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£105 for fitting a new battery? Are they taking the mickey,if that is what they suggesting the battery is at fault.Do what Englishbullterrier has mentioned and go from their.
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Thanks for the advice.
Not sure i am willing to let her line there pockets any further, she has been a loyal customer of the dealership for a number of years and this is her 5th or 6th new Ka.
May get the battery changed elsewhere and advice her not to return to the shambles of a dealership.
Cheers
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I would remind the dealership that she has been a loyal customer for many years, and that if they would like to keep her custom, then a little bit of loyalty on their part wouldn't go amiss.
Surely, they must have a known good battery around the place that they could fit to prove their theory?
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Her problems are not with FORD but with the dealer over which Ford have little or no control and surely it's still within warranty and it's basically a Fiat anyway.
Edited by jc2 on 10/02/2011 at 07:24
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I would remind the dealership that she has been a loyal customer for many years, and that if they would like to keep her custom, then a little bit of loyalty on their part wouldn't go amiss.
Surely, they must have a known good battery around the place that they could fit to prove their theory?
Totally agree with this. Tell them they scan stick their future sales where the sun doesn't shine if they are not prepared to show the same loyalty to your Mum as she has shown to them.....
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Well I am going with her to the dealership next week to listen to the explanantion as bless her she is in her 60's and not mechanically minded.
Only problem with this is that the service manager knows me, knows I am an engineer (no I mean a real one with mechanical engineering degree, not a vending machine filler upper or whatever else "engineers" are these days!) and we have locked horns on a number of occasion in the past when I was stupid enough to buy a second hand focus from them. In principal if the battery is knackered fair enough, but if I went and bought a battery from them as a spare it would have a two year warranty, however the one originally fitted to the car is only covered by a 12 month warranty......because?!?!?!?!?!?!?
I know after a colleague of mine had serious problems with them Ford UK are monitoring them closely as his car was handed back in an unsafe condition following some work. Maybe a call to Ford UK, or the threat of it, might help focus (no pun intended) there attention.
Whatever happens that Ford garage will not get any more money out of her ever unless they are wiling to help her out now.
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I agree about the engineering bit nice to hear from a proper engineer not many around.
You go with her and stand your ground .
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Hasn't Jeremy Clarkson got a Doctorate in Eng?
Certificates don't always mean a lot. Ever heard of a bean tin engineer?
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davmal,
Ture certificates dont mean a whole lot but i would like to think that a Bachelor of Engineering Hons Degree and 15 years experience designing and developing aircraft hydraulic flight control systems makes me slightly more quilified to be called an engineer than the "engineers" who come and fix your gas boiler, fill the vending machine or service your car.
Edited by Fluidgolf on 11/02/2011 at 13:01
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100% agree !
You sound like the right to sort of person to maybe answer a querie I've had for some time now. I fly alot, and more recently on short hops using 737-800's with the wingtip anti washout upgrade fitted.
When flaps are being set in prep for landing, there's always a loud whine. It actually sounds as if an electric motor is being used to turn a lead screw. Now, with all the available hydraulic power available in these planes, I wondered why they don't use it for flaps ? Is it because of position sensing ?
Cheers..............ebt (PPL)
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Take out a decent english dictionary and look up "engineer".
Afterwards look up highjack.
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Very few dealerships are actually owned by Ford(Dagenham Motors,Bristol St.,Polar Group and one or two others.) All the others are privately owned or are part of groups that are nothing to do with Ford-in fact some groups sell many different makes.Ford have little or no control over the actions of these firms.
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davmal,
Not entirely sure what point you are attempting to make, nor do I care what ur opinion is towards engineers. An engineer was traditionally thought odf very highly, however the term is now given to anyone who can hold a screwdriver or a spanner.
i am not knocking anyone elses skills and abilities but I for one will never call the chap at the garage who services and maintains my car a vehicle engineer, to me he is a mechanic, the guy who fills our vending machines at work is not a repleshiment engineer and the individual who fitted my sky system is most definitely not a satellite engineer.
I am extremly proud of my profession and my qualifications.
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davmal,
Not entirely sure what point you are attempting to make, nor do I care what ur opinion is towards engineers. An engineer was traditionally thought odf very highly, however the term is now given to anyone who can hold a screwdriver or a spanner.
i am not knocking anyone elses skills and abilities but I for one will never call the chap at the garage who services and maintains my car a vehicle engineer, to me he is a mechanic, the guy who fills our vending machines at work is not a repleshiment engineer and the individual who fitted my sky system is most definitely not a satellite engineer.
I am extremly proud of my profession and my qualifications.
An Engineer in the US is exactly that, with formal degree level (minimum) qualifications. Vending machine and copier blokes are NEVER refered to as Engineers, they're Technicians, and quite rightly so....
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hi engishbullterrier,
its been a while since ive been in a 737, but most modern aircrafts flaps are still controlled by hydraulic motors. Boeing spent a lot of money trying to reduce the noise within the cabin of there aircraft. in order to achieve this they moved some of the mqin hydraulic pumps to more isolated areas, so the wine you may be referring to could be the leadscrew driving gearboxes that were previous not heard so diwtinctly over other noises.
electric actuation is still in its infancy and the big airlines are yet to take it up as the weight and reliability penalties do not outway the cost and environmental issues of hydraulics yet, that said i dont think it will be long.
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So I visited the dealership on Friday with Mum to attend a pre arranged meeting...nothing is ever simple;
The service manager was not there, and had just gone on his lunch, despite knowing we had a meeting.
When he returned half an hour later and stated that they were not sure what was causing the warning light to come on and insisted that the fault was with the battery, I demanded he did a load test on it there and then as I did not believe (and still do not) that is was anything to do with the battery. There “engineer” did a test on the battery in front of me, which the battery passed (no comment required!). Despite this he arrogantly stated that Ford would not investigate the fault any further until the battery was changed. After pointing out my Mum had been a loyal customer of the dealership for some 15 years and has bought a number of new cars from them I asked how much they would like to pay towards the £105 cost of the new battery, to which his reply was a sly smirk “Nothing, it’s not covered by the warranty”
At this point my Mother was reduced to tears by his attitude, I had a lengthy conversation with the dealer manager who said as a gesture of goodwill they would fund the cost of fitting a new battery to the car as Mum was such a good customer.
I have now convinced my Mum not to take her car back there. A very sorry end to a very sorry experience in my opinion. This further cements my low opinion of Ford.
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Read what I said above! BTW a KA2 was a Ford manufactured model(about 1998)-what this is is a Fiat manufactured KA -a KA Mk.II.
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You are correct this problem relates to a Mk II Ford Ka, not a Ka2, my mistake.
My opinion of Ford stems from there representative locally which is the dealership that is branded/franchised from them. Irrespective of who has ultimate control of them the issue remains.
Also to be able to carry the Ford name/brand I am 100% certain Ford have some control over them. Ford is a huge international brand, they are not going to just let somebody use their name/brand and the associated loyalty some people have towards that.
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AS I said above Ford have little or no control over the dealers-unless they are one of the few they own-they would love to have more control-issues like this do their image no good.Send a letter with all the facts to:-
C.E.O
Ford Motor Co.
Eagle Way,Warley
Essex.
Edited by jc2 on 22/02/2011 at 16:21
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" There “engineer” did a test on the battery in front of me, which the battery passed (no comment required!). "
In recent years I have come across some of the most bizzare problems with cars that end up related to a battery issue, even though the battery surpasses every test! If it was the battery it would come as no suprise. the number of ABs faults and EML lights appearing that have turned out to be caused by a battery defect has been countless.
I gather the biggest issue has been the customer service, well its of no suprise today as customer service generally is appalling and its not only Ford, I have experinced it first hand with many manufacture dealerships including jaguar, loved the cars but the dealership service was appalling! Having also owned a couple of garage buinesses customer expectations can be totally unreasonable and expect so much for nothing nowdays and as a ex business owner can assure you trying to obtain warranty claims etc from manufactures is a joke and all too often we just end up absorbing huge losses, so there has to be a balance.
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Well done Fluidgolf. I'd think I'd have slapped the f***er if he'd have smirked at me.
So, you have a new battery now. I think we'll all be interested to if this catually fixed the original issue...............ebt
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jc2,
What good would a letter to the ceo of Ford UK do, other than generating a stock response from them?
My concern is with the fact that;
a) The dealer doesn't know what is causing the issue, or indeed how to fix it, (personally not convinced the battery will solve it but only time will tell)
b) It took I don’t know how many trips to the dealer to resolve this, and
c) My mother was so upset she was reduced to tears by the arrogance of the service manager
For d have all the control. If the dealer is that bad, don’t sell them new cars, remove the branding and stop them trading under the name of Ford.
Injection doc,
I agree with your comments, you could speak to anybody in the street and i would suggest most people would have a story or two to tell about a certain brand/dealer/service provider, however in this case I do not believe that expecting a car to operate without warning lights at 18 months old is unreasonable! This particular dealership are all too quick to take the money and deliver the poor service but very slow to respond to problems.
Englishbullterrier
Violence is not normally my style but I have to be honest the urge to run his head over was quite strong!
Fingers crossed this problem is resolved but only time will tell I guess
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If YOU don't tell Ford,how will they know? which is why I said send a letter to the CEO;it will have a lot more effect than a call/e-mail to Customer Services! It certainly worked with my daughter's car,after several unsuccessful attempts to fix her electrics,I told her to contact Warley.Her dealer gave her a courtesy car the following day and told her to keep it till her vehicle was sorted.
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Nor me Fluidgolf, (ever actually), but that might just tip me over..........ebt
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I agree about the engineering bit nice to hear from a proper engineer not many around.
You go with her and stand your ground .
sounds like ford dealerships use the same script because mine suggested i wrote to ford uk when my power steering pump packed up after only one year. the manager at the dealership repair bay had tried talking to them but got no where, which says alot. i have always bought my fords from this place and they have always done services, mot etc. loyalty does not seem to count for much. i now have written to the dealership hq and still waiting to hear from them. will be interested to hear how you get on
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