I bought a Ford Escort from our local dealer in Worcester just over 12 months ago. It's a fairly new car and it passed it's mot when we bought it with no problems whatsoever. Well, when the mot expired I took it back there as we were happy with the purchase of the car and wanted to continue using Ford for services and mot's.
They rang me at work with the news that it had failed on a number of things and said that it would take about £250 to put it right. I was furious and went straight down there for an explaination. The work that neeeded to be done, was replace the fuel cap, a hole in the exhaust and omissions! I couldn't believe that these 3 things totalled over £250! I took the car away in disgust and said that I would get the work done myself elsewhere and return for the retest. I ordered a new petrol cap from them, and it only cost me £11.00, and I fitted it myself, as we all do when we put petrol in our cars anyway! The ford dealer wanted to charge me £25 for the petrol cap and, here it is, another £20 to fit it!! I had a new end of exhaust fitted which came to £60, again ford had quoted £125, and when I checked the failure sheet, it had not actually failed on the omissions at all. I really ejoyed taking the car back and when it passed the mot, I told them that I had saved myself over £150 by walking down to the other end of the showroom and ordering the petrol cap myself and I had the exhaust fitted for half the price. All they could say was that they thought that the mechanic had estimated the wrong parts, yeh and someone not so bothered about money might have just paid it, trusting what they said!!!
Can you believe that when I got home after this little fiasco, they had put the wrong registration number on the mot, they wished that they had never been to work that day I can tell you!
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I can really understand how you must have felt that day since I had to go through soo much for my ford probe. Some Ford garages really believe that they are dealing with people that would pay anything as long as the job gets done!!!
ANNJSEC 20.01.2001 17:35
We had similar problems with our Ford Escort. I would never touch a Ford repair workshop again. I have since heard all sorts of stories, mainly that they make up or actually cause problems in order to earn a higher bonus.
I would advise anyone to leave them well alone. Thank you for your opinion. Annj.
postmanpat 15.01.2001 14:05
yeah i reckon they wanted to rip you off mind you its not only ford most of the franchised dealers rip you off.
Jan 15th, 2001
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