Ford incompetence

I took my car in for a 50K service last week. Ford said one of the from wheel bearings had gone, and needed replacing urgently. They also said the rear suspension bushes needed replacement (requires a new subframe). This adds up to about 700 quids worth of work.

Last night, after a 2 hour drive I felt the temperature of the front hubs. Both were warm, but felt the same temperature. The rears were also a similar temperature. I expected the worn bearing to be much hotter, but it wasn’t.

This morning, I took it to a local garage (who have a decent rep) for it’s MOT. I asked them to check the bearings and the rear suspension. They checked them and said they were perfect.

On the previous service to the one last week, the Ford dealer had said I needed new disks and pads all round. I told them to leave it, and checked them when I got home. They looked like there was loads of life left in the pads, and the disks looked fine. I asked them to recheck them last week, and miraculously they were fine.

I opened a complaint to Ford last week, as I think a car that’s done 50k miles should not need £700 spending on it. They were sympathetic, and are supposed to be getting back to me next week. It now looks like the car doesn’t need anything spending on it, and that the Ford dealer were trying to rip me and Ford HQ, (as they initially thought the work was covered under warranty) off.

What should I do next…Trading standards? Grass them up to Ford? I think it’s pretty out of order, as I was thinking of flogging the car when I found out it had ‘issues’, but it looks like there is nothing wrong with it.

Well done for holding out against the pressure they put on you. I should spread the story far and wide and name names.

My hate company this week is Ford related……Ford Insure. I ain’t doing business with them again.

What should I do next…Trading standards? Grass them up to Ford?

The first one. The dealers are their own entity, selling a ford product / service, they, not Ford are responsible for their actions.

Well to be fair, on that basis the thread title isn’t quite accurate.

I’m lost ,what incompetence have Ford shown ?

Incompetence – related to a Ford

Not incompetence by Ford. The only incompetence here was the dealership who need a right royal shafting for dis-service to car repair firms all over the UK.

As if the ‘motor trade’ doesn’t have a bad reputation already! 👿

Sorry, the incompetence title was playing off the MOT thread. It’s not incompetence, it’s blatantly ripping off customers. The brakes were going to be c. 400 quid, so that’s over a grand’s worth of totally pointless work.

A guy at work used to be a mechanic at a German car main dealership chain.
The mechanics were told to find £350-400 of work needing doing at service/MOT time…..

I’ve put up with Ford being hopeless for too long. Driving home on Friday I did 55mph max because I was worried about the bearing. Not a nice experience.

When I first had the car from new it spent three trips to a Ford dealer because it was leaking exhaust fumes into the car. The dealer refused to acknowledge there was anything wrong (despite me watching them returning the car to me with all the windows open because of the fumes :-(). I took it to a different dealer (twice) who eventually found there was a large crack in the Cat.

I’m calmly going to take Ford to pieces on this one. I really am.

Noone really cares if it’s the dealer or Ford apart from people inside the two organisations.

It’s got a big Ford sign out front.

Yep, EMG Ford in Cambridge used to regularly tell me about all the ‘work’ that needed doing when my Fiesta went in for a service, including advising the tyres needed replacing when down to 4mm.
Other things included rear pads on the drums and rear dampers.

I’m lost ,what incompetence have Ford shown ?

Well the do own a few main dealers:

Ford owned dealers

Marko

Do wheel bearings fail without making a deafening racket? All the ones I’ve known to fail have made a very obvious cry for help, if you leave them long enough then its pretty unpleasantly loud in the car.

Car drives perfectly, the bearings ain’t getting hotter than on my wifes car. I think if the bearings were shot, things would get pretty hot, pretty quickly on a large car going at 50mph.

The suspension feels fine, I’ve had a Ford previously which needed a new sub frames, and you know it needs doing, as you can hear it clanking.

The brakes are fine. Ford said they were fine last week, and it’s just passed it’s MOT, so unless they have magically regenerated themselves over that last 12,500 miles, there was nothing wrong with them at the last service.

I dunno if trading standards would be interested in this, as it’s only a recommendation to have the work done…it’s not like I’ve paid for it and they didn’t do it? Either way, it sucks.

That wiki link is great….

Since 2014, many of the Ford Retail dealerships were rebranded to TrustFord

🙂

Are they part of the Good Garages Scheme or signed up to the Motor Industry code of practice? If they are, (or something similar) it will be doubtless be advertised on the bottom of any invoice paperwork or letter head. I’d be notifying the administrators of any such scheme.

Trading standards, definitely notify them. Even if your complaint isn’t enough to get an investigation started, it may provide evidence for another ongoing or future inspection.

lodious – Member

Car drives perfectly, the bearings ain’t getting hotter than on my wifes car. I think if the bearings were shot, things would get pretty hot, pretty quickly on a large car going at 50mph.

Not my experience tbh- mine (mondeo and focus) just go noisy, a long annoying drone, like an RE teacher. I notice it because that’s how I’m built but other folks in the car sometimes couldn’t. They weren’t seized or grinding or anything to build up tons of heat, they were just shagged.

The other garage’s check is more relevant tbh!

Ford’s customer care has never been the best

Ah i wonder if this ford garage mot testers are hammyuks tester mates . If you cant see it fail it 🙂

“. I notice it because that’s how I’m built but other folks in the car sometimes couldn’t”

Its my experiance that the layman wouldnt notice if his wheel fell off never mind made a noise.

My past experience of wheel bearings is that you change them when the radio won’t go loud enough to block the noise out.

timber – Member
My past experience of wheel bearings is that you change them when the radio won’t go loud enough to block the noise out.

+1000

I do condition monitoring on over 2000 machines and if a bearing is at the point of needing changing immediately I don’t need any fancy SKF acceleration monitoring kit backed up with historical data of the said item.

I don’t need any fancy SKF acceleration monitoring kit backed up with historical data of the said item.

Nope, he sticks a small screwdriver in his ear, holds it against and bearing housing, nods sagely and tells the clanky it’s knackered. PdM Swaglord. 😀

Wouldn’t bother tbh, as Volvo are just as crap for us and come to think of it all main dealers I can think of. Its just the nature of the beast when putting trust into main dealers for servicing etc. I haven’t used a main dealer for years, but works vans and cars seem to need wallet busting repairs at the dealers, but when we get a local mate to oversee, they manage to not need anything.

Main stealers for you. Big showrooms and garages aren’t cheap to run, unknowing customers get ripped off to pay for them. Peugeot were the last to rip me off with a major service where the spark plugs weren’t changed let alone the cam belt. Ford and BMW have tried it too since and when challenged and threatened with an independent inspection have given generous discounts.

I had a great experience with Lookers Ford in Sheffield. Our 12v socket kept blowing so I took it in. They ‘fixed’ it, but lo and behold it went again and again despite repeated visits. In the end I had a look at the fuses (amongst other things) to see that all they’d done was replace the 4A with a 24A. Crap

Thats genius.

So somewhere in a highly flammable box something is causing a surge?

Toyota Manchester on the phone to me ‘tyres and discs/brakes need changing Sir/dangerously low can we go ahead/sure? I cant guarantee you’ll be safe leaving like that’

It passed its MOT the day before.

Que silence.

I’ve had a wheel bearing become noisey before any play was detectable by either a mechanic or an independent MoT tester. I took the car in whenever I was passing the garage until the offending bearing developed play and could be identified and replaced, and yes, they howl!

On a separate note, when a main dealer charged me £50 for engine oil and were rude in reply I complained to the manufacturer. I then got a far nicer letter from the man with his name over the dealer’s door than I did from his service manager. I’ve never set foot in there again

My Volkswagen dealer is the same; my Passat had around 17,000 miles on it when they told me it needed new front discs. It was couched more in “ought to have new discs” rather than definitely should. I declined their offer and when, at 80,000 miles they said the same thing again I remined them and told them they would understand when I wanted to go down and look at the brakes myself, on the workshop lift. The discs were unevenly worn and part rusted so I agreed. They’re all sharks. The only garage I trust is the small family-run MOT station just up the road from my office.

Trading standards are busy dealing with products with genuine safety issues. I’d forget about that right away – the guys who deal with complaints know how busy trading standards are!

At this point you’ve had some advice to change bits but you’re not actually out of pocket.

I would chalk it up to experience to be honest and use another dealer. If it were brake pads or discs where wear is easily measured then you could really kick off.

With bearings you could measure play, but bushings are a bit harder to assess.

If you really want to stick the knife in, write to the UK chief exec and explain that they thought it was going to be warranty work.

At least they didnt put in double the amount of engine oil , then give it back to you . That is incompetance.

At least they didnt drop a split washer into the inlet tract , replace the manifold , start the engine and give it back to saying your engine now has a rattle. That is incompetance.

Wheel bearings always drone. Radio off , find some swoopy corners and go in a wee bit fast . Load up the steering and hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm from the offending corner.

Saddens me does this post 😥
Ex motor mech. When I served my time if we had 3hrs to do a service we took 3hrs, finish before that and foreman wanted to know the how’s & whys and would check! This was on Rover, Triumph, Land Rover, Jag/Daimler at a time when the factories these cars came from were more likely to be on strike than being able to deliver decent cars in the ’70s 🙄 There were a couple of other garages, all main dealers nearby who did have a reputation for shortcuts.
I moved to a Ford main dealer where a bonus scheme was in operation ie do a service quicker than the schedule time and receive that time in a bonus payment. I struggled with that and the foreman took a dislike to me. Lasted a couple years before moving on… Hadn’t been there long when with the “face” on he called me over to discuss what I had done to a customers car during a service. Customer had noticed it was running better and quieter. Whilst adjusting the tappets I found a broken adjusting screw, replaced it as you would. Customer told foreman I was the only person to touch his cars from that moment on. This should have pleased said foreman but it didn’t. Why? His favourite(most experienced)mech had always revised this guys car, put me in the bad books. Got all the crap, time consuming diagnostic(wheel bearing noise)jobs from then on with him complains about the time I was taking to find, report or repair stuff.
Nearly 40yrs have passed since then and don’t miss it at all 😆

Had a bit of fun with wife’s new car salesman last week. Chatting away as you do. he’s quite a nice guy. He said something and I commented that I’d have a word with Michael if things weren’t right, Michael being the garage owner. I used to do out of hours for Michael many years ago before he got to where he is now. Anyway I wasn’t sure if he thought I was joking or not until I saw his face as on our way out I stopped to speak to Michael, joking about the weight he’d lost(again) then stopped to speak to his wife. His face was a picture!!…

My wife’s S-Max went in for an MOT two weeks ago and I was quoted £2,600 for the required work.

It is a 56 plate with 48k miles. She drives it a bit clumsily and does nots of short trips but that was taking this proverbial.

I took it to an indie and everything was sorted for 35% of the total that Ford charged.