Hello all, the reason I'm posting this question is that I've had bad experiences in the past with the service dept's. at two different dealerships. the 1st was when I needed the clutch replaced and the mechanic didn't completely tighten the bolts that holds the transmission to the frame, and the 2nd time, they replaced the starter, and the problem was the cables. Does Ford do any oversight over the dealerships to make sure that the mechanics are competent? in fact are the mechanics even Ford trained? Thanks

 

Yes, Ford is supposed to work things out with the customer and the dealer.

Here's where to call:

800.392.FORD

Make sure to have your VIN# handy.

 

The Ford Motor Company has ultimate responsibility for quality from manufacturing through the dealership service experience. That said, it's not quite that cut and dry. Ford sets standards for service quality (among other things) and measures each dealership on their performance to those standards. Unfortunately, it's not a perfect measure and some "defects" do slip through. The way it's supposed to work is that if a dealership is not meeting the standards, there are corrective actions put in place.

As for how and why this kind of thing happens, let me pull from the experience of my son who recently changed careers to get out of that line of work. He went to a 2 year college and graduated from a program run by a major manufacturer (not Ford) and graduated number one in his class. He was also the very first kid in the program to ever graduate with an ASE Master Service Technician certification. He was snapped up immediately upon graduation by that manufacturer's largest local dealership. The Service department was absolutely spotless. In college, they painted a pretty rosy picture of how important and valuable technicians were, how rewarding the work was and how much he'd get paid. Going in, it looked like they were right.

What my son actually experienced - the "flat rate" world - was very different. There is incredible pressure on the techs to do work as quickly as possible, to "up-sell" services that may or may not be needed and the pay sucks. The pressure to cut corners is there on every job. Guess what that kind of environment leads to when it comes to quality?

While I truly believe that techs at dealerships are far better trained and equipped to work on the vehicles they sell than the shop down the street, they sure don't treat the techs in a way to support the quality standards they set.

 

^^^^^^^^^

THIS!

The lead tech at the local Ford dealer told them to take a hike and opened his own shop. Guess where I go? He's become quite successful and is usually pretty busy. His hourly rate is considerably less than the dealer too.

 

While I do agree with what folks are mentioning about the techs "environment".

The problem is, for someone to open a shop and have the same gear as what the dealership will have you need to have deep pockets. Very deep pockets. On top of that, you need to convince people that your shop does better work than a dealer or another shop right down the street. Convincing people is easier to be said than done.

It's a cut throat operation in my mind.

In my area, you'll never be without a mechanic... there are so many shops within a 15 mile radius, that it fills 20 pages in a Yellowbook... You can spit, and you'll hit a mechanic's shop. So every time I see a "new" shop open up, I just drive on by and laugh, because I know how that shop got there... exactly what was said above.

 

After a 4 year stint in the navy, I went to one of those national trade schools, graduated second in my class. Went to work for a large trucking company. Eventually found my way to a Ford dealer in the Phoenix area, with stops at a tire store and a small private shop. After about 4 years, I gave up and changed careers. what I found was they pay two or three tech top money, the rest get just above minimum wage because they are just parts changers. The dealers figured out it was cheaper to pay a couple of techs top money to diagnose the car, then they would hand it off to the parts changers and we would bust our knuckles to get it done under the allotted flat rate time, all the while we had to have several thousands of dollars worth of tools to do the job. Also if the top techs misdiagnosed the problem, we would have to eat it not them because we actually did the repair, even tho we did what we were told.