Dealership + Warranty Claims experience

[burnkill]

I apologize in advance, I did some searching but couldnt quite find an exact answer. How has everyone's experience been with warranty claims with a standard factory warranty and/or an extended ford warranty? I know there will obviously be outliers for specific claims, but more so a general experience. Thanks!

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[Grumpaw]

Answer's will all be dependent on the dealer as to the way your treated, and the quality of the techs that do the work. Two dealers 15 miles apart can have drastically different outcomes.
My Ranger was purchased from a small local dealer, and the only time it's gone in so far is for the rear seat headrests and seat belt recall on the 2021's.
Took it in, service mgr took 5 minutes to look it over, and I had new headrests ordered....in my hands a week later.

 

[burnkill]

Answer's will all be dependent on the dealer as to the way your treated, and the quality of the techs that do the work. Two dealers 15 miles apart can have drastically different outcomes.
My Ranger was purchased from a small local dealer, and the only time it's gone in so far is for the rear seat headrests and seat belt recall on the 2021's.
Took it in, service mgr took 5 minutes to look it over, and I had new headrests ordered....in my hands a week later.

Thanks for the feedback - and absolutely. YMMV.

 

[Hickesy]

Likewise, only in for the recall and scored folding headrests which made my day

 

[JasonTremor]

Both Ford and GM warranty service I've had in past few years was good. They evaluate vehicle to recreate the issue. If they can't replicate the issue and no codes stored they send you away to return if it does it again. If they can duplicate the issue, they diagnose and get pre-approval from corporate for the repairs. Sometimes corporate pushes back, sometimes they don't. Corporate goal is to control costs and dealer service center becomes the person in the middle.

 

[burnkill]

Both Ford and GM warranty service I've had in past few years was good. They evaluate vehicle to recreate the issue. If they can't replicate the issue and no codes stored they send you away to return if it does it again. If they can duplicate the issue, they diagnose and get pre-approval from corporate for the repairs. Sometimes corporate pushes back, sometimes they don't. Corporate goal is to control costs and dealer service center becomes the person in the middle.

Awesome, thank you!

 

[airline tech]

Agree, attempted 2 dealers for Mushy Brakes, both said nothing wrong and its normal for Ranger. Frustrated - I did brake bleed myself, ton of air out of R/Rear Caliper. Brakes now somewhat normal. Better feel at least holds at stoplight with light foot pressure. I plan on doing another bleed to see if I can make the brake pedal more solid.
So, dealers will only warranty if the initial diagnostic shows/proves you have a true issue (in their opinion) if so, then they move on to troubleshooting and submitting to Ford Corporate for Warranty Claim, in my case I proved my issue but only to myself
So as a mechanic (former automotive) and for the last 30 years Aircraft, I plan on doing ALL maintenance myself - Rather than deal with the hassle of Warranty Claims.

 

[Grumpaw]

Service/repair/warranty work is the "bread and butter" for dealers, more so now that most of their sales are order sales. The days of a dealer having all models/styles of their vehicles are pretty much gone.....no more lots with 100-150 new vehicles to pick from. Yeah, money is made on new vehicle sales, but small in comparison to service.
The 2 dealers in my area, one small, Campus Ford and one large, Obaugh Ford, are having to spend $$$ to up-grade their service depts for the influx of EV's coming in. Granted, not much mechanical, but electricl's will need to be repaired/warrantied.

 

[jsphlynch]

My one warranty repair (replacement of parking brake boot) was absolutely smooth and painless. I've since moved so will be contacting a different dealer about a battery replacement; we'll see how that goes.

 

[MountainGoat]

My local Wehr Ford has been great. Replaced batteries when dead, replaced driveshaft support when it started whining, they just do what I say without an issue. They also installed my Bilstein shocks/level kit and aligned the truck afterwards with no problems. I think I got lucky compared to some other dealer stories on here. I still plan on buying the Ford ESP 8 year.

 

[Trustable]

Not great, it seems like dealership blames corporate and then corparate blames dealership depending on the issue. A lot of things that are cosmetic are dealer dependent. The dealer i went to to get some paint fixed (warranty works on pinch welds) has a great body shop and got me in quickly and fixed it to the point where it looked better than new. The same dealer has less then stellar mechanical work for a warranty - they refuse to help push through to ford and do the bare minimum. Other dealers I went to for the mechanical issues I had the same result as well. I think a lot of it is Ford refusing to own up and fix in combination with many dealers doing the bare minimum. I always hear about dealers going the extra mile but I personally haven’t seen it, same with sales people at the dealers.

 

[Frenchy]

From my own experience being a Ford technician I can tell you the Ford warranty on Factory and extended warranty can be very nice. It all depends on what has and hasn't been done to the vehicle to what's going on with the vehicle. Also as long as you have a good dealership things usually go pretty smoothly. The only current drawback that I'm aware of that affects all dealerships is the parts delay on certain parts. That's my input

 

[MrBirdman330]

Never had an issue when it came to Ford for warranty work. Ford actually stepped up in a case I had with my Focus and replaced the shifter cable believing that was the issue which I believe they were right. As the shifter latch quit breaking after it was replaced. What was to be done was replaced the latch again due to the new upgraded latch may have been faulty. Ford also replaced my radio under warranty when it went crazy trying to read my CDs and spat them out instead. I had the parking brake boot replaced on my Ranger under warranty took a while due to parts backorder but Ford replaced it no questions asked.

Worst to deal with warranty is Toyota, that company does not believe it does anything wrong and they build perfect every time. I had to fight to get my Camry passenger seat redone with less than 3k miles on it. One of the seams split open and immediately Toyota tried to say somebody split it sitting in the seat. That doesn't matter as the seam shouldn't split because somebody sat in the seat. Then what made me trade out before warranty was up, the windshield had a bad install didn't realize it until going to LA and back. Would have been quieter to drive with the windows down. I seem to have forgotten the Dealer service manager was with us on the trip to and back because according to him it was a rock chip which didn't exist that caused the problem and the windshield eventually cracking. So I will never own another new Toyota.

 

[Deleted member 15875]

My local Wehr Ford has been great. Replaced batteries when dead, replaced driveshaft support when it started whining, they just do what I say without an issue. They also installed my Bilstein shocks/level kit and aligned the truck afterwards with no problems. I think I got lucky compared to some other dealer stories on here. I still plan on buying the Ford ESP 8 year.

Question regarding them installing your Billstein's. Assuming you brought them in to have them installed. Did they indicate they wouldn't warranty the work since you brought the shocks in yourself? I've had several auto shops tell me they wont do or warranty replacement shocks since they didn't procure them. I haven't asked Ford yet if they also take this stance. I just recieved a set of Ford/Fox shocks - even shows the Ford P/N on the box so I'm hoping I won't have an issue when I take it in to have them swapped.

 

[KJRR]

Just got the battery replaced under factory warranty and will be getting a new battery monitor sensor when it comes in. No issue at all with the dealer and I didn't even buy the truck there.

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