Repairs at another dealer.

Jason B

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Yesterday, I took my 5G to a Ford dealer for 12K service. While waiting for the job to complete, I sat with
an old school mate of mine who is one of the service writers there. After a while I mentioned that I bought
the truck at another dealer but prefer this dealer for service/repair because its closer to work. He mentioned
that his dealership and the one I bought the truck are not in best standing. It's like oil and water he said. He also
mentioned that his dealership doesn't mind service work from the other dealer, but that I should take the truck
to the place of purchase for repairs. He said that his dealership would hesitantly do repair work, but that I would be
put at the "back of the line" so to speak and would receive little to no priority over vehicles purchased at his dealership.
That's crappy business practice. I don't believe Ford cares where I get repairs done, just as long as it is at a Ford shop.
Also, during the discussion, I was told that the place I bought the truck sells only third-party extended warranties, not Ford's
protection plan. Now I'm wondering if I should cancel the 3rd party extended warranty and purchase a genuine Ford plan.
Anybody here of such a thing?
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It's true, we called them VO's "visiting owners", they came after our customers, but this was 20 years ago, can't say if it's changed or not, sounds like it's still the same.

As for the warranty, the Ford is best and Ford got pissy when Autonation bought our store and started pushing their warranty, there is a lot of money to be made in extended warranties.
 

Joeiconic

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I bought my truck out of town and I’ve never been back there. I’ve only had two oil changes thus far, but my local dealer has been great. I would have bought there but at the time I needed to buy they had zero Ranger inventory. I seriously doubt any dealer cares where you bought the truck. Repairs, maintenance and warranty work is a separate profit center from sales.
 

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Where it came to a push situation is when we were really busy, if we were backlogged our customers came first.
If we were not busy, it didn't matter, they were all equal, except back then we gave rental cars to only our customers, not visiting owners.
 


OregonRangerTremor

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Yesterday, I took my 5G to a Ford dealer for 12K service. While waiting for the job to complete, I sat with
an old school mate of mine who is one of the service writers there. After a while I mentioned that I bought
the truck at another dealer but prefer this dealer for service/repair because its closer to work. He mentioned
that his dealership and the one I bought the truck are not in best standing. It's like oil and water he said. He also
mentioned that his dealership doesn't mind service work from the other dealer, but that I should take the truck
to the place of purchase for repairs. He said that his dealership would hesitantly do repair work, but that I would be
put at the "back of the line" so to speak and would receive little to no priority over vehicles purchased at his dealership.
That's crappy business practice. I don't believe Ford cares where I get repairs done, just as long as it is at a Ford shop.
Also, during the discussion, I was told that the place I bought the truck sells only third-party extended warranties, not Ford's
protection plan. Now I'm wondering if I should cancel the 3rd party extended warranty and purchase a genuine Ford plan.
Anybody here of such a thing?
I also go to a closer Dealer for Service and they do just fine. Their sales department sucks or they could have sold us 4 more Ford's instead of from elsewhere. I doubt the Service Department even knows or cares where the vehicle was purchased from. I have had no issues. On the extended warranty...I have never had nor seen the need to purchase one.
 

Langwilliams

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I worked with people that had this problem in Hawaii. There were only a handful of dealerships an getting in for service could take a while. I never had to deal with it. The dealer gets paid for warranty repairs by ford an if they have an opening I don't see them turning a job away unless it's a scarce part they are saving for their repeat customers.
 

paval3

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I didn't intentionally go seeking to buy my Ranger from an out of the immediate area dealer... but the salesman who I ended up buying the truck from had just ordered a truck cap from me for one of his customer's truck. This salesman went above and beyond for me... even brought 2 different trucks down to me at work (30 minutes away) to test drive. Anyway, I haven't been back to that dealership since the day I took title to the truck. I've been taking it to a large Ford dealer just on the other side of town. I don't ever get the feeling that I'm not getting "preferred" customer status. The only thing I notice when I go to pick up my truck is that they always have it parked with the tailgate facing the building.... LOL I guess that little 3" wide dealer name sticker would be too much advertising where I bought the truck. Once the weather warms up, I'm going to take a hair dryer to it and see if I can peel it off.
The dealer service department where I go always asks that you complete the Ford survey rating their dealership's service.... I always give them the best review.
 

D Fresh

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I've serviced three Fords at my local dealership.

None were bought there. I tried to buy all three there but they don't like to sell vehicles for some reason.

Never had a problem.

Your buddy was bullshitting you and just doesn't want to see you back there again.
 
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VegasRanger

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I can see this being true. I recently took my truck to the closest dealership to get my transmission fluid level checked and one of the first things they asked is why I didn't take it to the dealership I purchased it from. Then they proceeded to tell me they couldn't check the fluid level because these transmissions don't have a dip stick. Needless to say, I left and never returned.
 
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Jason B

Jason B

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Well, hopefully I'll never need major repairs. If I do, I'll address which dealership to take it to. But the dealer where I purchased it doesn't have a good after sales reputation. Something I should have looked into be for jumping the gun and buying there. Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets about buying this truck.
Another thing he told me, regardless of dealership purchase, is that they are booked up until
end of February. If someone wanted to take the vehicle in for a minor repair there would be a wait.
I'm not talking about catastrophic or safety issues, just things like vibration, shutter, or cosmetic issues. He said it's the busiest he has ever seen due to the fact that there few new vehicles available. That and due to poor economy people are trying to hold on to their vehicles longer.
 

GTGallop

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Does your money have George Washington on it? Case closed. They all need customers to pay them so they can meet goals and quotas on revenue forecast. Dealerships make more money from service than sales. They may prefer to use one warranty company over another because it's easier to get reimbursed or because one is more lenient on price, but beyond that they should all be the same.

Then again.... Ford service and mechanics have turned more people off from being repeat Ford Customers than anything that ever went wrong with the vehicle so who knows.
 

Porpoise Hork

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Dealership service writers in general spew more bullshit than anyone else out there... Take anything they say with a quarry of salt....

Think about it, there's a reason the average turn-over for that position is 3 months....
 

Grady

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Every business is going to take care of their loyal customers first. Not sure why this surprises anyone. Of course you are going to be put behind the guy that has purchased many vehicles from them. If that dealer is more convenient why did you not buy the truck from them?
 

rang19ca

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I always try to cultivate a positive connection to my 3 local dealerships. When I took our company vehicles to any of them, they were always happy to see me and all were fleet purchases thru a corporate connection.
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