4/1/01
Ford announced a major recall today affecting all Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln Dealerships.
Service writers, salespersons and mechanics with a date of manufacture between 1930 and 1990 may have an ethics and/or competence defect resulting in unsatisfactory customer experience.
Symptoms may include service writers who lie and duck valid warranty claims. Or just don't care if you ever get your car back. They ask you for symptoms, then tell you you are lying, faking it, or can't prove it; like the customer has nothing better to do but take off from work to argue with an incompetent imbecile. Single best diagnostic test is if you ever hear a service writer say: "If it were up to me you know I would like to help you." run the other way.
Salesmen who make promises knowing they can't keep and who don't know their product. A good clue is when you question something you have been told and show him a sales brochure and he looks at it for the first time in his life and says, "No kidding, let me see?"
Mechanics who can't RTFM, never been to classes or just don't care about the quality of their work. They may leave out parts or ineptly do more damage to a car when attempting to repair it. A good diagnostic test is when they tell you you can't be in the shop for insurance reasons and ask "Do you think you know more about this than I do?"
As always test parts before replacement. While the problems are wide-spread they are not universal.
When asked why it took so long to address such long standing problem the Ford spokesperson simply admitted " We have known we have had a problem for a very long time but as long as we are never as bad Chevy or Mopar we thought we could get by." When asked when the consumer may notice an improvement the spokesperson admitted. "It took 70 years to get into this mess and may take that long to get much better."
Customers experiencing problems can call Ford Customer Satisfaction Hot Line.
If you expect only to vent to some poor clerk who will dutifully take notes
which will be promptly discarded you may be satisfied. The diagnostic test for
the clerk on the Ford Customer Satisfaction Hot Line is if he tells you Ford
Motor Company has no control over dealerships which are indecently
independently owned and operated.