russellw

During Mexicos little downpour today, the Mustang was in need of a replacement wiper fuse as it had blown (again) and as it was being driven by the CDE I suggested that the nearest Ford dealer would be the go.

Turns out that the nearest Ford dealer was Binks at Footscray who were singularly unhelpful in as much as they were unwilling to even take a look despite the obvious inclement conditions.

Would have been way less trouble to ring the FTE/FPV PAC (Premium Assistance Centre) but it seemed too minor a problem to even bother them with. I'll know better next time.

A call to the Customer Relationship Centre yielded the obligatory "we can't help with dealer matters" response (expected of course) so the DP and FOA are both in for a suitably worded letter.

To the service people concerned at Binks let me say this: it's little wonder you rank so low in customer satisfaction surveys if this is indicative of your attitude. My sympathy to the poor sods whose PMA you represent and hopefully one day Ford will have the balls to pull your franchise.

To FOA let me say this: it's easy to hide behind the paltry franchise excuse but whether you care to acknowledge it or not these people are your primary interface with your customers. You've been bleating for a long time about fixing the problem but I somehow get the impression that all the half assed efforts (like Service 2000) are merely window dressing that save the need to take any positive action. These people are slowly but surely screwing your business and the time is long overdue for you to start cleaning them out by whatever means are at your disposal. Surely even the glass house suits have figured out that the odd reaming from GP et al, is about as effective as giving an Aspirin for a severed head.

As it stands Ford has good product, average build quality and poor service. Not good enough by half.

fuming ...
Russ

PS: Yes I am spoilt in having a multiple Dealership of the Year winner as my servicing dealership but surely their standard should be the entry point and not the pinnacle?

xacoupe

pretty poor if they couldn't even help with a fuse.
Even if it couldn't be done immediately they could have asked the CDE (???) to wait for a little while until someone could look at it. Not like it's an unannounced 10,000K service.
I will add that to President Ford as a dealer to avoid.

Curls

xa-coupe,
President Ford was my selling dealer (I bought under the Privilege Club) and is owned by the Jefferson Ford group so I am curious as to what sort of issues you experienced with them. To rectify my common faulty "auto" window down under remote unlocking I had to obtain the number of the Ford boffin they should contact to explain that only the window switch needed replacing and that a two day time frame for repairs with no replacement car was simply NOT on. My parents bought their ELII from Jefferson Ford Mentone, service it only at the Moorabbin center and have always been well looked after. I would like to think that the controlling management spread their customer service levels to all their sites but this is obvioulsy not the case.

One bugbear I have is that if a problem is covered under full warranty and the dealer will be covered by the factory why on earth do they piss you around to get things done?

I would really appreciate your thoughts/feedback.

xacoupe

a few moons ago we were ringing around trying to find sponsorship for our Targa Tasmania effort. We had got 100% "No Thanks" till then but PF thought they would go one better. My wife spent about 5 mins going through the sales speil to get this answer
" No, get f*cked " and the phone was slammed down.
I don't mind people saying no, in fact it is a numbers game and they would have been just another 'no' until then.
I am far from well off but am trying to find a way to get a new XR8 and there is no way in hell they will get my business. If it was a choice of a XR8 from PF or a VY SS I would get the SS, that's how much they have put me off.

My understanding of the warranty is that Ford allocate a time that they will pay for regarding a particular repair. The time allocated is usually laughably low leaving the dealer to carry the rest of the time (money) hence they try all sorts of dodgeys to get out of it. For the customer's sake. the good ones just shut up and take it on the chin.