Ford's Cancelled my Warranty

[JC]

Abacus - you silly beetle. I hope you learn from this. Those warranties are intended to make you take it to the dealers so they can earn their service fees.

[Stav]

Originally Posted by Abacus

[Edit]
Beetles.

In fairness, the service manager at dealer No 2 went in to bat for me, with the result that Ford have agreed to replace the steering rack and the radiator under warranty, but not the ball joint.

But having replaced those two items, they have now cancelled the warranty.

Beetles.

If Ford have replaced the steering rack and radiator under warranty after your non compliance it is implied that Ford knew of the issue and by way of conduct have continued warranty and may still be legally bound to their obligation.The fact of awareness may give you a loophole in your favour. Get a lawyer and do not act on what I say as I am not qualified or my advice be depended on ..(disclaimer)

If they told you no and stuck to it then you simply have to wear it.

Originally Posted by Axeman82

He thought it said 55000kms last service.... he didn't take it in until 87000kms... he said the service intervals are 15000kms.... work out the maths!!!

My point related to the apparant circumstances around the sale, not Abacus' delay in getting the car serviced which is clearly a silly thing to do (we all know the real imact of doing that). I have recently experienced some abhorrent behaviour from a major dealer surrounding servicing and warranty claims and am a bit sensitive to some of this. Maybe this is not the thread to vent.

Originally Posted by ratter

if they can't work out the maths, they're not going to be able to work out what the obligations were on his behalf

Brilliant... did you think that up all by yourself?

[parawolf]

Originally Posted by useless

If Ford have replaced the steering rack and radiator under warranty after your non compliance it is implied that Ford knew of the issue and by way of conduct have continued warranty and may still be legally bound to their obligation.The fact of awareness may give you a loophole in your favour. Get a lawyer and do not act on what I say as I am not qualified or my advice be depended on ..(disclaimer)

If they told you no and stuck to it then you simply have to wear it.

Right so, rather than take that as a show of good faith you are suggesting it is an admission of guilt?

Personally I think he should chase pro-rata refund and go elsewhere - far more likely scenario.

[BJMXR]

They'll do whatever they can to get out of a free fix. My AUII XR8 had a clunk in the front left... two years ago it was reported, they couldnt find a problem, left it it continued, after another 8 months i was fed up, so i took it in to get checked again... they tightened the suspension and greased the ball joints... great, it was "under warranty" not long after the sound comes back, i take it in again, explain that tightening the suspension and greasing the ball joint WON'T fix the problem. I go to pick it up, they've bloody tightened the suspension and greased the ball joint, which i already explained wanst the problem, THEN they try to make me pay $90 for it despite the last EXACT service was free and under warranty... not this time?

Consistency lacks and the price was ridiculous for such a minor fix... i refused to pay them. Not to mention that im shocked a FORD dealer servicing a FORD cant find a problem on a FORD for the third time... do some of the young ones working on the cars even know what they're doing?

I feel for your Warranty stories... bit of a scam. Oh well. What can you do.

[parawolf]

Originally Posted by BJMXR

Consistency lacks and the price was ridiculous for such a minor fix... i refused to pay them. Not to mention that im shocked a FORD dealer servicing a FORD cant find a problem on a FORD for the third time... do some of the young ones working on the cars even know what they're doing?

I hate to say this, but that experience is commonplace. If you read the warranty guidelines things like 'tightening' components and the like to reduce knocks, rattles, etc is not covered by warranty.

My experiences with similar problems to what you are describing were 6 service involvements from 2 different dealerships for the one symptom. Restoration was never found and longest period of resolution was 2 weeks. That was with my AUII XR6.

With my BA XR6, I had a 'knock' when steering (most commonly turning left) this could be heard by all occupants and felt in the steering by the driver, it was easy to reproduce. This symptom occured at 6 months old, the car was sold last month with the symptom still there and 8 service activities by 3 dealers and Ford Australia engineers. Longest period of resolution was 4 weeks after Ford Australia had it, and did something with the engine mounts.

Sometimes I wonder if I had to bring my car in on a friday with a bbq, with some meat and beer on ice and hang around until 8pm to feed everyone and discuss what they are going to do about my car.

But anyway, i'm getting off the thread topic here.

[RED_EL_XR8]

Originally Posted by AUGhiaV8

..................... Maybe this is not the thread to vent. .......................

There is never really a thread to vent in.

Public venting does nobody favours least of all the one venting. This does not for a moment mean do not present the facts of a warranty or service issue.

But if it is kept factual and no emotive them it benefits all parties and is the most likely path to achieving resolution to a problem.

I didn't ever say it would be easy though but it will be much easier than fighting the same battle after you having shot ones self in the foot.

[FANTM1]

As far as reclaiming your insurance money goes. If you you comprehensively insure your car for 12mths and make a claim the next day, just see how you go trying to cancel the insurance and asking for a refund after they have already paid to repair your car.
Maybe if the repairs are less than the premium you may be able to claim something back.

Also I never went for the extended warranty because, I had to go back that dealer for every service, and pay top dollar for it. I guess it's different when you buy a 2nd hand car, but what I found out from a dealer that offered me the warranty on a 2nd hand car was that it only covered things that actually broke not wore out, so say your air con didn't work properly it wouldn't be repaired, only if the compressor broke. (so I was told)

[Polyal]

well the situation sucks...but this beetle business is cracking me up...hmm so much bad pun.

[Abacus]

Originally Posted by JC-XRWgn

Abacus - you silly beetle. I hope you learn from this. Those warranties are intended to make you take it to the dealers so they can earn their service fees.

Yes, live and learn. Having slept on it overnight, I have concluded that's the right philosophy.

I dragged out the paperwork last night and checked my facts. Turned out the warranty cost me $1,395, not the $2,000 I had in my mind. I guess the steering rack and radiator pretty much burn that up, so I probably haven't come out too far behind.

As for the service interval, yes I'm slack with services. Always have been. I belong to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school.

I sold my last car, an EL Futura, with 159,000km on the clock. In that time I had it serviced twice, changed brakes and pads a few times, and gave it the occasional oil change when I felt guilty. It wasn't burning a drop of oil when I got rid of it, and everything still felt pretty tight. The only issue on the horizon was the tranny, which was getting a bit tired. This was typical of my experiences with Falcons. That's why I keep buying them. Despite this experience, my next car will most probably be another Falcon (although, damn - those 300Cs are nice....)

In twenty five years of driving, including 7 years as a cabbie, I've racked up literally millions of kilometres in Falcons, along with a fair share of other toys ranging from Alfas and Hondas through to a 1976 VK Valiant (loved that thing). You kind of get a feel when something needs fixing, even if you don't know exactly what it is. What I've learned is that even with my slack approach to servicing, Falcons generally don't break. I've never had to pull the head off one, and you just know that you'll get 150,000km+ between transmission rebuilds. Never blown up a diff, either. This is the first time I've had any issue with any suspension or steering part since 1982, when the steering rack packed up in the 6 cylinder TE Cortina I had at the time. From memory, there was over 200,000ks on that car.

So I wouldn't have even have bothered with the warranty if it was a Forte/Futura. The things that are generally covered by a service aren't the things that are going to break. I was, and am, more concerned with the time-consuming fiddly things, like climate control, electronics and that kind of thing. Whether or not these things are going to break is not dependant on whether or not you've missed an A service.

Incidentally, the warranty rules basically say that I could have cancelled the premium at any time and received a pro-rata refund of the premium, provided I had never made a claim under the policy. However, the rules make no mention whatsoever of any refund by Ford if they cancel the policy as a result of my non-compliance. I'll have to follow this up.

And taking the inflated cost of genuine Ford parts and servicing into account, it seems to me that the best policy is to let somebody else handle the service task. If keeping the warranty up to date means getting shafted every six months by ludicrous costs like $450 for spark plug leads, Ford can take their warranty, and their servicing, and stick them where the sun doesn't shine.

[fauxpas]

Did you read my post abacus?

[Sleeperau]

Originally Posted by JC-XRWgn

Abacus - you silly beetle. I hope you learn from this. Those warranties are intended to make you take it to the dealers so they can earn their service fees.

I couldn't agree more, It is a win win situation for the Ford Workshops. There are enough threads now pointing to the fact that DIY or find a reputable, honest mechanic.( or both). Might be worth a chat to the Office of Fair Trading over the warranty issue.

[Casper]

Beetles.

I dont let Ford service cronies ANYWHERE near my car.

[HLC]

beetles :


yeah i bought an extended warranty. but as soon as it runs out and i crack 25... the AU is going to the hands of the performance gods. JMM here i come.

[Abacus]

Originally Posted by fauxpas

Abacus, if you are seriously looking at rolling onto another vehicle, shop around.

Heaps of shops were quoting me the wholesale price for my car as a trade-in (AUII $7000).

I eventually found a shop that gave me $11,500 on my AUII Futura.

They will quote you wholesale if they have no intentions of selling your car on their lot. $7000 is all they'll get from some suckhole 2nd hand car yard where an AUII would be one of their better cars. Find a car yard that sell the next car you want and also still sell your car for $13000+.

Yes I'm aware of this. What made me get the quote on the XR8 was that Ford was throwing the BA XR6's out the door at $32,000. I figured that they might do an XR8 around the $40,000 mark, and that they might also give a good deal on the trade in for a changeover in the high 20s. I was dreaming. Factory bonuses on the XR8 were a lot less than on the XR6, they wanted $52k-ish on the road for BA XR8s, and given the probable changeover range, even if I shopped around, I lost interest. This was particularly so as they wanted even more for leather.

I usually hang on to my cars until they've done between 150K-200K, and despite this latest aggravation, I have to admit that I like the AU. I actually rented a BA XR6 a few months ago and drove it from the Gold Coast to Sydney. It didn't thrill me - it felt a lot bigger and more unwieldly than the AU, and certainly wasn't the leap forward that the AU was over the EL. But if the changeover price had been more realistic on the BA XR8 I would have probably updated.

I think that if I were to move out of the AU and into a BA at the moment, I would sell the AU privately, and look around for a low mileage MKII Fairmont Ghia V8. At the moment, I just don't have the time, patience, or inclination to do that.

[Dauphin]

I had things replaced under warranty even with the most noticeable mods of lowering and the shift kit (when it was set really hard) and JMM extractors, Unichip, air intake mods, etc. I was also worried they will refuse my claims one day but 've had it explained to me that some aftermarket performance houses do not void your warranty and are cleared by Ford, including JMM.

On another note, I had to wait 9 months for a new amp to come into Ford for my AU2 and eventually I got impatient with contacting the service dealership every month and emailed Ford via the website. I got a phone call and from a kind lady who looked into it and the next week the amp had arrived and all was good again.

So try emailing them and give them your phone number, explain it to the business people.

Andrew.

[Charliewool]

I had a series 11 AU and both the radiator & steering rack were re-call replaces anyhow. (they notified me)
This was at 90,000ks AND with full herrod 250kw mods

[TCK-098]

Yes ford mechanics in general are a bunch of beetles ive had my fair share with my two Au's first Au had a severe shudder in the T5 and i had a So called "FORD TECHNICAN" say that there was nothing wrong with it okies 3 months later the Ute ended up back there at cumberland ford with a pretty rooted T5 and not from me but from the previous owner.

So to try and calm me down i thought stuff it they want $4500 to fix the ute and i decided to trade up even though i had the ute for 3 or so months and they gave me my current ride a Tickford enhanced series 1 ghia when i got the car it had 102000 and since then ive clocked up 45000 but ive been up and down the east coast of this country first issue i had was the driveshafts and SURPRISE SURPRISE they are stuffed after only about 30000kms been on the car and the beetles refuse to replace them.

And these beetles wonder why we hate them so much....... :gren: