Dealer errantly drained Ravenol DXG at 800 miles!

Devils advocate here.

You mentioned you had the cam phaser work done. Isn't an oil change required as part of that work? My understanding is the front engine cover and valve covers come off as part of that...

(No idea what is or isn't covered under a recall or other warranty here).

If true, at that point you choosing to use more expensive oil and filter would mean nothing. They returned it to the condition required as part of Ford's maintenance proceedure.

No comment on the not getting things done on time - I take my truck to a Ford dealer 25 minutes away because they have always been straight shooters on time. The local dealer likes to set appointments and then take days to run them through, where the other dealer will say we will look at it today, if it needs this it will be so long, if that, this long. Much easier to plan your time with...
 
My VW dealer put 5w40 in my 0W20 VW Jetta at the first OC.

I bought Motul 508 and the mechanics refused to change the oil. So, the Service writer (!) and I did the oil change with the mechanics standing around grunting crowding and posturing like a bunch of punks. Did I ever go back for service? I had to have the rear springs replaced under recall. Car never drove right after that. Surprising as there is nothing much to mess up a twist beam axle - the replacements must have been out of spec.

One instance where the Service writer was the good guy. - Ken
 
Devils advocate here.

You mentioned you had the cam phaser work done. Isn't an oil change required as part of that work? My understanding is the front engine cover and valve covers come off as part of that...

(No idea what is or isn't covered under a recall or other warranty here).

If true, at that point you choosing to use more expensive oil and filter would mean nothing. They returned it to the condition required as part of Ford's maintenance proceedure.

No comment on the not getting things done on time - I take my truck to a Ford dealer 25 minutes away because they have always been straight shooters on time. The local dealer likes to set appointments and then take days to run them through, where the other dealer will say we will look at it today, if it needs this it will be so long, if that, this long. Much easier to plan your time with...
Already mentioned this... the cam phaser thing was a PCM reprogram only, nothing was touched on the engine.
 
On my Atlas Cross Sport it had 3 included oil changes which was done at 9800 miles. (i dropped the factory fill at 1500 miles for Ravenol) While they were at it they did a swaybar end link recall and did the free state inspection.

Got a message about bringing it back in for recall parts that weren't on hand the first time and they changed the oil again 800 miles later.
After over apologizing they reset the number of oil changes back to 3. So that was good. Now I'm on a schedule of dealership changes every 10k and I'm doing my own with Mobil1 0w30 ESP every 5k. I understand the frustration to go out of the way to get the special sauce Ravenol in there, which I loved Ravenol in the Audis, just to have it dumped for the regular Mobil1 dealership oil.
 
Well, achieved a “caveat emptor” result. Face-to-face with the service manager, he apologized for the mistake and wrote off the rotation and OCI done to the truck, and the TC was charged accordingly to FordPass rewards. While not ideal, I’ll live with it. No replacement on the Ravenol, and I probably could have continued to fuss, but it’s not like they damaged anything. Truck has fresh oil and may make it thru summer before it needs another change. I may UOA it just to see if the MC oil stays in grade. On to the weekend!
 
When I took my Accord to Honda for airbag recall I told service writer 3 times to only do the recall, nothing else.

Good that SM did some customer service recovery….
 
I put a DO NOT OPEN sticker across the seam of the airbox on my Wife's Subaru. After an OC and rotation The dealer service tech tore the label off installed a new air filter approx. 15K miles ahead of the Subaru recommended service.
I smell a disdain for "uppity" customers.
 
I have not been on the receiving end of service advisor mistakes (knock on wood) but couple years back I asked them to have their tint guy tint the windows on my Jetta Sportwagen as I had seen the tint jobs he did on their new cars which was pretty decent and the price was incredibly reasonable. Apparently some other customer had same exact JSW in for service same time as me and they ended up tinting that persons car - the look on my service advisors face when we walked out to my car for him to see it not tinted was absolutely priceless. :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: I just laughed and laughed and told them forget it as they had already had the car for like almost two weeks to fix the leaking sunroof - when I left I thought to myself "I really hope that other customer is ok with their new tint they probably are getting for free".
 
If they were able to fix your truck with just the reprogram, consider yourself very lucky. The majority of the ones we do have to get the whole phaser salad of parts replaced, which includes dropping the oil. That being said, the fact that they dropped your oil and then wanted to charge for anything when it wasn't approved is absolutely baffling to me.
 
Draining the oil may be part of the can phaser repair.
I was literally about to bill out the phaser salad for one of these trucks, including the oil filter and oil (we have bulk). But the first part of the recall is to do a reflash of teh PCM to stop the rattle. We are batting about .110 for the reflash working and usually have to do the repair. What's funny is the parts that Ford keeps taking off saying that they can be reused, which conveniently correspond to them being on backorder.
 

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I was literally about to bill out the phaser salad for one of these trucks, including the oil filter and oil (we have bulk). But the first part of the recall is to do a reflash of teh PCM to stop the rattle. We are batting about .110 for the reflash working and usually have to do the repair. What's funny is the parts that Ford keeps taking off saying that they can be reused, which conveniently correspond to them being on backorder.
Bowing to your expertise here BD, could it partly be that my truck’s only at 45k, and for nearly 25k miles has had a really good oil in it? I’m definitely not the cam phaser expert so other than the basic ideas of how they work, I’m surely not the expert on what causes them to fail, or what actually fails in them.

How many book hours does the fix take, and is it an actual fix or just a band-aid replacement of same crappy parts?
 
Bowing to your expertise here BD, could it partly be that my truck’s only at 45k, and for nearly 25k miles has had a really good oil in it? I’m definitely not the cam phaser expert so other than the basic ideas of how they work, I’m surely not the expert on what causes them to fail, or what actually fails in them.

How many book hours does the fix take, and is it an actual fix or just a band-aid replacement of same crappy parts?
There is a new part number of phaser that is physically different. They are smaller and weigh less. To do the replacement on a non Raptor F-150 pays 9.5 hours. To just do the reflash pays .2 and usually takes 8-10 hours since the FDRS system that replaced IDS is so slow. That is assuming you don't brick a PCM in the process, which does happen.
 
Welp, looks like the service manager is willing to lose all business for life on two nearly new Ford vehicles

If all you ever have them do is safety recalls and coupon discounted prevented maintenance, there is a very real possibility they would rather lose your future business than go out of their way to ensure it.
 
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