A cautionary tale.
Bought 04 Ford C-Max CVT auto (1.6 TdCi) from a franchised Vauxhall dealer. Ex-motability car 18,000 miles, three years old, full main dealer history with 1 year warranty.
Car immediately started hesitating - generally at about running pace accelerating from a standing start - leaving you stranded in the middle of roundabouts.
The car was taken to a Ford main dealer, rather than supplying dealer 15 times in 18 months and various fixes were tried - EGR valves, wiring changes, breather hoses, sensors etc. To start with all these fixes worked - for a few days. Gradually the time between "fixes" reduced and the hesitation got worse. The car then started going into "limp home" mode regularly on long trips. This required a 10 minute stop on the hard shoulder before restarting. THis was getting me down as I considered the car dangerous.
Ford dealer was paid £1,500 to apply these fixes. When the warranty ran out and I started complaining about the cost of continuing failed repairs (car done 23,000 miles by now), the dealer put up the shutters, saying "it's a characteristic of the car" or "it's out of warranty sir, what do you expect ?".
Writing to Ford got me nowhere. In the end I cut my losses, trading the car in and losing thousandss in the process - all because Ford can't be bothered to fix their own products.
Be warned. I should have rejected the car with the dealer I bought it from at an early stage - being nice and giving them every chance to fix it has counted against me.
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all because Ford can't be bothered to fix their own products.
I think you've probably just been unlucky. I'm no doubt that there have been a small number of people who at one time or another have said something similar about all manufacturers and their dealers.
Edited by L'escargot on 23/02/2009 at 10:06
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L'escargot
You're probably right - up to a point. I was expecting some support from Ford though. A car that's 4 years old, 23,000 miles and full main dealer history ought to be fixable - especially after 15 attempts.
You only get a smile from a dealer when things are going his way - i.e. routine servicing.
My experience has taught me you're at risk if you buy a used car that's:
A rare model of car (such as a C-Max CVT)
One with a very short production run ( like CVT auto C-Maxes )
One with lots of "new to that manufacturer" features (like first use of CAN bus in C-Max, CVT, new TDci engine etc)
A car that has just started its production run (teething troubles)
A diesel car that does lots of short trips (EGR's clog)
Replacement car is Skoda Roomster petrol auto. All the "bits" are proven in other cars, so I'm hoping reliability will be better. Fine so far.
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One with lots of "new to that manufacturer" features (like first use of CAN bus in C->> Max, CVT, new TDci engine etc) A car that has just started its production run (teething troubles)
A friend bought one of the first 2.0 TDCi C-Maxes in the UK new back in 2003. It was a horrible car at first. Numerous engine management glitches (battery going flat at random due to intelligent alternator bug, parking brake self releasing, haywire CANBUS system, stalling under certain conditions, 24 mpg fuel consumption etc etc).
Slowly but surely, these issues were resolved over the first year by software updates, and occasionally replacement parts. Since just after its first birthday, it hasn't missed a beat, and has now racked up nearly 80,000 trouble free miles.
I would never buy a new model of car. Too many manufacturers expect launch customers to finish off their R&D. I know it happens with Japanese manufacturers too.
In this case, the car was fundamentally good, but that last bit of polish and bug ironing had simply been left to the first customers to deal with.
Edited by DP on 12/05/2009 at 13:08
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