Ford Customer Service by Middlekauff Ford Inc.

Below is an email sent to me. I thought it was worth posting to the public.

So I’m driving down 114 on my way home from the house when suddenly,
the back of the driver seat collapses. I fall back several inches,
enough to jerk the wheel violently to the side and almost roll the
Explorer while driving highway speeds. Now I’m thinking, “What the
hell just happened?!”

After I regain control of the vehicle, I slow down and pull over to
the side of the road. I reach around the seat to find that the back
support of the seat seems to have broken. Now I’m not a heavy guy and
I would like to think I wasn’t putting any undue pressure on the seat
back. As once could imagine, I’m pretty upset right now. I make a
few calls, one of them to the cell phone of the salesman, Craig
Mancin, who sold me the vehicle from Middlekauff Ford in Plano, TX.
He understands that I am not satisfied and tells me to bring it in,
however, I find out when I get to the dealership, that he no longer
works there. That certainly would have been nice to know.

I pull into the service bay and wait for a few minutes, slowly turning
the radio up until someone comes to ask if I need assistance. This is
my 3rd trip to the Middlekauff service department and it appears that
someone forgot to mention in training that they should greet there
customers upon arrival.

A nice, but somewhat useless, service advisor approaches to ask how I
was doing. I say I am fine, holding back my real feelings. I take
this chance to explain a couple other problems I’ve been having with
the vehicle first. A strange rhythmic thumping from somewhere in the
dash while the vehicle is on and a painful squeak that occasionally
occurs while driving slowly. After spending 15 minutes explaining
what a thump and squeak are, sigh, I move on to the big problem. The
problem with the driver seat failing while under almost no pressure.
It really makes me wonder how it will hold up in an accident. I’ll be
sure to let you all know what Ford says, since I am in fact forwarding
this to every Ford email address I can find.

At this point there is a look of confusion on the service advisors
face. He can see that I am clearly not ‘fine’ and that I’m about to
be very demanding about resolving these issues. He acknowledges that
this is my second visit for the wheel squeak problem. I insist that
it is clearly documented that this is visit number two for the exact
same problem to avoid future problems should this take more than three
visits (Texas Lemon Law).

He informs me of the courtesy van if I need a ride home. This was
fine the first time I brought the vehicle in, however, given the
current situation on top of the fact that I am here also for an
unresolved problem, I tell him that the courtesy van won’t be much
help today. I request a loaner or a paid rental. I am told that Ford
does not offer this. I am confused as a look across the service bay
into the Hertz Rental office that is actually built into the Ford
service bay. In fact the door is probably 50 feet from where I’m
standing.

I tell him that we will need to reach a solution before I leave the
dealership. He makes a few calls to, as communicated to me is, the
Service Manager (Derrick) and the Store Manager/Owner (Mark). After
standing around for about 20 or 30 minutes, the Service Manager comes
to speak to me. I explain everything I explained to the first
advisor…again. This time I turn on the car so he can hear one of
the problems.

Everything is written up on my ticket and the Service Manager also
takes a minute to explain the policy on loaner and rental cars. For
all of you at Ford that are reading this…MAKE IT CLEAR TO YOUR
CUSTOMERS THAT THEY DO NOT EVER GET ANY RENTAL OR LOANER FROM FORD. I
was sorely misled by my Salesman and Finance Manager. It is less than
encouraging to see how well Ford and their dealerships stand behind
their products. More on this later.

After some discussion, the Service Manager explains that he
understands my position and he is going to do what he can to help me.
He offers my a 24 hour rental on a basic economy car from the Hertz
located in the service bay, nothing more. I appreciate his effort so
far even though it has already been the most painful car service
experience in my life (which says a lot since this is car 13). I
understand there are probably people that come down pretty hard on him
for being too helpful to customers. Anyway, I’m not there to argue
corporate policy or fix problems that are causing them to go bankrupt,
I simply want my car fixed and a way to get things done while it’s
being repaired for their defective product. Simple enough, you’d
think.

I request to speak to the store manager, who comes to speak to me
after I wait around for a few more minutes. As a side note, you can
definitely see a difference in the way different dealerships treat
customers. Ford makes you feel like an inconvenience, while Lexus
makes you feel valued. That’s funny when you consider that the Ford
cost more than the Lexus. Anyway, the store manager, I forget his
name, comes to speak to me and says the same thing I was already told.
Only, at this point he is telling me that they don’t offer any sort
of rental when I’ve already been offered one. Shady? Slightly. He
goes on to quote all the corporate policy without really addressing
the problems I am there for. Once it’s clear that he has no intention
of helping me or even that he cares about the problem for that matter,
I push him a little harder. I ask, why would you risk someone bad
mouthing your company, your dealership and your product over a $30.00
rental. A rental that is needed not because of abuse or scheduled
maintenance, but because of a factory flaw that almost became deadly?

He immediately jumps on the defensive and announces that he does not
like to be threatened. It is immediately clear that he has no further
interest in this conversation. I explain that it is not a threat, but
simply a question I would like answered from his point of view. He
recites the same things he told me previously about corporate policy.

I ask the Store Manager for a fair compromise. I suggest that they
put the items into the computer and they simply give me the rental for
the estimated time that the tech is assigned to do the work. He lies
and tells me they don’t have set times allocated for service tasks. I
explain that he doesn’t have to lie to me because I already know. He
backtracks and explains that they don’t know what work will need to be
done on the car. I pause for a second and just look at him. I say,
that is fair, but I am going to propose this. Give me the rental car
for 24 hours. Find out what is causing all the problems and determine
if any parts need to be ordered. If parts are required, I will bring
the rental back and drive my Explorer, broken with my safety at risk
until the parts arrive. At that time I will bring the Explorer back
to complete the service. Both the Service Manager and the Store
Manager agree to this, although its essentially nothing different then
what I was already offered.

I’m not satisfied at all at this point, but I’m tired and I need to
get some work done.

The service manager walks to his office and returns with a rental
coupon. A RENTAL COUPON. They actually have these pre-printed and a
stack of them available for use! After all that arguing, it was all
lies. I am interested in the response from Ford. Not only that, it h
as spaces to fill out how long the rental is for and the amount. I
was just lied to in the face by two Middlekauff Ford employees. Then
I walk 50 feet over to the built-in Hertz office and hand the guy the
coupon. I ask what its good for and he tells me it’s a Focus. I ask
if there are any other discounts if I upgrade and he tells me that THE
DEALERSHIP AND HERTZ HAVE A DEAL FOR THESE CUSTOMER RENTALS. He
actually explains to me that they have a negotiated price for offering
free rentals to customers. I am stunned. I look forward to an
explanation from the owner of Middlekauf, although I don’t really
expect to receive one.

The kicker is that even after I signed for the car, I had to walk
around the car with the rental guy looking for scratches and signing
off on each one. Never once have I had to do that when renting a car.
It was absolutely ridiclous. I seriously questioned what I was
getting into and almost handed the keys back.

So needless to say, I am quite exhausted after this quality Ford
experience. I have learned a lot. Never will I buy another Ford
product, sadly that includes the beloved Range Rover. Pending results
of this service experience, I will discourage anyone from buying
anything from Middlekauf Ford. By the way, it should be noted that
John did try to warn me. I used to make fun of him saying that
Middlekauff Ford can’t possibly be that bad. I stand corrected. I
believe 100% that it’s worth it to take the depreciation hit and get
out of it now.

Unfortunately for me, it’s too late and I’ve already been screwed.
But I’m definitely in a position to make a difference and educate many
potential customers, and I will do everything in my power to do so.

For those of you looking for a Ford dealership with outstanding customer service.. Middlekauff Ford Inc. is the place NOT to go: Middekauff Ford Inc.