Oh man... This isn't good.

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Originally Posted By: OtisBlkR1
time to contact ford corporate.. send them a copy of the video.. if nothing else, retain yourself a lawyer and demand everything get fixed.


Ford corporate won't care. I've been through that. They'll simply state that dealerships are franchises, and are independent businesses, and that they're not going to get in the middle of it.

If it isn't something that is directly related to THEIR car, it doesn't matter, they don't care.
 
Have a wrap put on the car, "SAWGRASS FORD DAMAGED MY CAR AND REFUSED TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT!" Start a website, say: "www.sawgrassfordsucks.com" or something similar.
 
Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
Originally Posted By: OtisBlkR1
time to contact ford corporate.. send them a copy of the video.. if nothing else, retain yourself a lawyer and demand everything get fixed.


Ford corporate won't care. I've been through that. They'll simply state that dealerships are franchises, and are independent businesses, and that they're not going to get in the middle of it.

If it isn't something that is directly related to THEIR car, it doesn't matter, they don't care.



On one of those boards, the guy said he contacted Ford corporate and they said all he could do was leave negative feedback about the dealership. He said they told him he might not receive any phone call back about the incident.
 
Similar to the guy with the camaro that the dealer drove around and ended up blowing up.
Italian tune up via the dealer. Nice.
 
Everyone has a facebook page, including Ford. They will definitely reach out to you if you post this on their page.
 
Originally Posted By: KenO
I mean, it's hard to say what was going on here. So, the car has $10k worth of mods? If so, I guess it comes down to if this was going to be a warranty repair. If it was gonna be a warranty repair, then the test drive makes sense. Some random, arbitrary noise that you couldn't hear in the camera. Beat the snot out of it, and if it blows up - cool, drop a new motor in it and be done with it. Or it burns away any possible carbon, and the noise goes away. If it's customer pay - ehh, then it gets a little picky, especially at a dealership with mods. This really varies by dealer, some are much more OK dealing with modified cars than others.


I also heard the tech say the owner of the car was really picky, and that might very well be the case. The noise was evidently gone at the end of the test drive, so the tech did SOMETHING right. Pain in the [censored] customers are, well, a pain in the [censored], and are going to complain about minuscule stuff regardless. Make it go away, and the customer goes home happy until they decide to [censored] about something else.

Really? You believe he may have done something right? Are ya nuts?
 
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Why are the mechanic's faces whited out ?


They are in the Witless Protection Program.
 
Originally Posted By: suspiciousmind
I'm pretty sure there's a black box on board with a record of those revs and speed with time/dates.


I'm sure there is and I'm sure that it would be used to deny warranty if not documented with corporate, accentuated with proper social media exploitation, and without the appropriate legal representation.
 
Not terribly scandalized. I'm pretty sure they didn't put 80 miles on it in first gear, no matter what the man says. I hear them shift gears, so....they shifted gears. I'm guessing its a 3.7L Mustang, so it revs easily to 7,000 rpm.

I honestly don't know what the protocol is, but the greater scandal are the mechanics who put the car on a scanner and then mindlessly replace parts.
 
yeah they beat em but for under $180.00 you can equip your car with some good stuff that monitors everything the driver does. And i mean everything also it monitors you also so if you get an unjust speeding ticket you win in court because its guided by satllite it also records both sound and vision and if its installed properly you dont see it
 
So what kind of oil was he running. Just kidding, i wouldnt even want them to put in a new drive train. I would demand a new car. I know many of us whether a new or used car have spent many hours with our vehicles choosing the right oils finding the proper torque specs for replacing parts and just all around general maintenance. If i got my car back with a new drivetrain i would feel like the car is dirty or has been tampered with. New is the only way
 
The mechanic needs a father/son conversation behind the woodshed. Actually, to call him a mechanic or a technician is an insult to the folks that dona good job. One can only hope his future lies with a counter position at McDonalds.
 
That video now has more than 215,000 views in just 3 days.

I suspect some heads will roll over this. The owner of that dealership is gonna blow a gasket if he hasn't already.
 
The dealership president posted this on their Facebook page sometime today:

"Sawgrass Ford takes its customer service reputation very seriously. Although the customer's vehicle was fixed by driving at a high RPM, our dealership does not condone the language or the specific method used to solve the issue. I shook the customers hand and thanked him for bringing this to my attention. The technicians involved were dealt with, and the customer asked for some unrelated goodwill. We gave him four wheels and tires, free flushes and services, he took down the video, and we considered the matter closed. Neither the customer nor Ford was ever charged a dime. Commenters with technical knowledge have noted that the rev limiter on the car never went off, so the claim that we " blew up" his car was merely sensationalism, aimed at getting the video to go viral. This is a complex matter now because the surreptitious recording of individuals in the state of Florida is a crime. Sawgrass Ford has to be sensitive to the legal right of our employees as well. While we have always done everything we can to maintain happy customers, We cannot in good conscious continue letting this customer go on using the internet to gain free services from Sawgrass Ford. As always, there is more to the situation than this video shows. We hope viewers can see what is actually motivating this customer. Our intent is to put this behind us and move forward with the same customer satisfaction that has earned us multiple presidents' awards.

-David Menten | President"

Sounds like he was more concerned that his techs were videoed than anything else, and he hints strongly that the car owner was trying to extort the dealership by relating his experience via the internet.

I dunno. Would you take your car here for service?

Edit: in his Facebook comments, the car owner says: "I was told by Ford HQ that no other Ford dealership is willing to touch the vehicle because Sawgrass Ford is now liable for the damages." Wow if true.
 
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As always, there's two sides to every story. We've really only heard and seen snippets of both.

The video shows the tech hot rodding around town in the customer's car, which isn't the best place for such activities, but not really all that detrimental to the engine. Like was already said, it never bounced off the rev limiter. That sounded like 4 to 5k RPM- a modern, healthy engine can tolerate that for an almost indefinite amount of time. I cannot speak to the owner's claims of wheel, tire and transmission damage- nor can anyone else because we really don't know what happened (though it's doubtful that the transmission was harmed- maybe the adaptives changed, resulting in different shifting with the owner)

The posters here that are claiming they would demand a new drivetrain or even a whole new car, yeah, good luck with that!!! As has been discussed already in other threads, there is no way any dealer would replace an entire car for a case of hot rodding (or other forms of use abuse and/or damage).

Really what this will likely boil down to is a whiney, picky customer and a careless dealer mech. This car was meant to take a flogging and come back for more. Countless people do that many more things every weekend at race tracks all over the country.
 
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