifetime. At least get a moog or motorcraft etc...You get what you pay for.

My favorite is I didnt bring it to you guys cause you were so expensive . However they take it to an independent shop spend twice as much trying to diagnose it. Tells the customer it needs a PCM when in actuality its a wire problem. This happens at least once a month.

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After my last ball joints (moog) only lasted 15,000 miles before being in worse shape than the originals that came on the car from the factory 140,000 miles in, I will never by Moog ball joints again. Motorcraft only.

Im with you. Have you ever bought CV axles aftermarket? Almost every time I have to send one back because they arent correct. Here again, I get two boxes a left and a right, one will be incorrect, have them send another one with the same box and part number and the axle looks completely different. Ford CV axles are insanely priced. Anymore I rather just rebuild them myself. The only thing i dont recommend buying motorcraft is reman alternators. For some reason they cant make them correctly. Its not uncommon to change several to get a good one. Its been like this for years.

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Im with you. Have you ever bought CV axles aftermarket? Almost every time I have to send one back because they arent correct. Here again, I get two boxes a left and a right, one will be incorrect, have them send another one with the same box and part number and the axle looks completely different. Ford CV axles are insanely priced. Anymore I rather just rebuild them myself. The only thing i dont recommend buying motorcraft is reman alternators. For some reason they cant make them correctly. Its not uncommon to change several to get a good one. Its been like this for years.

I have. My car is on its 3rd passenger side one.
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I wouldnt buy a reman alternator. My first 2 cars both had alternators go out on me, if Im replacing one, I would rather not do it again, especially on a transverse engine. Im dreading the day it finally goes on my Focus, its in a horrible location.

Sometimes thats all they offer is reman instead of new for motorcraft. Ive had good luck with Napa new alternators. Especially on hard to get to ones.
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I prefer to use motorcraft except alternators. Ive yet to have an issue otherwise.

When my '91 F-150 5.0 needed an alternator, I decided to bite the bullet and pay the exorbitant prices my local dealer charges, thinking surely that would get me a quality part. Nope. The connector for the wiring harness was in the wrong place, so I couldn't even plug it in. IIRC, I ended up buying one from O'Reilly's that's still in the truck.

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Ive started going to OReillys for parts now instead of autozone, if I dont order from Rock Auto. Much better quality. Autozone still has the better oil change deals though.

I've had good luck with the parts I've ordered from Rockauto, and their prices are usually better than the local places even after counting shipping. I've also ordered parts from Amazon; their prices are also competitive, and you can't bear the free shipping with Prime.

 

When I replaced the pads and rotors on the front of my truck, I bought them from Rockauto, but when it came time to do the rears, Amazon had a better price and delivery schedule, so that's where I bought them.

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SOONER... That era of Ford alternator is a multi-application alternator. It just needed re-clocked. Take the bolts out of the frame, twist it to where it needs to be and reinstall the bolts. Its that way so you can use it on the 4 different gas engine choices that were available.

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SOONER... That era of Ford alternator is a multi-application alternator. It just needed re-clocked. Take the bolts out of the frame, twist it to where it needs to be and reinstall the bolts. Its that way so you can use it on the 4 different gas engine choices that were available.

Yeah, I didn't have to do that with the Motorcraft alternator I bought at O'Reilly's. I'd forgotten, but the one I bought at the dealership also had the wrong pulley on it. You would think that the freaking Ford Parts counter could get me the right part for the application.

Edited by SoonerLS
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Maybe I am asking too much but I have been frustrated a few times when I had to explain to a Service Writer HOW something on my car is supposed to work.

 

With my Lincoln, when you do a remote start, the heated seats are supposed to come on if the temperature is below a certain threshold and the cooled seats should come on if the temp is above a certain point. Mine did not but the Service Writer had never heard of such a thing even though this is not a new feature and many cars have it. I did a quick google search and found that there was a service bulletin on that but I had to show it to the Service Writer.

 

With my Mustang, they were unaware that the steering mode should stay where you put it - not default to normal at every start-up. I had to contact Ford Customer Care to discover that my ICP could be updated to correct that. Once the update was done, including a new ICP, they (including the tech) were unaware that the update killed some other functionality. They didn't know how to access some of the features to even see if they worked.

 

Again, maybe I am asking too much. It just seems that when a new feature is added or a new model is introduced, there could be some sort of orientation for the service people similar to the orientation given to the sales team. Since the Service Writers have direct contact with the customer, I would think some expertise from them would give the customer more confidence.

 

Other than this, my dealer's service department treats me very well and I have no complaints.

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New Model Training courses do not and will never say "this specific feature on this specific trim level should behave exactly this way". We have to be around your specific trim level vehicle to know what is supposed to do what. This is also why "compare to a like unit" is a very important step in the diagnostic tree.

 

I can understand your frustration, but writers write because they can't repair. Managers are often the same way. They don't need to know every in and out of every vehicle, they just need to get the correct information down for the tech to make the repair.

Edited by YT90SC
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I can understand your frustration, but writers write because they can't repair. Managers are often the same way. They don't need to know every in and out of every vehicle, they just need to get the correct information down for the tech to make the repair.

A manager should still know the difference between the sound of a bad hub and worn brake pads...
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