Big Brother Is Watching Your Fg

[tmac450]

Oh yeah! That's just silly!

You'd be happy with that if you ran a service centre would you?

I certainly wouldn't be worried about being caught for dishonesty. If Ford set some rules, and the dealership sticks to the rules, there shouldn't be a problem.

Like I said, us usual, Ford's fix to their own internal shortcomings is to penalise the customer by providing slower customer service. 90% of their customers don't modify their cars.

[Adam]

You're basing your whole theory on the fact that you think it takes a long time for the approval to be granted.

It maybe reasonably quick or at least less than it would take to get the parts anyway.

I see your point. If you were waiting days for approval then the procedure needs to be looked at. I don't think it takes that long though.

[tmac450]

That said, I don't see the fuss of taking a photo of any part of the car. If the car's under warranty, then Ford has a vested interest in the vehicle. Anyone, anywhere can take a picture of your car. You could go to any place for a service, exhaust, tyres, long term parking, etc and they could take pictures of anything while the car is in their care. Quite a few places are now taking pictures of existing damage on cars so they aren't accused of damaging the car while they had it. It's the digital age, images are easy to take, store and send, why not use it. As long as they don't damage or flog guts out of the car, who cares.

Another angle on the images to Ford thing, if they're getting a lot of a particular fault, most of the time the engineers don't get to see a wide range of cars to see what the cause is. Images from warranty claims may just give them an edge to see if ther are any common rub points, or fitment issues, etc.

Like I said, while I don't have an issue with the principal, it's the execution that has me worried.

[XR6TWolf]

This whole topic seems to have been written with the presumption that photographing a car in areas relevant to a warranty claim is in some way an invasion of consumer rights or an attempt at negating warranty.

Has it been considered that there might well be other uses for photographs? e.g. rather than spend vast amounts of money shipping various failed items back to ford they could instead be destroyed at the dealers end once photographed. Sound unrealistic??? Do the math on shipping every failed warranty item & recall part from every dealer in the country back to the manufacturer!

Of course the part needs to be photographed in place.....otherwise dealers would have scope to claim on the same "failed brembo calliper" 24 times and be having a fieldday. Whilst the majority of dealers are no doubt honest the truth is that Ford have an obligation to comply with codes of pratice in respect to these things. Let's be real, Ford dont absorb the cost of a warranty claim, you can bet it is written off against tax somewhere or underwritten in some other way.

From where I sit the whole issue is a big nothing. If we as individuals choose to modify then beyond reasonable limits we understand that the warranty is void.

Expecting to throw a leg out of bed, flash back to the original tune and remove all the hot bits?....come on now, who is the villian in that equation?

[djkice]

I had an issue, I took my car to a dealer for a bluetooth module being failed/stop working. All they did was pull up the kick panel and saw speaker wire being tapped into for my stereo and denied my claim, assuming they would have probably taken photos of it

I was furious... I highly doubt the speaker output having same gauge wire connected to it to be run back to a digital processor would kill a bluetooth module since it was working fine for 6-8 months with the new stereo.

So took it to another dealer for a second opinion, the said it's not uncommen for the modules to fail due to heat issues. I explained that I went to another dealer and they didnt even look at it also that I had wire running to speaker outputs. They said it should have nothing to do with the bluetooth module as the wiring loom for the bluetooth is seperate and isolated. Replaced the module under warranty.

Since I have this bloody timing cover leak, which I have taken it to them about 8 times for... I am pretty sure they would have some good photos of my engine bay by now with the mods heh. Which is fine I would never try and claim warranty on engine components seeings I am pushing the engine with 50% more boost. But yeah timing cover leak is a known issue, I'd wish they would just fix it dammit.

Edited 10/08/09 04:24 AM by djkice

[bunna]

I am sure that Ford reads the forums just like us

G'day

Expensive Daewoo just got given $200mil handout by the government to stop them going under.

I guess that we should be happy that Ford Oz can still make great cars and are not going bust.

Except now the Aus government has a vested interest in Expensive Daewoo so they can get their money back

But yeah, Ford's whole global strategy revolves around not going for bailouts - it gives us complete control over how we do business. Hopefully for the better!

[djkice]

fix my damn oil leak LOL

[tab]

Have fallen victim to this new regime, had the car at the doctor today and one of the things on the list was fixing the infamous timing cover leak. Dealer waiting on approval from head office, and was either a case of leave the car overnight hoping that approval will come through first thing in the morning - or book it in again later on in the week.

I understand why they have gone down this road, but f*ck me it’s sh*tful. Feel sorry for the dealers jumping through all these friggin hoops.

[tmac450]

As I suspected, it causes unnaceptable delays in repairs. When will Ford understand that they need to start looking after their customers.

[tab]

Don't hold your breath for that.

Given the state of the dealer network it's just another thing that cripples them. Even if you have an excellent dealer (well...the closest thing possible) it still leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.