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Wish me luck! My truck has been in the shop for 31 days and counting (as of Sept 10) for a driveline vibration. Today I mailed a letter to Ford requesting they buy back the truck. If anyone has gone through this before and has any advice I am all ears.
How does Ford normally handle an issue like this?
In my state is was 5 visits and 29 days or similar. I had a 2015 Lincoln MKC that I leased. 2 months in the thing started exhibiting some electrical issues that they tried over and over to figure out. After 8 visits and over 35 total business days without it... I had Ford talking about buying it back. It all went pretty smooth until they wanted to charge me a usage fee for the mileage on it. I drive a lot for work, so it would equate to over $5K that I would not recover.
Lucky or unlucky for me as we were still working out the details, I had gotten into the car one morning had just pressed the ignition button and was leaned over to put my new insurance card in the glove box. BAM.. the drivers side air bag deployed and near took my head off. Once I shared what happened (with photos), it was amazing how accommodating they were. Not only did they wave all usage fees, giving me the entirety of my down payment and all lease payments made to date... they ponied up some more for "my troubles". That was of course if I agreed to sign away all rights to sue that crap out of them at some future date.
I am not a litigious guy and took the deal. After looking at everything under the sun... I ended up buying another MKC, a 2016, LOL (I never learn). Needless to say it has been flawless. Its lease is up in a month or so and of course is getting replaced by my ordered 2018 F150 that I am Whippling (is that a word?).
Just make sure you get everything you wanted before you sign and as said above, if you start spouting off about getting a lawyer... they will quickly be less accommodating and what could be a very fast process can turn into a year or more ordeal. For me that fight was not worth it, had the air bag thing not happened, who knows... I was getting pretty irritated about usage fee for a car that left me stranded more times than I can count but oh well.
Best part was after it was towed to the dealership, Ford wanted to know the current mileage. The dealership told them an estimate based on the last service (I was on the phone with them during this)... when asked why the estimate, the service writer stated that they refused to allow any employee to get into the vehicle for fears of other bags going off. Apparently ford arranged a flat bed to just come and eventually pick it up. It sat in the way back of their lot for near a month... all sad looking with the air bag deployed and all.
Skip the letter and just call customer service and advise them you want a buy back. They will open a case, assign you a regional customer service manager, and pull your service records to make sure you are documented within your state’s lemon law guidelines. The review takes 2 weeks.
I lemon law my 2016 for frozen door handles. Let me know if I can be of any assistance to you.
I like having a trail of documentation so will start with the letter. I'll see if Ford responds within 2 weeks and proceed from there.
Good plan. My truck was in the shop 60+ days. I called Ford around day 35 to get the ball rolling. NY requires 30 days out of service.
Start deciding now which route you plan on going - replacement vehicle or buy out. I opted for a replacement vehicle and special ordered. Check your state lemon law guidelines to see if you have to pay mileage. In NY I was responsible for any miles over 12,000... however with the replacement vehicle Ford waived mileage. They also took of $2000 of the replacement vehicle cost.
Ford received my letter on September 12 and called me on the 13th. The Ford rep I talked to told me they are going to investigate and will contact me again NLT close of business on September 17th.
Good. What the ford rep is doing is pulling your service history to verify your vehicle has been out of service more than 30 days.
Do yourself a favor and learn from my misfortune. Call your service manager TODAY and have him pull your records and VERIFY TO YOU that your records are up to date and shows your vehicle there the correct amount of time.
My service department forgot to update 20 days worth of time and when I first called they denied me. It wasn’t until I sat down with my service manager that we discovered he “forgot.”
Thanks for the tip about updating service records. But I mentioned in my letter the truck has been in the shop this time since August 15th. So as of today that visit alone is 34-35 days.
09-10-2018, 05:20 PM
Lemon Law
