Bird1606

Alright, I'm at a turning point with my car. I'm thinking about trading it in, and I hate to even think about that, but I'm running out of options.

In May I was on on the road from Houston to Pensacola, FL and I started to lose hydraulic pressure in my clutch pedal, but not my brakes. I barely made it into Pensacola, and dropped it off at the dealer and got a rental car. They "fixed" it there under warranty and put a new master cylinder in it. My warranty expired in July of this year. I moved from Pensacola to Oklahoma in August. As soon as I got my car on the highway, I started to lose hydraulic pressure again. My car made it to Hammond, LA where it completely lost pressure and I couldn't change gears. I managed to start it in second while giving it gas to keep it moving in city traffic to get it to a dealership. The dealership said that there are air bubbles getting into the clutch hydraulic line and so they pumped them out and charged me a hundred bucks. My car made it to Lake Charles, LA before I lost all pressure and had to drop it off at the dealer there. The dealer there talked to Ford about the problem, and they changed out my slave cylinder. This time I was charged 800 bucks. The fix worked and my car made it to OK.

Now I've had my car here in OK for 3 weeks and it started losing hydraulic pressure yesterday. Ford has already told me that this is not covered under the 60,000 mile drivetrain warranty (I have 35,000 miles on it) and so I keep having to pay out of pocket to fix it, and it's never getting fixed. I'm getting sick of paying different dealerships to call Ford's engineers who have no idea what the problem is, and they keep trying different fixes on my dime. I'm in a tight financial spot right now, and I really can't afford to keep at this. I'm tempted to trade it in on an F-150, but I know I could get way more for it that they will give me, but I'd have to get it to a decent sized market (Dallas, Houston) to get a fair price. It won't get a good price in Enid, OK.

I've also looked at the lemon law in Texas (where it's registered) and since these problems didn't happen within the first year of ownership, I can't get any protection from that. Does anyone have any advice on how to get this fixed, or how to get Ford to cover the transmission problems under the drivetrain warranty?

Thanks.

siggyfreud

Ask for the regional Rep. You have documentation that you tried to get it fixed under warranty

marcuskeeler

If you're out of warranty why the Heck are you continuing to pump money into incompetent dealerships???? Just take it to an independent transmission place where they'll have a more informed tech crew and who will charge you less than a stealership.

Javdog

Man sucks to hear this since I have the same stang 07 GT/CS, good luck I truely hope that it can be resolved and you are made whole on this.

siggyfreud

+1

Take it to a transmission shop. I know it gets old hearing how dealerships don't know what they're doing, but the good majority really do not. I have direct experiencing fixing problems on Chevy vehicles that the dealerships, despite loads of money and parts thrown at it, could not figure out. SOME dealerships may have a good solid mechanic. But most are just reading the instructions and trying to follow along. Throw them a problem that isn't in the guide and they're lost. Kind of like asking a guy at Autozone for a part that isn't listed in the computer. "Uhhhh I don't think we have those." "You don't carry a tack cloth?"

Derf00

If the work that was done on the system was done by the dealership then that work should have its OWN warranty outside and above the vehicle warranty regardless of what dealer did the service.

Are they suspecting the same part/issue? Most service work done by ford has a 12mo/12K mile warranty regardless of the warranty of the vehicle. Therefore, if it's the same problem the repair warranty (not the vehicle warranty) should cover it. Find the receipt or call the dealership where you had the service work done and have them e-mail you or fax you their warranty statement on service performed by them and the parts they replaced.

Take that to the new dealership and explain what the issue is ; suspect same problem that was originally repaired. It should be covered under the repair warranty.

Bird1606

I thought that that would be the case as well. It turns out that it isn't. I called up Ford the last time this occurred and went through their customer relations center and filed a claim. I told Ford my story and told them that I had had this problem in under warranty and that I thought the work should be covered under the dealership warranty work. They said that it was obviously a different part at fault (they Pensacola dealer thought it was the master cylinder, the Lake Charles dealer thought it was the slave cylinder) and so even though to the driver the problem is the exact same, Ford washed their hands of it and told me to eff off and pay up. Being that I was living in northern Oklahoma at this point and my car was stuck on the Louisiana-Texas line, I was powerless and had to pay the piper. "Big Ford" (as in not the dealership) told me that since I was no longer under warranty it was not their problem.

PNYXPRESS

How are they saying its not covered by the powertrain warranty? The powertrain covers the the engine and transmission and components in between with the exception of the clutch disk (as that is designed to wear).

Bird1606

The service manager at Lake Charles told me that it should be covered by the powertrain warranty, and that I shouldn't worry. Then after he talked to Ford, it turns out that a slave cylinder isn't covered. I was pretty pissed too, and that was part of my complaint to the Big Ford customer service, and I asked them to explain to me how that wasn't covered under the power train warranty, and all they said was "it isn't".

doode

sigh....

Your treatment from the dealership and Ford sounds exactly like mine.

I had a different tranny problem from you....but mine resulted in the tranny being rebuilt twice by Ford, then swapped out for a "new unit" and after that didn't work they told me to screw off and that it was normal

Its been 2 years now and it is still holding together ( for now )