Charlie321

All right, so here's my complete tale of woe. I took the car in several weeks ago, and the assistant sales manager agreed that the top was prematurely worn. He said he'd get his service manager to contact Ford about a replacement, and told me to call back the next day. I call in every day for the next five days and don't get a return call. Finally, I call the asst. manager's direct line and he happens to pick up. No apology for the delay, and he tells me that Ford declined the repair because there was no hole. So I ask him what happens if there's a hole in it, and he says he doesn't know. So no help there.

Meanwhile, I'm getting closer and closer to my warranty running out, so I take it to another dealership and tell them my story. Service manager there tells me the same thing, it's prematurely worn, I deserve a new top, and he'll contact Ford. Only this time, he hops on his computer and points out that the first dealership never opened a claim with Ford. The guy at the first dealership very likely lied about contacting them and about their subsequent denial of coverage. This is truly stunning, given that I test drove a new Flex while I was there. Way to screw a potential return customer.

So, long story short, this second service manager keeps me waiting for a week, fails to return my phone calls, so I'm totally losing faith in these ********. I go in to confront the guy in person. He comes out and takes a bunch of pictures of my car and the wear spot. Tells me to give him til the end of the week. Anyway, he called this morning, and Ford APPROVED a new top and headliner.

It's nice that it's covered, but is this the approach they're taking to warranty work? Stonewalling customers until their warranties run out? No wonder their business is so screwed.

Charlie321

By the way, they approved the repair even though there was no hole in the top. Seems Ford is more interested in keeping their customers happy than the dealerships are.

07musclemustang

congrats man, Im glad it worked out for you.
Obviously you need to keep on them like a dog untill they do something, if not go straight to ford

Charlie321

Yeah, it's really amazing, given that Ford has the shortest warranty period of any major car manufacturer. They should just do the right thing and be glad they don't have to do it for 100,000 miles like GM, Chrysler, or even Kia.

svastano

I agree that the warrenty period is shorter but they are not on the news about potentially filing for chapter.... What would happen to your warrenty then????

red07Pony

Congrats on getting a warranty fix!!!

Your story sounds so familiar to mine it's not funny except you get yours fixed and I don't. Just swap the TSB# for 06-05-04 and the problem is my parking brake randomly freezes up on me. I am experiencing the exact same problem as described by the TSB but since my car is an '07 and the TSB was only for 05-06 they don't want to cover it and oddly enough I've been to 2 different dealers and I'm close to 30k miles on my car....

Both dealers say my brakes are fine. I keep asking if they are fine then why does this keep happening to me. They just tell me that they can't reproduce it so they can't do anything about it. Gotta love "random" problems.....

The second dealer did actually fixed my door panel rattle though!! (TSB 07-17-06) I can finally enjoy my Shaker 500 The first dealer didn't want to do anything about this one either.

I think the moral of both mine and the OP's stories are dealer shopping does pay off sometimes

07musclemustang

yeah the dealer shopping is a good idea, Worst case scenario your getting it documented. and then when you go to ford and be like wow i cant believe 4, 6,8 of your dealers denied my viable claim! this is a problem! la de da de da!
just keep up untill you run out of fords tryin to find a good on and then go from there to the big ford

as for the park break, if you still have no luck you can spray lube up into the rubber at the brake boots and that should help a bit because i bet the rubber got cracked and you got mosture in the line and its rusting now (common) and thats why its binding.

Charlie321

That's far from the worst case scenario. The first dealership I went to indicated on the paperwork that they examined the roof and that there was nothing wrong with it. Never mentioned anything about the wear spots. That was the whole reason I brought it in.

The last time I brought it to them, they never opened a file, and never documented anything, then lied to me about it.

I guess the lesson there is make sure you get in writing that you brought the car in. Don't let them lie on the paperwork about anything. And don't let them omit any details you think are important.

As for the poster who brought up the bankruptcy issue. If Ford is deliberately avoiding paying out on legitimate warranty claims, I don't see how it's any benefit to any customer that they're still in business.

maddad

i know this is off the subject but how do you add you pitcher to your thread

Charlie321

Quick update: got the car back this week. The new top looks great. One interesting thing, the new top has an extra piece of fabric above the driver's and passenger's side windows that forms sort of a gutter to channel the water away from the doors. I noticed the 2009s on the lot have this same detail. It's not as clean a look as the 2007 top, but seems like a good practical way to keep from getting drenched when you step out of the car in the rain. Also, it makes the car look two years newer to anyone who's looking closely. Whatever, I got the top replaced for free. I'll take it.