New 07/08/
Ford Customer Service
Thought I would share a story of the level of customer service I received recently at my local Ford dealership in Hamden, Connecticut, Bob Thomas Ford.
I brought my car to the stealer because my neighbor backed into one of the passenger doors. While it was there I figured I would have them take care of some mechanical problems. I was quoted $1200 for the work, which I've described on this list before. The body work, paid for by my neighbor's insurance, was over $1000.
The body shop called the other day to tell me the body work was finished and then transferred me to the service area. I was greeted by a less than enthusiastic Ford employee. I explained that the previous service tech, his name was Ed, had done a work up on my car and I wanted them to go ahead and do the work. While I had this very helpful (heavy on the sarcasm) employee I asked if they could cut me a break on the price of the service. After all, they had just got over $1000 of body work from me. The employee was unable to find the work up on my car, but assured me that he would fight for my discount by telling me, "Yeah ok, I'll check." He then told me he would look for my workup and call me back.
So, more than 24 hours later I still had not received a call from the enthusiastic Ford employee. I called the Ford dealership and spoke with the same ever enthusiastic Ford employee. He remembered me and immediately stated, "I checked with my boss and he said he can't do any discount on that price. Ed didn't put any fat into the estimate." When I challenged him on what needed to be done to my car he stated that he knew and gave me a new estimate of between $1300-1400. I asked him to tell me what needed to be done to my car and he placed me on hold to retrieve my ticket. This is the guy who had fought for my discount, he didn't even know what needed to be done to my car, nor did he have the right estimate. When he came back on the line he read off the issues with my car. When he finished I told him that I had been quoted $1200 for the work and ticked off, item by item, what I had been quoted by the other mechanic. This guy then told me to wait while he "did the math." When he totaled it all up it came to $1200. Again, the guy that supposedly tried to get me a discount didn't have the right price for the service.
This is where the call got a little testy. This guy then asks me what kind of car I had. Now this information is written on the work ticket, but I engaged him nonetheless. When I told him I had a Ford Taurus SHO he replied, "God bless ya." I immediately asked, "Why do you say God bless me?" He began to retreat and he said something about high performance. I replied by telling him that his statement made it clear that he knew about the cam failure issue. His response? "That's what you get for high performance." I told him that the SHO was "High performance, low quality, from Ford." When he challenged me by again repeating his ridiculous comment about the car being "high performance", I asked him if Porsches or BMWs had catastrophic cam failures, because after all those vehicles are "high performance." He didn't respond. I told him that I would never buy another Ford product because of attitudes like his and his company's.
It's always nice to see that a company is consistent, poor response from the mother ship, poor response from the dealerships. As I stated to him, this is the reason I will not buy another Ford. I will be sending a letter to the owner of the dealership but I doubt that I will receive a positive response. Sorry for the long email but I thought it would be interesting to the list.
Steve
98 Black SHO
_________________________________________________________________________
Note from U.L.
I don't go out looking for this stuff - it just comes to me. In my world - It is what it is.