StoneyinDenver

I got a call from my salesman with a full blown guilt trip about not scoring him all excellent on my purchase experience. I answered my survey honestly and added details regarding where I felt I was taken advantage of. He told me that he had just gotten ripped a new one from his boss and his kids were going to suffer because I had just cost him his Christmas bonus.

Wanted33

I have to agree with "artic" here. I know sometimes it seems like they are trying to rip people off, but in fact it's just business. Raising he** just stops the process of negotiations in it's track. I'm sure I am a bit older than the OP, and experience is the best teacher. Explaining your grievance with tact with get you where you need to be quicker. You do get more flys with honey than with BS.

Arctic_Ragtop

I am the Business Manager at a Ford Store way up in northern canada. I just explain to customers when they are buying/picking up their new vehicle that they are going to receive a survey in about a month, and it is our report card. It is very important that they fill it out and send it in, then explain that completely satisfied is the only answer that counts and I personally take the extra step to ensure that they are completely satisfied and if not, make sure they know to let myself of the salesman know and we will make it right. It usually results in perfect surveys, however there are still the odd ones that come back unfavorable.

medicff0879

Since you are a business manager of a Ford store than how would you explain that if I did plug it into a trailer that worked perfectly fine on the vehicle previously towing it without any problems, why did mine have problems?

How would that be my fault to be able to diagnose that there wasn't a problem to begin with, prior to me plugging it in to my 3 week old truck? I know, probably some bulls**t excuse that I should never assume that a 4 pin plug, on a brand new truck, is working just fine (as expected) and check it prior to plugging the trailer in to confirm. I know, I'm sure 100% of everyone here does that prior to plugging their trailer in. I am an aweful person for that, I admit. Moving on and past the sarcasm and justifications.

I don't expect FREE of anything that is legitemately a service provided, for a legit problem, and at a legit cost to repair!! To explain to me the problems of a socialist society and the entitlement that involves, is of no importance to the actual problem at hand. As far as the "problem" you seem to think had no real validity towards GM (yet know nothing of the circumstance involved) YES, I had a problem when you take a 4 week old car in for a radio unit that flashes/doesn't come on/or work at all for that matter, and AFTER three times, INCLUDING replacing the $2000 unit, it still didn't work. On that third attempt, they stated they didn't know what else to do, yet the problem continued. I have a problem with that, and SHOULD!! I ended up just having to face the fact that my radio unit may, or may not, work when I get in and start my now 3 month old car with 4,000 miles on it.

Lastly, at least we agree that they should call and authorize ANY expense that I will incur, whether justifiably, or not. That is a good practice for any business that is "just trying to run a business." How can you justify racking a brand new customer over the coals by charging $40 to change a damn fuse? Call me crazy, but couldn't these morons look first to that as a possibly cause, BEFORE racking up an hours worth of BS labor fees to find out it was a $1.50 fuse and be a 2 min. fix?? Seems their troubleshooting methods are a little ridiculous if the standard is to take an hour diagnosing a problem that requires a 2 min. $1.50 fix!!??

medicff0879

And I gave them full deserved props on the sales process. The salesman called me from an internet inquiry, offered to find the truck, found it within a few hours, set the deal up over the phone, and basically all I had to do was go in, sign the paperwork and walk out after my vehicle tour!!

However, after this experience, I really don't want to take my vehicle back to those idiots in their service dept., period. Do you honestly think I should call the "Sales Manager" back and discuss my feelings again? I am honestly not looking for freebies here, but it takes a lot to earn back after the dealers service dept. pulls this kind of s**t. Besides, this is from ignorance on my part, what kind of "power/pull" does a sales manager have over something the idiots in service did? That is an honest question, not a deragatory remark towards sales managers in general.

medicff0879

Im sure you do have more experience in the grand scheme of things, however I'm not a 20 year old kid with a complaint LOL!! I work to pay for my "things" as we all do. In this case, I feel that their honey in the solution would have been to call me and say something before dumping a $40 bill on me. He** I could have even respected if they could have slipped the $1.50 fuse across the table, or, for that matter, I would have been willing to pay for the $1.50 fuse and done it myself. This is not exactly an uncommon practice inall cases involving minor issues such as this. In fact, why didn't they call the sales folks and work things out with them before pulling this kind of crap? BTW, my wife reminds me all the time about the "attracting more bee's with honey, than vinegar!" LOL!! I will honestly admit that I lack tact when it comes to the feeling like I have been "had" in general.

bajaman

I've never got a Service Survey either, and I've had my truck serviced 4 times now a(scheduled maintenance). Now, my wife gets a Survey EVERY time she takes her Mercury Mariner in for service. Must be the difference between Lincoln/Mercury and Ford, eh?

medicff0879

Is a maintenance visit different from a "warranty" work type of issue? Curious?

Austin97

Yes. Ford customer surveys are only sent out on the first warranty job I believe. Some dealerships may have their own surveys that they send out every visit, but Ford certainly doesn't.

There's a few things going on here, you think $40 is too much to change a fuse. That's fine if you brought your truck in and said "replace fuse #24 under the hood". In that case I agree, $40 is too much, because the tech doesn't have to diag anything, just change the fuse.

That's not what happened though, you said "My driving lights on my trailer don't work". That means the tech has to pull the car in, check that the running lights don't work in the trailer harness to verify your concern, then look up which fuse run the trailer running lights, then check the fuse. He has to find the bad fuse, go to parts, get a new fuse, install it, button the fuse box up, then go to the harness to test that the replaced fuse fixed the problem in the trailer harness.

It's not magic that fixes your car when you take it to a dealer. A person has to do all of those steps in order to fix the vehicle, just for a blown fuse and all of that easily took a half hour and the $40 is CHEAP. The dealer I work at is the cheapest around and out labor rate is $106, making a half hour $53 + tax.

I do agree that this wasn't handled very well. The service writer should have gone to the salesman before closing the ticket and gotten what we call a "we-owe" meaning the sales department eats it. Service writers are the most important part of the dealership and the one you dealt with dropped the ball. There's no reason for you to have left there upset, all they had to do was take care of it for you. You didn't even have to know what the cost would have been. You wouldn't have been treated that way at my dealer and hopefully they realize that customer satisfaction is the #1 most important thing when it comes to the service department. You are the case-in-point, since you'll never spend another cent at that dealer.

medicff0879

Thank you for the in-depth explanation as to how this went down. I appreciate you taking the time to explain that there were other methods in which this could/should (IMO) have been handled. What do you think I should do if you were in this scenario? The ONLY reason I am threatening to "throw them under the bus" on a service survey is because I left feeling as though nothing was handled, things were swept under the rug/covered up/and I simply have no trust in their practices from this point forward. I knew that survey (which I haven't received at all) is my only way of voicing how I feel this whole thing went down.