Man i feel your pain. Just a quick story of my experience........
I purchased a new 2001 gt in nov of 2000 from don davis ford in arlington tx. One year & 36,500 miles later i hear a "knocking" sound from my engine. I contacted the service dept at don davis & they said to bring the car in......
To make a long & painful story short, i had a bad rod bearing on the #5 piston & the dealership said that since my car was "out of warrany" they were not responsible for the repair.
My car only had 500 miles over the factory warrany. If i built a car that couldn't even go 40,000 miles without throwing a bearing i would be ashamed of myself & offer to replace it free of charge & appolagize for any inconvienance.
the dealership's solution to my problem was to keep my engine, sell me a rebuilt engine for $1000 & turn around & rebuild mine & sell it again. They called this a "favor". The only reason they didn't try to charge me more for the rebuilt one is because they knew i could get mine rebuilt for a little more than they were charging & they wanted to make money. Period.
When i got my car back, 1 week & $1159 dollars later, i found huge grooves cut into the tops of both front fenders. It looked like someone wearing one of those belt-buckles that looks like a trash can had been working on my car without the service blankets that they are required to use for any engine bay work.
I got my car back another week later with a half-@ss paint job. I drove the car for a year & started to notice that my clutch was slipping. I intended to get a heavy duty ram clutch to replace it at dallas mustang. When dallas mustang had my car on the lift, they called me back to show me somthing....
MY BELLHOUSING HAD 2 BOLTS, FINGER TIGHT HOLDING MY TRANSMISSION....THE REST WERE MISSING!!!!!!!
I sent an email to ford when the whole engine fiasco started, explaining the situation...this was their reply:
**********************************************************
Thank you for contacting Ford Division.
We appreciate the time you have taken to write us, and we acknowledge
receipt of your e-mail. We are currently addressing your inquiry and
will be contacting you within three business days. For any future
correspondence regarding this issue, please reference this information
in your message:
Tracking ID: KMM1862606C0KM
Case ID: 635270
Sincerely,
Ford Division
Customer Relationship Center
**********************************************************
That was the last message i ever got from ford. No phone call either.
This is a problem not only with ford, but with every major company today. You are not a CUSTOMER to them, you are only a very small number on a very large spreadsheet. Unimportant, & not worth their time, money or effort. Sad but true. The only thing that they (ford) care about is what can make their stock price go up .00000001% tomorrow. Not how they can make a better product & make their customers LIFELONG customers. This has to change or it will only get worse.
Well, I guess I cooled off some since then, or just lost my mind, because 1 month ago I traded my POS 2001gt in & got a 2005 black gt 5 speed. So far I love the car. But stories like yours make me remember how pissed i was at ford 2 years ago. Looks like i might have made a mistake by thinking that my case was an isolated incident.
If ford doesn't do somthing to make you happy and restore your faith in their brand, then they deserve to lose your business & the business of anybody else you tell your horror story to.
I have ranted enough. I hope you get more satisfaction than i got from ford.
good luck (you'll need it)