RoJo F150

I have a 2009 4x4 with 199k miles on the drive train and about 70k miles on the dealer replaced engine. I didn't get any service records from the PO except the receipts for the replacement engine. One morning, I noticed a large puddle of trans fluid on my driveway because I parked on the crest of the hill. Mind you, I'm about to make a 1600 mile round trip drive towing a 15 ft trailer filled with furniture, so I contacted my local Ford dealer about doing a transmission fluid and filter change, where they would drop the pan.

I called 3 separate dealerships near me and not one of them would drop the pan and change the filter, they said they would do a flush and fill only as removing the filter wasn't necessary. The 3rd shop actually asked me why I wanted to do it that way since that would raise the service bill by about $250 dollars? I once again explained to him that the truck had high miles, I didn't know the service history and that the fluid in my driveway had a burnt smell to it. He agreed that it needed to be done then but they couldn't see me until a week later.

I ended up going to an independent shop and they addressed the TSB about the "old orange" seals in the transmission that needed to be replaced. I've also had a hard "thunk" under acceleration ever since I've owned the truck and mentioned it to my dealer but they always blew me off. I'm just glad that I have competent shops who will gladly take my money and care more about the customer than Ford does.

I take good care of my vehicles and keep up on all the maintenance items and TSB's. I have a 69 Cougar that I can hop in and drive 600 miles at 70 mph without it missing a beat. It's just disheartening when service depts treat the customer like they don't know jack about their vehicle. I've actually printed out the TSB for my vehicle and had to take it to the dealer on more than one occasion in order to get something broken fixed.

The sunroof on my 2010 Maxima wouldn't close fully and the Nissan dealer in California was going to replace the whole glass roof on the car at a cost of $8000, simply because it was under warranty. I declined, drove the car back home to Missouri and the Nissan dealer there simply did a roof close "relearn" procedure. The sad thing is that this happens with a lot of the different automakers. So you need to have deep pockets or know a little bit about your vehicle, fortunately I know about my vehicles.