Ford Service is becoming horrible

[ultrarunner100]

I use to be able to handle that Ford products were hit and miss in reliability because they came with pretty good service and I like Ford trucks. Now Ford service has gotten so bad, I am having to take my F150 to my wife's Honda dealer for service and repairs. The service department at Berge ford in Mesa, AZ was absolutely unable to fix electrical problems on my Ranger...I took the truck to a Chevy dealer and had the problem solved in an afternoon. The service department at Superstition Springs Ford is providing false information (Employees are lying to the customers) and then strong arming its customers into paying unreasonable fees after the service is completed. They took me for some $$$ and I am not easily taken. Like to know what they are doing to other customers. Its the principle more than the money and I wondered if anyone realized as I left how bad their tactics are for the Earnhardt name or business. My question to Ford has been....Is there anyone there who really cares? If so, can I speak to them? To date, I have received nothing but a pre-computer generated response...

[Fifty150]

It varies from location to location.

My local dealership has a bunch of jerks on the sales floor. Mostly junior college flunkies in their 20's who can't even dress themselves yet. Patent leather Jordans do not count as dress shoes, and no, it is never okay to wear white socks with a shirt & tie. I'm not too comfortable with purchasing a vehicle, and a financial product (loan) from someone whose pants sag like a rap star's jeans. Do I really want to trust my Social Security Number with someone who wants to bump fist instead of shaking hands? I'm touching gloves with the guy like we're in a steel cage octagon, and Big John McCarthy is about to tell us, "let's get it on". Am I buying a car or beating down someone at the Ultimate Fighting Championship?

I buy my trucks from a dealership an hour away. In between, there are several Ford vendors. But to drive an hour away, I get a family owned & operated dealership where I know the owners & get treated like an intelligent human being. Their service bay is great too. It's just that I don't often have the luxury of using mechanics an hour away from home.

My local dealership service department is physically removed from the sales floor by about 4 miles. The service writers vary from luke warm, to okay, to reasonable people. One service writer guy is actually really cool. He once talked me out of something that I didn't need (alarm touch pad), and has given me several things free and written them off as "bumper to bumper warranty". The techs are really knowledgeable and every one of them has pointed out one service writer and told me to ignore everything that guy says. While the techs are all pretty honest and won't solicit you for side work, they will tell you things "out of school".

The next closest dealership has sales, service, and even parts housed separately. Strange that I had to leave my car in the service bay, walk to a separate facility to pay for and pick up the parts, carry those heavy items by hand for several blocks, then return to service to pay for labor. They offered to have to parts runner drive them over in his Toyota(?) pick up if I wanted to pay for delivery. I may as well have bought parts online and paid for UPS shipping.

[mSaLL150]

Originally Posted by Fifty150

I buy my trucks from a dealership an hour away. In between, there are several Ford vendors. But to drive an hour away, I get a family owned & operated dealership where I know the owners & get treated like an intelligent human being. Their service bay is great too. It's just that I don't often have the luxury of using mechanics an hour away from home.

Which dealership do you get your vehicles from? My family uses the Ford dealership in Walnut Creek, its family owned and two of my dad's cousins are employees there. We get excellent service.

[Fifty150]

I go to Vallejo from San Francisco. The old S&C Ford here in San Francisco is no longer S&C. Cornelius in Vallejo has treated me fairly.

[Arca_ex]

I bought my truck at Berge Ford. So as for the service? It's not that good, and first impressions last.

I got a complimentary first oil change and fluid topoff and inspection etc. etc.

First thing, I get there no problem, the guy that comes up to my window was pretty cool, got that sorted out right away, did the vehicle walk around blah blah blah.

Well anyways, as you can tell from my sig my truck is lowered pretty good, that'll play into the story later. And they did two things that didn't make me very happy, but at least I had a good laugh first:

When they started it to move it, (the whole service window/tunnel dealy is made of concrete) it was REALLY loud. It scared the s*** out of one of the guys standing at the car behind my truck lol.

1. When they went to take it to the garage, they pull through the service windows tunnel thing and out the other side, and there's a speed bump. He takes it WAY too fast and the rear end bottomed out. It was violent to say the least...
At which point I screamed (window was still down) "HEY SLOW DOWN!!!"
Again, the tunnel place I was standing in echoes a ton, so good, all the other people there saw it happen, and if they don't know much about automobiles or what exactly happened, at least they knew it was NOT a good thing for the vehicle at all.

They brought it back nice and slow over the speed bump. I'm like, okay at least they learn fast.

BUT THEN.


2. I go over to get my truck, and the guy that hops out and takes out the paper foot mat and headrest cover, says to me "Man this is a tight ride, is it bagged?" after seeing my guages and switches. (Click here to see them. It replaces the cigarette lighter, press switch up for more air to bags and down to deflate them, left gauge is bag pressure, right is tank pressure)
I'm like "Thanks, yeah it's just an air assist for the rear. To keep it from bottoming it out and stuff."
(It wasn't the guy that raped my rear end over the speed bump, or else I would have emphasized that last part.)
It gets better here. I say "I could show it to you quick if you want, it'll only drop about 2 inches though"
I'm already sitting in my truck, I look over at the guages. They used all of my god damn air... must have thought I had compressors, which I don't.
To say the least I was p***ed now, they thought they could play around with my truck, and I only have a three gallon tank, so the bags and the tank were sitting at 15PSI, I need at LEAST 25PSI in order to not bottom out over moderate bumps at the speed limit. I felt like making them go back and fill the air tank up, but I just replied "Oh, sorry, looks like you guys used all my air..." with a pretty negative connotation. I decided that I was done with that place for quite a bit and drove home doing about 35...

I'm doing my own oil changes now, and screw the rewards program...

[MercedesTech]

If you do your own work you don't have to worry about this problem. Why trust someone else ? You don't think that they mess up? Break stuff ? Then just cover it up or replace it and never tell you ! Do your own work, that way you KNOW whats actually being done. Just my 2 cents.

[Arca_ex]

Hey it was free, but I definitely fell for it. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.


That's the first time I've ever taken it somewhere for work besides the Tonneau install. Everything else has been done at home, where it should be done now that I've learned.