Kudos to Etheridge Ford service department

[mcnews]

I have used Etheridge Ford for all my servicing since moving to Victoria almost eight years ago. The reason I originally went to them in the first place was that one of the senior sales guys back then was on here for years and they sponsored the forum. Thus they have serviced my BF F6, Territory Ghia, FG F6 and over the past few years my FG MKII GT-E. I have never had reason to complain and the service has always been very good, and pricing reasonable enough.

Last week I hit a wombat and damaged the leading corner edge of the front bar on the GT-E. I have to do emergency avoidance moves to avoid wombats on a weekly basis, that I have lived where I do for eight years without hitting one was a miracle in itself, I put it down to being a motorcyclist all my life and thus generally a bit more attuned to paying attention to the road at all times than most, but my run came to an end in the fog last week. I had the picks on and served but still caught him just under the foglight. I will get the bar repaired easily enough down the track, but he did go under the front wheel at an angle as I was swerving, and that was a solid enough knock to push the pads out in the calipers and me to have to pump the brakes back up again. It also broke the inner splash guard inside the front wheel arch and that was rubbing on the front tyre a little bit.

As I live a couple of hours from the city I was not wasting a day of work to go down town to get it looked at but a last minute trip down for something else late this week saw me passing Etheridge (Ringwood), so I thought I would chance my arm at them trying to fit in a quick look at it on the hoist etc. This was a busy morning and there were cars everywhere and the workshop was clearly busy.

They fitted me in straight away. Had the car up on the hoist and the wheels off etc and test drove it etc. Picked up a couple of unrelated things that will need attention later down the track. Had a guard inner in stock and fitted it up for me. I had complained about a strange noise from the wipers as they hit full extension, thus I enquired about replacing them, the service guy, Frank, showed me the new style ones fitted to the latest Territory and Falcon which are a new and better looking design and were only a few bucks more as the whole end unit than just getting the rubbers, seemed a no brainer to me so I chose them. They only had one in stock so he got another one off a new Falcon at the back of the lot to make up a pair, and fitted them up for me. I drove off and returned as I could still hear a noise from the wiper at full extension, seems that somehow previously the passenger side wiper arm had picked up a small kink in it somehow, could have been from a bird strike at some point or something, and the spring arm was actually just touching the windscreen as it hit the end of its upper stroke, so he pulled the unit off and got the kink out well enough for it to now not nudge the screen. This time I drove off and it done the trick, noise gone.

So all this was done on spur of the moment call in with no booking, and I drove out with a new guard inner fitted up, new style wiper arms, and a good peace of mind safety check underneath the car all for about $200, three-quarters of which was parts. Happy camper.

While I was waiting I reflected on how in the eight years I have been visiting the dealership all the guys in the service department, and there are quite a few as it is a pretty big dealership, the faces had not changed. The same faces are always there, so unusual in the auto industry these days where the churn rate is frightening. I mentioned this to the guys and they said that most of them had been there more than 15 years, his workshop supervisor had been there nearly 30 years and there were other staff that had been there even longer. Something like ten per cent of the entire staff there have over 15 years service in the dealership apparently. That has to be some sort of record for a city dealership I would imagine.

So there you go guys a good Ford dealership story to balance out some of the bad experiences some report on here. I am also glad to report that the new style wipers are a big improvement and no longer lift off the screen at speed in the rain like the previous FG ones did, so when it comes time for new wipers get the FG-X ones as they are a definite improvement, look a bit cleaner too.

Oh, forgot to mention that a different staff member every ten minutes was offering me a coffee from their flash looking coffee machine thing, but I don't like coffee so declined, but it was nice to be asked. And they also now have decent wireless internet for customers which is a nice touch.

[Mercury Bullet]

Good to hear Trev and also that nothing suspension/steering related was broken.
There are decent dealers out there. I'm more than happy with the guys at Seaford in Clarkson too. Always happy to go the extra mile if required.