Interceptor,
Sorry to hear your whole ordeal with the dealer. It blows my mind that these dealers don't care about other peoples $50k+ vehicles.
My father taught me how to work on my car when I was young, so I've been doing my own mechanic work ever since I had a car to drive and change oil. It's sad that, using a vehicle lift, I can drop an engine out of a mustang, then insert the repaired motor assembly back in without scratching anything, but these "professionals" can't perform a fuel delivery module swap without messing something up.
I had a Ford service manual when I had my 2003 Cobra and there are very few words. The manual is mostly fairly detailed pictures with arrows and torque values with a caption underneath. The Ford service manual that these service technicians have at their disposal can walk a child through the process to remove a cylinder head, but yet they still can't get it right. This has happened to me on nearly every car I've had that had a factory warranty.
I had my 2009 gt500 in the shop that they diagnosed with a faulty battery, which I had already told them what was wrong. When the Ford "professional grade" service used their jump box, I think they threw it at my engine bay from about 3 feet away. They put BIG scratches on my factory painted valve cover, the shock tower, and my fuse box cover. When I use a jump box, I put down 1-2 layers of clean microfiber towels before gently placing the jump box in the engine bay. I'm shocked at the poor level of care and concern that these technicians have when handling something that I care and pay so much for.
Then when I had my 03 Cobra, Ford changed both half shafts under warranty. Keep in mind this model Cobra had the IRS, so when the tech put everything back together he forgot to put the lower control arm nut on the only bolt that holds the knuckle on. Yes, the biggest nut on the IRS, and the only thing keeping me alive at 160 MPH, was not there. I checked the other side, and this nut is a crimped locking nut, not one of those neoprene ringed nuts. If the tech would have screwed it on only a few turns there was no way that it could back off. Oh, I forgot to mention that I drove the car for about 5000 miles like this and noticed a clunk when jamming my brakes on at 100+ mph. So I put it on my lift and to my surprise they left the nut off. What is really scary, is when I lifted up on the back wheel and pushed on the bolt, it fell out on the shop floor. If that would have happened when I was going 160, I would be dead. When I told the service manager about this incident his reply to me was, I do the best I can with what I've got, and if I fire them, I have to re-train new idiots.
With my recent ordeal, I immediately knew the my recall was going down hill when I saw that the passenger side of the back seat wasn't latched down. When I lifted the seat, I discovered that the black clip was twisted more than 180 degrees and had been unsnapped from the white plastic bracket due to excessive twisting. Since they went in through the back seat, you need to make sure your seat is latched down because mine was not, and the tech didn't care enough to snap a simple black clip back in the bracket to hold the seat in place. I'm sorry for my rant and run on sentences here, but this is a touchy issue for me and something needs to be done about it. Our Ford cars are great machines just as long as the service technicians don't get ahold of it a tear something up. This is something that happens to nearly everyone I know, even at multiple dealers in various zip codes.
Ok, I'm done. Anyone else care to chime in on their horrific service experiences?
