15k Service

magnum80 · 02-02-2010, 09:00 PM

Taking the Zetec in for its 15k service on Thursday at Lynford in Osborne Park, WA. Will be interesting to see what they charge me and what they can do about the dodgy drivers window and even dodgier a/c system
Thanks to everyone on this forum aswell for pointing out a few things I will get them to check, hopefully they dont give me the runaround!

robjh80 · 03-02-2010, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by magnum80

what they can do about the dodgy drivers window and even dodgier a/c system

What's wrong the the Air Con?

dannyhilton · 03-02-2010, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robjh80

What's wrong the the Air Con?

It's gutless. Some have found out the unit has been over-gassed, which I'm told reduces the air-cons ability to work as well. Unfortunately it'll never be a great unit, which is a shame as it's such a great car all round. Definitely worth raising with your dealer regardless.

magnum80 · 03-02-2010, 09:31 PM

I was told that its ******** weak due to the relatively small engine size, so I pointed out that my girlfriends 1.3L Toyota Yaris has an aircon like a meat freezer...

See what they say about the gas level anyway, and hopefully the software update for the fuel economy

another point, anybody had trouble with reverse on the manual gearbox? Mine is starting to have trouble getting into gear of late, might just need a bit of oil

greenfoam · 17-04-2010, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by magnum80

I was told that its ******** weak due to the relatively small engine size, so I pointed out that my girlfriends 1.3L Toyota Yaris has an aircon like a meat freezer...

See what they say about the gas level anyway, and hopefully the software update for the fuel economy

another point, anybody had trouble with reverse on the manual gearbox? Mine is starting to have trouble getting into gear of late, might just need a bit of oil

Someone on here mentioned putting it in neutral letting the clutch out, clutch back in then select reverse. I've been doing this and it gets into reverse with a nice solid clunk every time, haven't crunched it since. I was having trouble sometimes, mostly on cold mornings.

P.S all our services (with us supplying oil) Have been about 150 bucks on the Fiesta which seems about average on here, some are getting them much cheaper (I don't think an oil change should take anywhere near an hour myself), I bet I could get it done in 10 minutes including washing my hands

dannyhilton · 03-02-2010, 10:03 PM

It's the transmission mate. I very rarely have issues, but I used to a bit when I first got it and it happened to my MK5 Fiesta Zetec all the time. There's nothing much you can do, but if you wait three seconds sitting the car still then select reverse it should pop nicely. Worked a treat on my MK5. As for the air-con, good for you man. You're spot on, I've been in a Swift 1.5, Yaris, heck even the Getz has a nice air-con. I can live with it but I live in Toowoomba, and it's cold here most the time and the heater works awesomely!!!

GoesLikeAZetec · 03-02-2010, 11:04 PM

The air con is ok at 30c... marginal at 35c.. anything above its p*ss poor...

ill be making it a big issue at my service too... there is no reason to have a crappy air con these days... how long will it last for instance, in the USA when it comes out.. they'd stand that for about a day, before they sue someone for a crappy aircon...

Everyone has to complain so that it gets back to ford oz. Otherwise it wont get fixed ever...

Franco Cozzo · 03-02-2010, 11:35 PM

The aircon really ****es me off, mine takes a while to actually start blowing cool air, then its only mildly cool.

magnum80 · 04-02-2010, 03:58 PM

The service guy at Lynford this morning told me the air con isnt that cold because the car is made in Germany...
right, I informed him that having lived in Germany the summers can get pretty warm, plus Audi's and BMW's dont seem to have ************ a/c
They just know they're rubbish and try to pass the blame to someone else, not much will be done about it unfortunately, just have to put up with it. On the whole however the quality of service has been good from them so far, picking the car up this arvo so we'll see what they say, will let you know stay tuned!

dannyhilton · 04-02-2010, 08:08 PM

Should a group of us do a letter to Ford? Martin Berela helped produce the Fiesta, and I'm sure he'd be aware of the air-cons performance. Why don't we get Ford's official answer to the matter. The dealer is pretty much useless as they really can't do too much. A letter to Martin perhaps?

csv8 · 05-02-2010, 10:14 AM

It seems the problems with the air con varies from car to car. I have a WQ Zetec and mine is just as good as my Falcon..

dannyhilton · 05-02-2010, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by csv8

It seems the problems with the air con varies from car to car. I have a WQ Zetec and mine is just as good as my Falcon..

My WP had very good air-con, but we're talking about the WS here. Most, if not all owners I know have said it's not very good to terrible. Go figure. Think Ford Australia needs to fix this little issue as we're not in Britain.

greenfoam · 07-02-2010, 01:28 AM

I went for a big drive in the Fiesta the last couple days (got 4.8l/100 by the way). The aircon was going ok for the hour or so I had it on but the outside temp was only 26c. The car was still heating up alot at those temps with the air con off. I think it's mostly due to the big angled front window and the long large area of dark rubber on the dash. Most cars just don't have to deal with that much heat comming into the car, there's no chance for it to cool down if you jump in it after everything has been cooked on a 40c day but it makes enough difference to be able to drive the thing just fine. Driving a car doesn't have to be like laying in bed really, does it?

dannyhilton · 07-02-2010, 11:37 AM

Even using my windscreen protecter doesn't do too much to help the air-con, though it does make a difference. When a Hyundai Getz can have an air-con like a freezer, I don't see why the Fiesta can't? Regardless of country of origin. Be interesting to see if the Thai build Fiestas have a better setup, and same with the US Fiestas as both countries can get smoulderingly sweaty. The air-con is ok at best, but the car has so many other great features I guess that's the downside to it.

Fez WQ · 07-02-2010, 07:32 PM

Ford wont fix it

Fez WQ · 07-02-2010, 07:33 PM

Trust me Aust is too small a market to even care about

lukee20 · 10-02-2010, 03:19 PM

I think we should defintely take our complaints to Ford Aus. I have a black one, so the trips home from work have been unbearable during these hot melbourne days....

trento · 10-02-2010, 04:05 PM

Mine isn't all that good either, I personally think that if we sent a letter as a group we may get a better response as opposed to individually going to the dealers.

dannyhilton · 10-02-2010, 05:34 PM

Best to get a response from the dealer so if we do a letter we'll come prepared with the dribble they tell us!

trento · 10-02-2010, 06:37 PM

Sounds good, mines going in for its 30k service next month so i'll bring it up with them then.

thndr · 11-02-2010, 10:44 AM

Morning all, just a quick heads up to all. I know its been mentioned in another thread about the service advisory for the bake hose problem, but i have just dropped my fez off for its 15k service this morning to be told that the advisory has been updated to a recall. this was told to me by the service rep and i saw it printed in big block letters on the bottom of the service form. so as i say just a heads up, i know what some of these service departments are like so maybe ring your dealer and check .

cheers

dannyhilton · 11-02-2010, 01:56 PM

I'm subscribed to the Australian Governments recall centre, so I get updated to each automotive recall. No updates for Fiesta yet, but as I've said they did a minor recall in the UK for the issue? Perhaps it only effected some vehicles, only a minor percentage?

thndr · 11-02-2010, 08:25 PM

Yeah, i dont know mate i asked about it when i picked the car up and was told that it was rectified, i also asked if it was def a recall and was told yes. I suspect that each dealer is making their own call about this.

dannyhilton · 11-02-2010, 09:18 PM

You're probs spot on there mate, each dealer must be making the decision or it could be selected vehicles? Either way I must not need the recall. Go to the following website, enter your VIN and see if any recall info comes up man. Good way to check.

http://www.etis.ford.com/home.do

GoesLikeAZetec · 14-04-2010, 10:35 PM

so guys... just want to tell you how the 15k service went for us....

the fez has only done 11k but it was soundin a little rough and the fuel economy had gone up .4ltr over the last few tanks... so doing what i thought to be the right thing, i put it in early for the 15k service...

i'd been in a super rush, and for the first time ever, i FORGOT to ask the price for the service from the dealer before hand, as i was organising the loan car for the missus, holidays, work, and a million other things at the same time...

so she drops off fez, picks up loan car, drops loan car back and picks up fez again.. all good, well so i thought

so i get home and check the service invoice:

15K Service - $341.90

$341.90?????????? Our turbo diesel work utes cost less to service...

so at the moment im hugely p#ssed. but before i go and see them 2moro, for a little "chit chat", i thought i'd check and see what everyone else paid first.

so WTF 1.. $174 in labor... im a sparky and even at $55/hr that means it took them over 3hours to service a small car...

WTF 2.. $7.50 Miscellaneous Supplies - why would i pay for something that's not itemised... if you did that to everycar in a busy service dept, every single day, you'd make bucket loads....

WTF 3.. $33 for loan car. When we signed up we agreed on a loan car for free every service...

WTF 4.. There is a recall on the brake hose thing.. I had worded up my missus before hand about it.. They didnt tell her anything. She happend to see in very small letters on the invoice - PRGC428 and then across the page in small letters prog/recall.. So she made them explain it. (good for her)
She wanted to know why they couldnt tell her? Hell the extra time could have made the bill sound more reasonable!

It didnt even get a wash for goodness sake. So i'll be interested to see what the rest of the forum members have paid for their 15k service....

I rang a friend of the family who's a mechanic interstate, and he said most minor services for those size cars were $200ish... So yeah.. ill end my rant here and wait to see what the replies are...

Oh also if your wondering why my missus paid it, this is her first new car, so she wasnt sure what was an acceptable amount to pay for a dealership service..

But im feeling ripped off for payin $350 for what is essentially a minor service.

The end.

Fiesta God · 14-04-2010, 11:21 PM

They should not charge you for the brake booster hose job - they did mine for nothing.

My 15,000km service was $250 - I supplied my own engine oil but got them to change the gear oil, which is not specified.

Yours seems very step, particularly charging for a 'free' hire car, and if they charged for the brake booster hose service recall then that's just ridiculous.

Which suburb/area is the dealership located in?

Franco Cozzo · 17-04-2010, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoesLikeAZetec

It didnt even get a wash for goodness sake. So i'll be interested to see what the rest of the forum members have paid for their 15k service....

$68! Which included a wash, vacuum out and chammy! I bought my own oil filter, oil and air filter though which wasn't included in the price. I took it into the Honda dealership I work at and they tend to look after us.

Our minor services are $226 usually, which includes oil, air filter and oil filter for Honda's, so if you bought your own filters in and just used our oil it'd be even cheaper.

dannyhilton · 15-04-2010, 07:23 AM

The only experience I can put here is in my WP Fiesta. In the small country town about seven hours from Brisbane, they wanted to charge me $290 for the 75,000km service. They said it was expensive because they had never done a Fiesta before, and didn't have the nessesary tools as the Fiesta was 'more difficult' to service than a Falcon. Needless to say I took the car to Brisbane and this particular dealer closed down within six months. IIRC they charged more like $200, but heck even the local dealer here that is run by bogan hicks and has the customer service of a $2 shop wants over $250 for a service on my old Fiesta. Not sure about pricing on the WS MK7 but I'd phone a few dealers and suss them out.

doctamick · 15-04-2010, 11:47 AM

A similar thing happened to me at the 15k service...

Having not previously owned a car under factory warranty, I’d never had a car serviced at a dealer. So I naively assumed that there were ‘standard’ dealer servicing costs, and didn’t bother to check the price beforehand. Also, I purchased my car through a novated lease, so the lease company had advised that I would get a trade discount from the Ford dealers.

When I picked up my car, I had a similar WTF moment as GoesLikeAZetec... $290 for the 15k service had been charged to my Motorpass card!!! And that was the price after the so-called 'trade' discount! The costs had already been charged to the card, so I couldn’t protest. The price included $180 for labour and $30 to rotate the wheels/tyres! I had asked them to rotate the wheels, but didn’t realise it would cost me an extra $30 (if I knew, I would have done it myself).

Anyway, the moral of the story is that all dealers aren’t equal. For my 30k service, I shopped around. When shopping around, I found that the standard price (without trade discount), at the original dealer I went to was around $350 for the minor service!

So I took it to a different dealer, who charged only $170 (after the discount). This price included a free driver to drop me off to work in the morning and pick me up in the evening, at my convenience. The interior of the car was also vacuumed and all work and recalls were clearly explained (without me having to ask).

I don’t understand how there can be such a discrepancy between dealers. I believe that some cars companies have fixed dealer servicing costs during the factory warranty period. In my opinion, this should be an industry standard.

Fiesta God · 15-04-2010, 08:42 PM

If you don't mind me asking dotamick, which dealer did you end up getting the 30k service done at?

If you don't want to disclose on the forum, feel free to send me a message.

Just interested to hear the good and bad around Melbourne with the various Ford service departments.