It Has Been a While

[Ford Doctor]

Hey everyone! My name is Erik and I live in Washington state. It has been many years since I was an active member on TRS, but it's nice to see things still are very familiar.

I spent ten years as a Ford technician, but left several years ago when customer pay repairs were drying up and warranty times were plummeting. I now work in the food industry, maintaining ice cream manufacturing equipment at a plant in Bellevue.

Looking forward to being a part of all things Ranger once again...

 

[adsm08]

I spent ten years as a Ford technician, but left several years ago when customer pay repairs were drying up and warranty times were plummeting.

If that's why you left don't make any plans to come back right now. It hasn't improved at all in the last 6 years.

To make it even more fun Ford has made the brake pads harder so they are lasting 50 or 60,000 miles and then started complaining that the dealerships aren't selling enough brake jobs.

 

[Ford Doctor]

I definitely miss working at the dealership, but I don't miss having to lie, cheat and steal to make a living doing it. I still have quite of few friends working in the industry that are more than happy to set me straight when I get delusional and start thinking about moving my toolbox somewhere other than my home garage.

 

[adsm08]

I definitely miss working at the dealership, but I don't miss having to lie, cheat and steal to make a living doing it. I still have quite of few friends working in the industry that are more than happy to set me straight when I get delusional and start thinking about moving my toolbox somewhere other than my home garage.

Yeah, I don't really understand the service desk's need to lie to people when we get in a jam. It seems to me that the stories they concoct to "smooth things over" usually sound worse than what really happened. But in our case the problem usually exists because either the parts guys ordered the wrong thing, or the box Ford sent us is right but the stuff in it isn't.

As far as getting thought about moving stuff back to a dealer shop, I have taken one nice tool box home and have another one that I am going to be moving out as soon as I meet my own personal career goals.

I know what you mean about liking the work though. I love what I do, I really love the access I have to things, but I am sick of the customers. It's even worse where I work right now because our owners are out to be the biggest in the state and that just paints a target on our backs. Once I hit the 5 year mark at my current place I am going to start looking for my out.

 

[ab_slack]

Yeah, I don't really understand the service desk's need to lie to people when we get in a jam. It seems to me that the stories they concoct to "smooth things over" usually sound worse than what really happened.

Being on the receiving end of a number of stories to cover something as simple as "we haven't gotten to it yet" I end up walking away thinking "huh? that didn't make sense" but asking questions just make it make even less sense. I am no expert, but adding 2 and 2 is pretty easy.

Used to have what I thought was a good Ford dealer out this way. I trusted their service department to get things right if not cheap. On one particularly sticky problem the technician invited me into the bay (I am sure against rules) and discussed intelligently what may or may not be.

Unfortunately they went out of business leaving the dealer 15 miles down the road where the service department seemed unable to get things right. One time I had a vibration that only occurred when I locked the front hubs (but still in 2WD). They claimed tit was bad rotors, replaced them, but problem was unchanged. So they tell me it was the rear drive shaft. I said, why doesn't it vibrate then when hubs are unlocked? I asked if maybe one of the hubs was staying unlocked when I switched it to the lock position. They insisted that the rear drive shaft was it. Eventually they cut me a break and reduced it from $1200 for the drive shaft replacement to something like $950 and I agreed and said as long as it solves the problem. Got it back, problem was resolved, BUT I noticed the right hand hub had been replaced. Come to think of it I didn't look to see if it had a nice new looking rear shaft on it. I ended up paying $950 so if they only replaced the locking hub they probably made out like a bandit.

Anyways I appreciate the help experienced folks like you who contribute here. I have learned lots and realize more than ever how easily I got duped in some past experiences with shops.