At what point should ford tell you the diagnostic is getting expensive? ?

[CyberWasp]

When your standing there with nothing left but your underwear after you have sold off everything you own.

[EB#]

Originally Posted by PHANTMXR6

Not just Ford, but any motor vehicle service center should ask for at least an hour to try and diagnose a problem.
If they get close to their hour, the service advisor should contact the customer and advise them of their findings thus
far and request another hour, or half an hour depending on how close they may be...

Agreed.

Further, if a mechanic can't find a problem on an 2001 car inside of $800
worth of looking then something is definitely wrong. If they charge you that
much to begin with, what's the repair going to cost? Time for a new mechanic,
as the saying goes....

[Mr Brooksy]

I don't know about your Ford service centre, but the one back home is pathetic at best. If they could get away with charging you to walk past the block they would. I had a stupid experience with my lot (it was the last time they saw any of my cars - 6 or so years ago), the BA 4 speed shift computer board died. They had it for the whole day, and when I turned up to pick it up got 2 different stories. 1) they were busy most of the day so didn't get to mine till after lunch, which was why it wasn't finished till close of day. This was the explanation as to why I couldn't pick it up till 5pm. 2) the service guy (not sure if he was the manager or just a middle manger) said they worked on diagnosing it for most of the day, finally found the problem got the part and fitted it which took all day, oh and found some other random things which they fixed and charged me for thanks very much (not).

Total bill $1200!!!

Now for those who say you should have called... I did every few hours. And those who said you should be specific and or proactive. I was, but the problem is you talk to one person at a desk who treats you like a number. Then you talk to another guy and spell out what you want/require, he says sure. The next thing you know, at the end of the day neither people you speak to even look at more than the number plate on the car!

It really looks like my Ford dealer does it this way on purpose. The more people between you and the guy working on the car the better for them. That way when you question something they do it takes them 45mins to find out who did the work, what he had for lunch, what color undies he's wearing today, when was arvo tea, what did he actually do on the car, has he knocked off yet (remember you've picked up the car at 5pm), is he actually the one who made the decision to swap the part... Oh wait, he's not here anymore. Can we get him to call you tomorrow?

I guess they figure they can do this till their hearts content as this is their main service centre for the entire region, of which they also own 2/3rds of the regions yards in the first place.

No way they can provide customer service to all the customers, it's easier and more profitable to give no service to all equally. Lol.

[Shonky.]

in my experience Ford Service departments couldn't troubleshoot their way out of bed

they normally just replace parts until the problem is gone and the customer gets to pay

[Jastel]

If the computer wont throw a fault code most of them are lost...

[Professor Farnsworth]

there are some good people in ford service departments, trust me - it's just that they're hard to find and they tend to travel.