Compensation from Ford for hybrid defects

[NJBob]

Nah… cable crimp. One hour tops. No excuses.

A small business vs a multi billion dollar company? Not the same.

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[TSAINTS1115]

True but they said 150k only offers 75 k. Words mean nothing.

No, OP said 150k, received 75k.

 

[Hoagus]

looks like a great business opportunity for you. Just set yourself up as the go-to person for 1 hour tops, no excuse fixes on every vehicle repair and cut Ford out of it altogether.

Just the crimps. You can work the other stuff.

 

[Mav as heck]

who are you to judge what "an inordinate amount of time" is? You think that Service dept has no other jobs in progress and waiting ahead of this guy? Have you even heard there is an extreme labor shortage out there, including qualified service technicians? Parts shortages from vendors has never recovered from COVID economy lock downs.

Some people's expectations are seriously out of touch with reality around here.

Really sick of these Ford fanbois who get their jollys off attacking anyone with valid criticisms.

"Who am I to judge?"

Who the hell are you to question my judgement? See how that line of questioning works? It gets silly real quick.

I don't know why you want to make excuses. How long is, "Sorry, pandemic - consider yourself fortunate we even allowed you to give us money" going to be the mantra?

When he bought the car he had a reasonable expectation of having repairs done in less than 67 days. I'm sure neither Ford nor his dealer mentioned during the sale, "By the way our standards for service - they don't exist anymore - just suck it up and be lucky if we even let you bring it in. We'll get to it when we get to it."

Selling cars products without the ability to service them is bordering on fraud, IMO... and people who defend that sort of behavior are just as sleazy.

Who am I to judge? No one. Just a consumer and small business owner... actually, maybe that does give me a right to judge.

 

[Espeer]

It’s a Ford, not a Porsche or Audi … their margins are not there for that kind of service because their customers aren’t paying $660 for custom seat belt colors. You can bet the people dropping $90k on Lightnings won’t be too pleased with their dealer experience if they are accustomed to that of Audi and Porsche. My Porsche dealer took a group of us out for a nice drive in their loaners and then treated us to a private lunch at a steakhouse with swag bags. That’s NEVER gonna happen at a Ford dealer.

Last time I needed a loaner I drove a brand new Macan for 3 weeks and put 1000 miles on it and had all kinds of fun with it.

These customer experiences build brand loyalty. Despite many negative Ford experiences I remain a fan but keep my expectations low. I mean, have you been inside a Hyundai (or Kia) dealership???

I guess I'm a Porsche and Ford guy, too. They are the only brands I've owned multiples of (2 and 5, respectively).

Although, based on experience with my used clk, I wouldn't hesitate to own a second MB.

 

[TonyS]

I'm not an attorney but I hired one and have personal experience with a 2018 Ford Escape.

People that run into the in excess of 30 business days time frame on repairs might want to look into getting an attorney and filing a lawsuit for damages under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Often referred to as the "Federal Lemon Law".

State Lemon Laws vary greatly in what they cover, you may or may not be able to file a claim for damages and get money. I believe State Lemon Laws are typically designed to force manufacturers to take back a vehicle that has been unreliable. But Mag-Moss is largely about compensation.

Do a search on the internet and you'll find lots of attorneys specializing in just this. Well - actually what you are finding is more like referral services that attorneys use. But it looks like you are communicating directly with an attorney or law firm. If the attorney that picks up the referral likes your odds, they routinely work on a percentage of the settlement. No settlement the consumer is out no money.

And I assure you that 1/2 of what the attorney pries loose will be multiples of what Ford Customer Service or the Better Business Bureau (which is funded by manufactures - guess whose interest they have in heart) offers you.

Keep in mind I am not an attorney, just someone that benefited from hiring one regarding a car the dealer took nearly four months to fix (it magically got fixed two weeks after the attorney filed) I'm not 100% certain consumers can choose between Mag-Moss and their State Lemon laws. What I have read makes me think consumers can choose.

But at 67 days may well have a valid claim for financial compensation under Mag-Moss. And the attorney won't be interested unless it's a good bit of $$.

 

[Bbot]

I have one of the hybrids with the faulty wiring harness. Mine died after 2500 miles. The dealership had it for 67 days. At least 30 days of that seems to be the dealer not pinpointing the problem even though I told them to look at the wiring harness the day it was towed in, and then Ford being unable to provide an updated wiring harness for a couple of weeks after it was ordered by the dealer.

I reached out to Ford customer care afterward because I no longer have confidence Ford stands behind its products. I escalated twice after being told there's nothing they can do, or suggesting my only remedy would be to lemon law the truck. Finally a supervisor said they can offer me an extended warranty. I asked what the terms of the warranty would be and they sent me a brochure with all the different warranty options. I asked again which one they were offering and they said the full extended warranty. I emailed them and said I accept the full extended warranty eight years and 150,000 miles. A couple weeks later a warranty shows up on my Ford pass. 5 years and 75,000 miles. No explanation of the difference.

On the one hand, Ford didn't have to compensate me at all. Unless they wanted to demonstrate they do stand behind their products. But the way they dealt with this certainly soured me on Ford.

My advice to anyone who's Maverick is at the dealer for an extended period of time for one of these defects is to be the squeaky wheel. Be persistent and escalate. The low level representatives have no authority to offer compensation. Ask for the issue to be escalated. Ask for a supervisor. Try to pin them down because in my experience they were slippery little eels.

What happened to Tested Ford Tough, With All the Test Units on the road surely this issue would have been discovered and corrected ?

 

[Redneck Garage]

who are you to judge what "an inordinate amount of time" is? You think that Service dept has no other jobs in progress and waiting ahead of this guy? Have you even heard there is an extreme labor shortage out there, including qualified service technicians? Parts shortages from vendors has never recovered from COVID economy lock downs.

Some people's expectations are seriously out of touch with reality around here.

While that is certainly true, here is what is happening according to some of my sources Due to the new car shortage folks are keeping their old cars longer. Longer use equals more repairs. More repairs for service department - good for their bottom line. Now say you have a 2006 Ford Econoline out of warranty needing brakes and an engine miss looked at OR you have a 2022 Ford Maverick that need a harness - the dealerships due to the factors you described - extreme labor shortage, COVID and general greed, some are putting warranty claims on the back burner to do the non warranty which pays much more. I took my 2020 Ram Promaster in due to the transmission being in limp mode with a code for low voltage in elec circuit all covered under warranty. I was told uhh well it may be a month before we can even look at it. A nice card to the service manager with 100.00 bill in it thanking him for any help he could give me - magically it was repaired in 4 days. So I guess what Im trying to say is many of the service departments are not first in first out , they are skimming the gravy ( non warranty ) and getting to warranty work when they feel like it.

 

[MLowe05]

What happened to Tested Ford Tough, With All the Test Units on the road surely this issue would have been discovered and corrected ?

That is a marketing slogan, nothing more. They do test them but it is also 100% possible that the issue never surfaced. Even on this forum (last I checked) the percentage of people reporting issues with their hybrids was only 25%.

 

[pigsareus]

If your service manager is anything like service managers I have encountered in the past, 27 of those 30 days was him specifically directing his mechanics to work on anything but your vehicle and run any diagnostic other than the one you suggested because you suggested it (and thereby insulted his experience in HIS job). And, every single time one of those service managers told me to go have a cookie and watch Oprah in their lounge while waiting for the shuttle to take me to work (but not home from work or back to get my vehicle) was the last time they had the privilege of working on MY vehicle.

Warranty service is a hard thing to deal with, if you have any options do investigate them and try to get service from the dealerships that intend to build their reputation and continue to sell Ford's for many years into the future. A shop that knows it is going to shut down in the next few months or weeks is the worst.

Yep. Because if he only thing was the lack of manpower to do any work on it then anyone who walks in with any vehicle needing service would be told - uh yeah we'll call you back in 67 days and let you know what we found and of course the customer would go elsewhere and he dealership would just put a big old sign on their service department window saying hey we can't get to you until November....

 

[JBnorthTX]

Sixty-seven days is terrible. I don't blame Ford for taking two weeks to get the part, though. Unfortunately, that kind of thing is the new norm. A guy was recently on the local news who wrecked his brand new car (not a Ford). It needs lots of parts, so he's been waiting months to get it fixed with no end in sight to the delay.

The dealer not being able to "figure out" the problem is the issue. There seems to be a huge disparity among dealers in knowing how to deal with the "dead hybrid" problem. This suggests Ford has communicated nothing about the problem to its dealers, but some dealers have been more proactive in finding out what's going on. Maybe having to provide a bunch of free extended warranties to customers like the OP would motivate Ford to get out in front of it.

 

[Chris_G]

Sixty-seven days is terrible. I don't blame Ford for taking two weeks to get the part, though. Unfortunately, that kind of thing is the new norm. A guy was recently on the local news who wrecked his brand new car (not a Ford). It needs lots of parts, so he's been waiting months to get it fixed with no end in sight to the delay.

The dealer not being able to "figure out" the problem is the issue. There seems to be a huge disparity among dealers in knowing how to deal with the "dead hybrid" problem. This suggests Ford has communicated nothing about the problem to its dealers, but some dealers have been more proactive in finding out what's going on. Maybe having to provide a bunch of free extended warranties to customers like the OP would motivate Ford to get out in front of it.

Or.... This could prove that some service departments don't read service updates and bulletins as they should.

 

[JBnorthTX]

Or.... This could prove that some service departments don't read service updates and bulletinsas they should.

Good point. If that's the case it's on the dealer. It wouldn't surprise me, given the disparity we've seen in how dealers handled the order process.

 

[DeeZee]

Really sick of these Ford fanbois who get their jollys off attacking anyone with valid criticisms.

"Who am I to judge?"

Who the hell are you to question my judgement? See how that line of questioning works? It gets silly real quick.

I don't know why you want to make excuses. How long is, "Sorry, pandemic - consider yourself fortunate we even allowed you to give us money" going to be the mantra?

When he bought the car he had a reasonable expectation of having repairs done in less than 67 days. I'm sure neither Ford nor his dealer mentioned during the sale, "By the way our standards for service - they don't exist anymore - just suck it up and be lucky if we even let you bring it in. We'll get to it when we get to it."

Selling cars products without the ability to service them is bordering on fraud, IMO... and people who defend that sort of behavior are just as sleazy.

Who am I to judge? No one. Just a consumer and small business owner... actually, maybe that does give me a right to judge.

My name is DEEZEE and I endorse this message
Agree 100% on the Ford fanboys running wild.
Ford needs to make their customers job #1 and make warranty work a priority instead of the next car. “If we use parts for repairs then we can’t use them to make the next vehicle”.

About a year ago I was having some warranty work done at a paint shop. Made it difficult to get an appointment and when I did my vehicle kinda just sat there on the back burner. When I had enough of their delays showed up with my rental car bill and wanted reimbursement for the time after the estimated finish date. They then busted a$$ and got my vehicle finished….and paid for a portion of the rental car.

Some companies will push things to see what they can get away with until they get push back. I am normally very tolerant but there is a limit.

 

[Darnon]

Or.... This could prove that some service departments don't read service updates and bulletinsas they should.

OP's broke back in May, possibly before repairing had become an approved repair. Also Ford may have wanted the failed wiring harness to evaluate. I've had Ford parts have core return requirements even though they don't sell it as remanufactured.

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