Bad customer service - Diesel Forum

GratefulJan · 03-21-2001, 01:36 PM

Let me start out by saying that my husband has always changed the oil on his '97 250 (PSD of course) and is planning to do the same on our X.

My husband brought his truck in for some routine maintenance. He's decided to use a dealer near Chicago that sells/services nothing but Ford trucks and does a lot of fleet business. It's a bit out of the way but they work on diesels all the time.

When the service work was done, my DH noticed on the bill that the tech changed the oil and my dh was being charged $95 for this. He politely told them he didn't want an oil change and didn't even need one since he had recently done it. After some back-and-forth discussion, the manager on-duty agreed to take $25 off the bill and give a $70 "credit" towards future service. I questioned the credit since it was basically un-readable scribble at the bottom of the invoice.

So, dh decided to take my X to get an oil change right away and use the credit. Once again, when all was done, the manager decided not to give the credit since it was "our word against theirs" about the original oil-change. As you can imagine, there were a lot of heated words at this point, my dh paid the darn bill, walked out and figured he'd deal with the top manager today.

Well, they are still arguing the issue and bringing up that we "didn't buy the trucks from them" and "how many trucks do we buy from them anyways?" (as a side-note, we did buy a truck from them about 10 years ago).

What I need to know - does Ford have any kind of customer complaint/satisfaction phone number? Will it even get us anywhere? I'm giving them one day to take care of this and then I'm on to the BBB.

Thanks for letting me vent!

H ED S · 03-21-2001, 05:33 PM

Jan try 1-800-392-ford (3673)E-mail fordcrc@ford.com.
www.fordcrc@ford.com

Hope this helps and take care [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

On Edit: The link worked for me, blind hog will find an acorn every now and then!! [img]images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

erlong · 03-21-2001, 11:00 PM

If you didn't ask for an oil change then you shouldn't have to pay for it. I would bring up the point that whether or not you bought the vehicle at the dealership, you should be treated the same at all dealerships since you have a warrantied vehicle. I can go to any Ford dealership and get warranty service, I should be able to go to any dealership and get similar customer service since they all, in some way, answer to the big blue oval at headquarters.

Keep on heading up the food chain at the dealership, you should be able to get a hold of an owner at some point.

I'm surprised they're being that stingy. The only thing they are truly out on is the cost of oil. Labor is a soft cost that should easily be tossed out. That is almost always the first thing to go in a complaint, from my experience.

I'm still waiting for the first "major" complaint at the dealership I go to for service. So far it just appears that they have less-than-average intelligence lifeforms working there...for example, today they brought my Excursion through the car wash with the back vent windows open. I asked for a towel and explained to the service desk that my vehicle had just been washed with the windows down, and they gave me 3 paper towels. Gee, thanks.

Good luck!

qadsan · 03-22-2001, 01:22 AM

Hi Jan,

Good luck with resolving your issues. I know you mentioned the BBB, but here's a link to them for filing a complaint online.
http://www.bbb.org/bbbcomplaints/Sel...plaintLink.asp

I've had all kinds of dealer problems over the years, but that was with Chrysler & GM vehicles. Besides filing a complaint with the BBB, I've also been successful using other tatics such as picketing in front of dealerships, handing out flyers to potential customers (make sure your not on their property), using my vehicle as a banner add for negative advertising, etc.

Once I put a large vinyl lemon on my windows and parked my vehicle in front of the dealership every day for a few weeks until they gave in. I listed key details about my experiences with that dealer also written on my windshields and passed out flyers to people who were interested. I was surprised at how many people were interested in the details of my experiences and I know for a fact they lost many new car sales along with service opportunities. You could see the frustration on the faces of the people at the dealership, particularly their management and the owner. They even tried calling the police several times to have me arrested, but the police just laughed in their faces and said I was within my rights. It's sad things had to get so far out of hand, but they brought it on and I wasn't about to quietly walk away like most people do (as they expected).

Good luck!

H ED S · 03-22-2001, 06:35 AM

Quadsan I have done that twice and it works. You are right on, on not being on their property. Once was at a Chevy dealer and a drug store the other. The self gratification helps take the sting out of what caused the problem in the first place doen't it? [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

GratefulJan · 03-22-2001, 07:16 AM

Hey - thanks for the info, support, stories, suggestions and links. Believe me, I will not let this thing go.

This all took me by surprise since our local dealer has a service department that bends over backwards for their customers and we've always had a good experience with them.

Thanks again!