I'm so pi$$ed. I brought my car into the dealer to have them investigate a problem with the rear end. The sound is very subtle.... can easily be mistaken for road noise. The vibration feels like a bad U-joint. When I drive, it's more prevelant when the car is cold. After it warms up, it settles down a bit, but it's obvious as hell to me. It's so bad it feels like I'm driving into a strong headwind.
I took it in, and even took a service writer with me to try to explain the problem to him, because my verbal description wasn't hitting home with this guy. I could feel and hear the problem the whole time, and he just wasn't getting it. I just felt bad becuase his cell phone was ringing off the hook, and I was interrupting his social life. So, anyways.. I leave it with them that evening, and they had it all the following day. Just before close of business, I called to see if they had found anything.... knowing that there's a TSB on it. I didn't want to sy anything at first... I wanted to let them do their job. So, anyways... they couldn't find anything wrong. they took it for a drive, said it all sounds normal. They told me that it's just they way these cars are. Had I bought this car used and didn't know how it felt out of the factory, I might have been content with that answer, but since to me it feels like a world of difference, I was a bit more than irritated. I told them to try again. This time, I gave them the TSB number and said to pull the differential cover and visually inspect the gears (TSB 05-20-2). What this meant is that I would be another day without my car, and that I owuld need to put my wife out again. She caught a ride to work from her mom the first day I had her car, but this time, her mother is out of town, and we didn't have that option. We don't know anybody, so she had no way to get to work other than walk. We live about a mile and a half from where she works.... and 15 miles from where I work. My job is the one that provides the insurance, and covers all the bills.. both car payments, etc, so I don't really have a choice in the matter. I have no time available to take off work until January. So... here I am... Man of the Year... taking my wife's car to work, so that she can walk... did I mention that she's 5 months pregnant? ...It was her idea, I was going to call someone from my office late as hell to hook up a ride, but she insisted on walking... Anyways.... the A-holes at the dealership had my car for another full day and REFUSED to put it up on a rack and either look at the gears, or lift the rea axle off it's wheels and rotate the assembly just to listen to it. I am so mad at these guys becuase they acted like I'm just complaining about nothing... I KNOW I've built more cars than the dip-sh** service writer and I know what I'm talkin' about. So... now I have to either try another dealer, which means my wife will be without her car again, or see if calling Ford's customer service will get me anywhere.... I'd talk to the service manager if he wasn't one of the buttplugs that was involved.

 

OK, I gotta ask... what dealership did you go to? Since you are right up the road from me I wanna make sure I don't ever go there.

 

It's Walker Ford on HWY 19... We just bought an '07 Fusion SEL for my wife last weekend. The sales guy was nice as hell... and when he made a follow up call, I told him that I was a little dissatisfied with the service department... that was at the end of day 1 of this mess, so I told him not to worry about anything at this point... I'd give them a change to do their job. He offered to even call the owner and make something happen... so I still have that option, but, I need to cool off and figure out how I want to approach this. So... don't let my bad experience spoil it... like I said.. the sales guys are great to work with... I'm just a little ****ed about the service department, at this juncture.

 

Hey - been there. I know what you're going through. I went to three dealers 'til I found one that did it right. I got the same story from the other two: "Sounds normal" or "It's supposed to sound like that" or "It's a sports car, it's going to make noise." I'm sure they'd have a different story if your car wasn't warranty. Then I'm sure they would find all kinds of things wrong.

The second dealer agreed to do a ring and pinion replacement. They had the car for three days. I don't have the "extended" warranty so they didn't care less about my logistical commuting problems either. While plenty of extended warranty folks got lined up with rentals. They didn't even ask me if I was interested in paying for one on my own. Jerks. On top of that, they put the ring and pinion in wrong and actually made the noise worse than before.

I was ready to give up, because I really need my car to get to work and don't have time to be laid up without it. I happened to be on paternity leave last month and took it to the third dealer who finally did it right (pointing out all the things the other dealer did wrong - basically a textbook screwup on how not to do a ring and pinion) I was able to get courtesy shuttled back and forth from home to tend to wife and baby. (This dealer is the closest dealer to my home, but not my work, and neither of their shuttles go cross town)

If you're taking paternity leave, think you can wait three months and take yours in then? Then it can sit all it needs to and you're not bound to work.

I think your relationship with this dealer is over. They obviously just don't care or know what they are talking about. Find another dealer and mention the other one treated you like crap. Usually then they try to upstage the other dealer to win your business.

 

That blows!!!! They are between work and home! I don't wanna drive up to Freedom just to get work done...... Sux!

 

I live just north of Freedom.. but they've never impressed me... not even a little. It started when I went to them to order it in the first place... they told me that the order bank was closed, and with the options I wanted, they might as well put me in a Saleen 'cause that's the price range I was in. I told him I get x-plan, and I know what the price on the car will be with the options I want, and I gave him 2 minutes to quit lying to me after I called him out on it... and it still happened, so I walk out in the middle of the conversation. The other time was when I went to the service shop for an oil change, and the do not accept the coupons I have with the service plan that I THOUGHT was the Ford service plan.. (I got hosed, and that's another story all together).... but their shop was a mess... and I didn't feel comfortable taking it there because of the appearance of things. I have 5400 miles on the car, and no door dings, not a scratch except a single rock chip the size of a pin head..... and I would like it to remain that way. So... yeah... Walker looked a lot nicer, but evidently the techs are just as lazy.

 

Last summer I went to look into buying a GT from them... All I got was how they didn't have any but they had 6 coming in that werent spoken for. The salesman swore he would call me when one came in but I never heard from him. Long story short, I went to Brandon ford and didn't buy a mustang for a year. I bought this one at Lakeland auto mall.

 

yeah... I was so disgusted with Freedom, that I drove all the way to Daytona to get mine ordered. Too bad I don't want to drive that far to have it fixed...

 

I'm having similar dealer issues with a dash rattle and rear-end wine that I’ve had the car in two times for. The only plus side is I always get a loaner car or a rental on their dime if they don’t have a loaner available. The only advice I would offer is demand a loaner car. If the dealer refuses to give one or says they don’t offer that service find another deal and be sure to let your salesman know that you wont be back because of their lack of customer service (usually when your sales guy hears this a used focus will magically appear ).

Good Luck,
John

 

Dealers don't make any money fixing warranty work on cars so they'll try to get out of it any way they can......When I shop for new cars and the sales guys start talking warranty and extended warranty with me I look them right in the eye and say " you know **** well you bastards are going to try to get out of warrany work any way you can!" And they always just smirk knowing I'm right and I obviously bought news cars in the past.......Unless the engine falls out of the bottom of the car and is lying on the ground they really don't care.

 

Would you be able to expand on this..what exactly did they do wrong? You may recall I am going through a similar experience and am taking it to dealer #2 on Monday. First dealer tried three times and it's still worse than before I brought it in.

 

if the gears aren't aligned right, the correct bearing crush applied, and if the grars aren't shimmed when they need to be, you're not fixing anything... you're recreating the problem with new parts.

 

Take the car to Allans Gear Works get his opinion and go back to walker with what he said all they do is gear work and their the best in your area. I own a shop and I send him all the rear ends from big truck to cars . He is the one who will put my 391's in .

 

Yup - you got it. Third tech pointed out that the last tech did not install with the correct pinion bearing preload, incorrect pinion depth, and incorrect backlash. I mean, c'mon...textbook. Last tech must've been drunk or reading the wrong manual. That was just bad.

The third tech said to me some techs are just lazy and set it to factory specs without dialing it in. Each piece may be within spec, but as a system don't work together. You have to dial the whole system in. Luckily, it is a small suburban shop and I was his only car all day. He spent about seven hours on it installing it and dialing it in. I was very lucky and I am definitely passing on my thanks to his manager.

 

Thanks for the tip... I may do that. I have been sittin' here wondering how long I'll have to put up with it before I can try again at the dealer. perhaps if I get another opinion.....
But, my concern is that they still won't give a sh** since it's warranty work, and there's no profit in it.
We'll see.

.... I looked 'em up.. it's less than a half mile from my place... I'm right across 19. how convenient.

 

If you wanna call crossing 19 convenient.....

 

yeah... now that they have opened the over passes at Sunset Point and Coachman... try making a left hand turn when you're headed south just on the south side of Enterprise. you'll wait in the turn lane for 10 minutes. It's quicker to go all the way to Sunset Point, wait for the light and do a U-turn...

good times.

 

Ha! I did that yesterday going north. Went to CompUSA and just drove all the way up by Freedom and did the U-turn. Much faster than sitting there waiting for the light.

 

I was at Comp USA twice yesterday... wait. nevermind, that was the day before... and it was trying to get over to Office Depot to return a wireless NIC that's not compatible with XP Pro X64. ... that's a whole other issue in itself that I'm having right now...
spend near a grand upgrading the computer, and nothing works with it, 'cause nobody wants to write drivers for a 64 bit OS.
oh well...

 

ROFL!!!! I have the same problems!!! Finding a good antivirus was a real PAIN!