Dismantled, but brand new 2020 Ford Transit Connect....?

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Sitting in behind a local Ford dealer's building, is a rather roughly dismantled, but otherwise brand new, 2020 Ford Transit Connect. The window sticker is still in the window, and the tires have not been driven on the road. At first, it appears to have possibly been in a light front end collision. However, most of the carpet and pad have also been removed down to the bare metal, the dash has been partially removed, the instrument cluster is out, the front wheel liners have been removed, and all of the seats have been removed and tossed in the back. The driver's side window is down, and the opening is covered with plastic. It's brand new, but it is in a mess.

Even though the front bumper cover and grille are off, there's no sign of any collision damage behind them. There is no flood damage to any of it either.

I'll share some pictures.

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This one was a head scratcher. Why would a dealer tear down a brand new vehicle, that appears to have never been driven?

Until I spotted this, which by its location, was most likely the wiring for the front passenger side driving/fog light.

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Mice.

It appears that mice attacked it. There's a corn field within 100 feet of half of their inventory (and within 100% of their F-150/F-250/F-350 inventory). The dealer then tore it apart, looking for signs of more damaged wiring, or evidence that mice had been inside of it. The build date was 10/2019, so it could have been sitting at the dealership easily for a year, otherwise largely ignored. It is a Transit Connect passenger van, after all.

It has been sitting there in this condition for several weeks now. They're in no hurry to put it back together. I assume that since it can't be sold as 'new' anymore, that there is an insurance claim of some sort that is pending, and then it will head to ADESA in Indianapolis. It will then be sold at the Ford sale, as it sits?

I wish I had a good sales or service contact at this dealership, so I could get the real story here.
 
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I guess someone broke the window for the fun of it......or they couldn't get it to roll up?
No signs of any broken glass that I saw. I suspect that they dismantled the electrical system with the window down (not realizing that it was down), to the point where it was much easier to just cover the opening with plastic, than it was to restore power to the switch and motor.
 
Yup.

The next day after buying my old 2013 Fusion I had, I go to start it for the first time. Won't start, throwing error codes. I google the codes and they point me to the EPAS, or electronic steering system. I called the salesman up and was like, bro ***! The dealer is a major dealer around this area and has one of those 30-day/3,000 mi warranties they offer. So they take it in and find that "something" chewed through 2 harnesses, including the main wiring harness. So they finally fix it for free (normal warranty had $100 ded on it) and I ran it for 4 years and never had a problem again but it was just weird timing/coincidental that the first night I bring it home, something chews through it. We've lived at that house for 20 years and never had a rodent chew wiring until then. :unsure:
 
Probably waiting on the harness. Ford has an obscene amount of parts on backorder right now, especially on current production vehicles. Warranty will not pay the tech to tear it apart, and then put it back together while they are waiting for parts, so you see that while they wait. There are also some circuits where warranty wants the harness to be replaced instead of a wiring repair performed.
 
Something similar happened to me on a test drive back in 2009 on a new 2008 Fusion. The car had been sitting in inventory for several months. The oil pressure light came on when I started the engine for the test drive. The salesman said don’t worry about it, so we continued the test drive. Engine didn’t lock up so we assumed it was a sensor.

A couple months later I went back the the same dealership with a buddy who was picking up his truck from service. The salesman recognized me and immediately told me that the Fusion I test drive had a wiring harness that was eaten by mice. Seems to be fairly common with Ford vehicles.
 
Also of note, Ford will not pay for rodent damage under warranty. So that is either a sold unit being paid for by the customer or their insurance, or an internal repair being paid for by the dealer. Now there is a chance where this could have been discovered during the PDI and it was less than 48 hours after delivery to the dealer where Ford might pay.
 
Something similar happened to me on a test drive back in 2009 on a new 2008 Fusion. The car had been sitting in inventory for several months. The oil pressure light came on when I started the engine for the test drive. The salesman said don’t worry about it, so we continued the test drive. Engine didn’t lock up so we assumed it was a sensor.

A couple months later I went back the the same dealership with a buddy who was picking up his truck from service. The salesman recognized me and immediately told me that the Fusion I test drive had a wiring harness that was eaten by mice. Seems to be fairly common with Ford vehicles.
Its common with a lot of vehicles no matter the brand. The wiring insulation is soy based and the mice love it.
 
Probably waiting on the harness. Ford has an obscene amount of parts on backorder right now, especially on current production vehicles. Warranty will not pay the tech to tear it apart, and then put it back together while they are waiting for parts, so you see that while they wait. There are also some circuits where warranty wants the harness to be replaced instead of a wiring repair performed.
oh... i don't wanna hear that.... they currently have my C-max, for a second attempt to fix the same intermittent issues.... "Lost Communication with Engine Coolant pump controller"(U019F) , and "Lost Communication with Active grille Air Shutter Module A"(U0284)
last time, I provided them with a copy of SSM 47790, they found water intrusion in two of the connectors. dried them out, and slathered on the dielectric grease.$206, basically in labor.
everything was golden or about 2 days. same Codes come back. same intermittent nature. dropped it off last night for an appointment this morning.
have their "senior electrical guy" look at it, and water in the same connectors. trace it back, water in that end as well... it's filling the whole thing.

the gasketed ends aren't serviceable, have to order new sub-harness*, takes 3-4 days. should be about $475. (this is about 1:30 on Monday afternoon), i say, okay, I need the car on Friday, I have plans out of town... oh it should be done by Friday....

so apparently they're keeping it until then... he said they'd get it back together, and call me, but....no call yet...
yay, I just happen to have this week off from work, but now i have no car either! Sweet!

honestly it wouldn't suprise me if they were gnawed somewhere....
when i bought the car, I went to change the air filter, and could hear something rolling around inside the filter housing/engine cover got 2 hollowed out acorns out of it...
Previous owners were an older couple that had apparently let it sit a lot...

*my wording, got tired of typing connector
 
oh... i don't wanna hear that.... they currently have my C-max, for a second attempt to fix the same intermittent issues.... "Lost Communication with Engine Coolant pump controller"(U019F) , and "Lost Communication with Active grille Air Shutter Module A"(U0284)
last time, I provided them with a copy of SSM 47790, they found water intrusion in two of the connectors. dried them out, and slathered on the dielectric grease.$206, basically in labor.
everything was golden or about 2 days. same Codes come back. same intermittent nature. dropped it off last night for an appointment this morning.
have their "senior electrical guy" look at it, and water in the same connectors. trace it back, water in that end as well... it's filling the whole thing.

the gasketed ends aren't serviceable, have to order new sub-harness*, takes 3-4 days. should be about $475. (this is about 1:30 on Monday afternoon), i say, okay, I need the car on Friday, I have plans out of town... oh it should be done by Friday....

so apparently they're keeping it until then... he said they'd get it back together, and call me, but....no call yet...
yay, I just happen to have this week off from work, but now i have no car either! Sweet!

honestly it wouldn't suprise me if they were gnawed somewhere....
when i bought the car, I went to change the air filter, and could hear something rolling around inside the filter housing/engine cover got 2 hollowed out acorns out of it...
Previous owners were an older couple that had apparently let it sit a lot...

*my wording, got tired of typing connector
Too bad they couldn't have just RTV'd or similar sealed the existing connections and when the new ones came in have you bring it back for the permanent repair.
 
When I worked at a Mitsubishi dealer, Mitsubishi New Zealand ran a dismantling yard - they would buy written off late model vehicles, sometimes they would import a vehicle from Japan to dismantle...and sometimes they would pull apart a brand new one, for whatever reason it was not able to be sold new in this country. Sometimes they were demo vehicles. These parts are only available to dealers.
 
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