Poor Dealer service

Keith Molden

Well-known Member
Took my 2011 F250 back to the dealer Friday to have the rear bumper replaced (has rust showing thru the chrome) under warranty. Got it back Friday afternoon. 1 License plate light is broken and the drivers side is 1 1/2 inches lower than the passengers side. Just wondering what kind of work they would do rebuilding the engine LOL. Don't think I want to find out. They're ordering a new light & I think I'll have them level the bumper too. I can do it with no problem, but it just kinda galls me when we pay the prices we do then get such shoddy workmanship on warranty. Just my thoughts, Keith
 
Keith,

Someone backed into my wife's Windstar van recently and destroyed the dirver's side door. I took it to a local body shop for repair.

They did an outstanding job. I was surprised at how satisfied I was with the job. I guess some shops are better than others.

Tom in TN
 
I had to take my work Super Duty into the dealer for some wiring issues. Got it back and the tech just left all the empty packaging and other trash he made in the cab. Now, I understand it's a pigpen in there, I live and work out of that thing 14 hrs a day in the mud and crud and all kinds of nastiness, but he could have taken ten seconds to clean up the mess he made.
 
Keith, First, Talk the the Service Manager, any and all higher authority's of your Dealership to get your problem resolved.
If that doesn't work THEN....
Get the name of the Regional Reps for Ford and go to Him with your problem. It should not have to go further than that. Dealerships usually don't want a Regional Rep on their Case about a problem they should have fixed in the first place. Hope that helps.
Later,
John A.
 
I've just about quit taking cars to any mechanic, dealer or otherwise. I've had dealer mechanics break the distributor vacuum advance off the engine and the same truck I found out later they stripped the mounting bolts off the carburetor and replace them with lag screws. I had another mechanic work on a truck for a week trying to fix a fuel problem and in the process set fire to the engine when it had a stuck valve. I had a van that a bolt had come out of the smog pump which was difficult to get to so they had to take a lot of things off the motor to get to it. In the process of reassembling it they installed the lower radiator hose right up against the fan belt and it cut the hose and let the fluid out in heavy traffic where I couldn't get off the road until the engine had seized. I despise working on cars but I do most all my mechanical work now.
 
Keith, its service like this that keeps the smaller independent workshop busy. The main dealer for my Land Rover has a casual attitude towards his customers and charges about $150.00 per hour. I use a smaller place where I have to make my own coffee while I wait, but pay less than half that.The service is faster, I get to meet the mechanic who is doing the work and I come away pleased with the work.No contest! Phil
 
You have a 2 year old F-250 and rust is showing through the Chrome? WTF?.......I think FMC should just give you a new bumper. Unless you have 150k miles on it or sumthing. I have a F series truck many years ago, the front bumper had massive surface rust after 5 years, I ended up throwing it in a dumpster. I even repainted it 3 times, I wasnt doing it a 4th, That truck is long gone in a boneyard or melted for scrap.
 
The service quality at dealerships has went down because dealers have decided any monkey can work on cars and have almost universally quit paying for good help. The good mechanics have either retired from dealers, or like me, have been run off due to decreasing pay scale. I thought I would retire from a Chevy dealer when I started in 98, I worked hard and achieved GM World Class. By 2009 I was back down to what I made in 2000, so I quit and went independent. Tool guy told me last week that same dealer has reduced the pay to what I made in 98, $12 an hour for maintenance. Unemployment pays $10.

Also, you bumper job would be relegated to the untrained startup guy. Ford requires training for warranty repairs on electrical and such, so a bumper would be done by the cheapest per hour mechanic there.
 
In 09, we had Chevy bumpers rusting on the lot before they were sold. Made in China. The bowties would also fall apart on the lot.
 
Really you can thank the EPA for China chrome. Most chrome operations are being pushed outside the US.

Rick
 
I'm glad you posted that. My 2011 F150 has a spot of rust on the chrome front bumper and I didn't know if it's covered under warranty. It has just under 30,000 km's. I think I'll talk to the dealer.
 
There's truth in that post. I quit at a dealer and a year later I walked back in for parts. There was only one familiar technician there, and it was only because the owner had bought him his tools and he had to do some indentured servitude to pay them off. The assistant shop foreman had been pressured out and the top shop foreman had been fired. The owner still had his house by the lake with the golf course, so I guess not all was bad.
 
(quoted from post at 06:11:53 04/28/13) You have a 2 year old F-250 and rust is showing through the Chrome? WTF?.......I think FMC should just give you a new bumper. Unless you have 150k miles on it or sumthing. I have a F series truck many years ago, the front bumper had massive surface rust after 5 years, I ended up throwing it in a dumpster. I even repainted it 3 times, I wasnt doing it a 4th, That truck is long gone in a boneyard or melted for scrap.

Wile E, read again, They did give him a new bumper. His post is about the installation.
 
The post above about bumpers made in china reinforces my belief in you cannot have faith in american made products. Chevy versus Toyota, versus Nissan, bunch of crap. You think you are buying american, you never know.
 
Had warranty work done on my new (obviously) 79 Dodge, so it was sometime in 1979-1980. The small town dealer I bought it from also was the only Cadillac dealer in town and they had that attitude, so my cheap Dodge probably didn't mean much to them. When I picked it up after they were done with it there was cigarette ashes on the seat. The old mechanic smoked like a chimney and he thought my cheap old Dodge was an ash tray. He would have been fired if he left those ashes on the seat of the banker's Caddy.

Right about that time this Dodge started dying on the road. The engine would start but as soon as I released the key it died. Towed it to this same dealer and it performed fine for them so they told me they can't find the problem if it isn't acting up. I drove it home and it promptly died again, then it ran OK after a few tries. This young, no-nothing farmer here got out his meter and found the loose connection In the firewall in 15 minutes. I never went back there. Like I said, if it would have been the banker's Caddy they WOULD have found the problem. This was 33 years ago so we had shoddy dealers with an attitude back then too. Jim
 
One dealer I can talk good about is Jarrat Ford, Jarrat, va. My wife broke down in our HD2500 coming back from NC on a Sunday night- ate a tensioner and serpent belt on the dura max. She limped into the blimpies, only thing on the exit, an I drove down to fetch her. Only thing at the exit was the blimpies and the ford dealer- I pulled it with a chain to ford, put the keys in the overnight drop with an explanation and drove home 90 miles preparing to get bent over.
Got a call the next morning, sure we can do it, belt, tensioned, labor $249 couldn't have been nicer. Called a local guy, almost 100 more. Only problem was I had to drive an hour and a half back down to get it, if it weren't for school I'd have been better off putting the wife in a hotel. But...near as I can tell the only thing in Jarrat is blimpies, ford and the jail.
 
I hear about guys running hundreds of thousands of miles with no problems with their duramax trucks, yet the 06 half-ton v6 I had ate a wheel bearing at about 40,000. The most load it ever saw was a 100 gallon tank of fuel in the bed, and that wasn't too often.
The two duramax 2500s at work have eaten 3 front wheel bearing, with a combined less than 200,000 on them. And two sets of injectors and a motor. And yes, they get their maintenance, the motor was a problem with the top end, ate two sets of head gaskets before getting a crate motor to replace it.
And for a "no way!" statement, it is possible for a new duramax head gasket to run water out the side of the motor until it first gets up to operating temp.
 
Have a local Chevy dealer that has been in business for 47 years. Reason is customer service. I bought a bow tie rather than my usual Ram badges because he was the nearest dealer, he would come and get you if you broke down somewhere, price is right, and thanks to the govt. intervention, Chevy is really putting out a nice truck now. Fixed all the reasons I left the badge back in the '80's.

I have been back a couple of times to have some accessories installed and they jump right on the job, fix it right and thank you for your business.

Whadda deal!!!!

He competes with the DFW metroplex and has a lively business. Must be his service bringing back his repeat customers.
 
Stick, the first thing they will do is wax it with some of their super wax & send pics to Ford. Did that when the truck was between 3 and 6 months old. Took it back week before last with 30,000 miles on it and the rust had caused spots that the wax couldn't cover & they ordered a new bumper for it. Just put it on pretty darned crooked & broke license plate light. They ordered a new light for me. Thiink I'll level the bumper myself rather than have the hastle. If I were you, I'd sure be talking to them about it. Keith
 
(quoted from post at 12:47:31 04/28/13) Keith,

Someone backed into my wife's Windstar van recently and destroyed the dirver's side door. I took it to a local body shop for repair.

They did an outstanding job. I was surprised at how satisfied I was with the job. I guess some shops are better than others. Tom in TN

Our local Ford dealer's body shop is a preferred shop for my insurance company and they did a great job on two of my vehicles (I backed into one with the other!) They went the extra mile on getting several used doors for the van until they found one they could make right. I've had the repair shop do some work too on vehicles when my independent shop couldn't handle it and I've been satified with their work too (but not with the price!). Some shops still take pride in their work.
 

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