O/T - Ford Main Agents
Turbo Mini Forums

Total rant I'm afraid.

Wifey has her Focus (54 TDCi) serviced by our local franchised Ford dealer.

A while ago, the brake discs warped.......

Common enough, so she paid a lot to have all four and pads replaced.

Don't ask me why all four, I wasn't involved.....

Two months ago they were all f**ked so during the routine service Ford replaced them for "free" under warranty (not the car warranty as this had expired but the warranty for new Ford parts from the last replacement).

Last week it was obvious the "new" discs were warped so back it went.

I told her to tell them it might be the hub/drive flanges running out of true as two sets of discs should not have failed in less than two months and they should have seen this when they changed them the last time.

Their answer was, "yes, we agree, £700 to replace them".

After a few emails from me (to wifey telling her what to say on the phone) she got the answer back "OK, we'll knock £100 of for the new discs as they shouldn't have failed after two months"......

They said that within the £700 they would check the drive flanges for running out of true...... even though they never checked them before.....

Unbelievable....

I'll fit a new set of discs/pads next week and see if they last more than two months.

The best bit is they refused to give her an invoice for the previous - warranty - replacement as it was for "free".

Then I looked back through some of her recent service invoices and found "refit bent rear exhaust heat shield" £46.40, labour, £1.35 rivets X3, £0.90 clips X3, all plus VAT

and £32.78 for fuel filters every time at every service and £9.95 for fuel system cleaner and I haven't been through all the bills yet........

From what I can see, over the last two years she has paid Ford more than the car is worth and they want yet more for defective parts they fitted two months ago......

My letter writing skills are being honed tonight.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

My old man's got a 55 plate focus. At the last MOT the rear wheel bearing had failed. It was just out of the warranty period. The price ford wanted was around £280 (if I remember correctly). I told him 'bollocks to that' and brought a brand new rear hub/bearing for £90 and fitted it in half an hour. Apparently ford had a problem with wheel bearings on the mk2 focus and there is loads of stuff about it on the net.

i rearly use stealers, last time i did brakes and pads on my audi it came to like £55 or something using OEM spec brembo discs and a german make pads

Im with wolfie, i always use a good reputable local shop. And if you know the right ones some have proper stamps

1/4 Mile 14.3secs 96Mph Terminal 10psi of boost.


Fibreglass Parts? - http://www.tdkracing.co.uk/
Split Rims? - http://www.force-racing.co.uk/

The heater knob has fallen off the wifes Abarth (less than 6 months old). so I phoned up the garage to get it sorted. They wouldn't just order the part they wanted me to take it in so they could look at it and then I could take it again to get fitted.

So I did (30 mile round drive). Then they phoned to say they didn't have (or lost) the info on the part and can I bring the car in again? wankers. This time I just took the knob. Funny thing was while the rather sexy receptionist was twiddling with my knob, waiting for the parts guy, she dropped it right down her top, haha.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

On the car brake lathe would be a cheaper solution - there is no way it would need hubs just a damn good clean up. Modern cars are very prone to disc distortion due to the hard pad material used these days

On 5th Sep, 2011 Vegard said:
I stand corrected. You should know

Wil I glad you got your knob played with lol!

On 5th Sep, 2011 Vegard said:
I stand corrected. You should know

Dealers are a joke. I don't know if it just Ford or if they are all the same.

Really pleased with my 51 plate Focus I bought from new and the 58 plate Fiesta which has been OK so far.

But dealer performance on a problem with the Focus ESP was very poor. Paid a lot of money to get them to identify the problem, but they then effectively wanted an open cheque to fix it as they did not really understand the fault.

I always take the car back to the dealer for service under warranty, but get my mate who owns a garage to do everything from then on.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

i'd be surpirsed if most of the spanner wankers in a main dealer were able to measure if the drive flange was running out of true (hope i'm not offending anyone!)

I don't think your experience is un-common - I had the same issue with my car when I first got it - I had it serviced once by the main dealer and have taken it to a specialist ever since - still not cheap but i've seen how the guys work and at least get some comfort they know what they are talking about

A couple of years ago I bought a ford puma 1.7 from a ford dealer second hand which had a few faults which I pointed out on the test drive

1. The gear lever didn't self centre
2. There was a knock in the front somewhere
3. Needed front brakes.

A deal was done and ford were to fix the problems before I recieved delivery. None of them were fixed!!! And I wasn't a bit pleased. So ford arranged a time to sort the gearlinkage and service the car. The linkage was fitted and turned out it was the gearbox and not the linkage so another time had to be arranged to remove the gearbox and fix the return spring. Meanwhile the car had developed a thirst for oil at an alarming rate 5 gallons between services!!!!! It's a shame it still went well and drove really nice and I have seen it still driving about since

That mini is determined to Kill me!!!!

did you sniff it after?

1/4 Mile 14.3secs 96Mph Terminal 10psi of boost.


Fibreglass Parts? - http://www.tdkracing.co.uk/
Split Rims? - http://www.force-racing.co.uk/

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Sale of goods act irrelevant you did not pay for the repair! Also any new car manufacturer can elect to repair your car under their warranty using recon parts! Even if the car hasn't been registered!

On 5th Sep, 2011 Vegard said:
I stand corrected. You should know