Starter failed at 18k miles.

[Ricksc]

It’s pretty hard to find a good service department. Luckly mine is pretty good. To be honest their hands are tied. I upgraded my tow mirrors and the dealership was useless. I moved from as built so I was pretty much on my own. Trying to find parts was tricky can’t use vin#. It was a ford upgrade kit but only 3/4 of it and no help from Ford on wiring.

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[My 2ND Ford]

@OP - if you only have 18K miles on it, I would contact Ford. Not sure if all manufacturers have it, but Honda for example offers some kind of a "goodwill" reimbursement in different cases. My daughter's Civic's a/c compressor leaked 2 years after the 3 years warranty but she had way less than 36K miles. It is a known issue with that generation of Civic. We contacted Honda, wrote a nice letter, and they reimbursed her the full repair ($1500).

At one time manufactures did goodwill repairs/ reimbursement , but that has pretty much gone by the wayside. It's a shame that they stopped because a happy customer is a repeat customer. It was very nice of Honda to reimburse you.

 

[My 2ND Ford]

Follow up / conclusion(?).

Labor - 675 (225 shown at top but not listed on invoice)
Parts - 431.70
Tax - 35

Get this one "Tech said he has seen several of these fail at low mileage like this, the Auto Start stop is rough on the starter" asked if they could turn it off "no, sorry", Time to fire up forscan do it myself.

If anyone is wondering, they said 2 year unlimited mileage warranty on the new starter.

That is awful expensive labor. I think the last time I checked the labor rate on my wife's Volvo was $175 hr and my Ford dealer just raised theirs to $125 hr. It looks to me that your service writer is trying to fund his trip to Aruba on your dime.

 

[jhelrey]

Ford ESP!

 

[Allted]

Now that I have the actual bill, I guess it would be a good time to reach out by email and verify those charges. With both Ford and the local shop for a more complete breakdown.
$300/hr is not cool.
I feel like I got charged for the diagnostic twice. Even then it is still $250/hr labor if that is a 1.5hr job.

I honestly feel like I have been scammed by Ford since the first day (the paint issue mentioned earlier). It's heartbreaking to save up to make a purchase like this and have one thing after another for years on end. This is a story I will tell anyone looking for a new vehicle. If I could afford it I would trade it in for another company just because looking at it doesn't make me happy. I know that probably sounds overdramatic but it is the truth. I run a company and our customers are not treated this way.

 

[Allted]

Ford ESP is not available in California. I even checked again this morning. That and I am two months past the 3 year mark.

 

[sbi]

Follow up / conclusion(?).

Labor - 675

This is complete and total bullshit for starter replacement

At one time manufactures did goodwill repairs/ reimbursement , but that has pretty much gone by the wayside. It's a shame that they stopped because a happy customer is a repeat customer. It was very nice of Honda to reimburse you.

This happened last year. Honda still does it.

 

[SALEEN961]

...I feel like I got charged for the diagnostic twice. Even then it is still $250/hr labor if that is a 1.5hr job...

I'm not sure which engine you have, but for a 3.5EB or 2.7EB the labor times I'm seeing after checking the Alldata, Mitchell, and Motor labor guides are 1.3hrs, 1.0hr, and 0.9hrs.

 

[Pedaldude]

If the book time is 1.5 hours, usually an experienced tech can do that in 30-45min. depending on how much other things are in the way.

If the stealership isn’t doing the work under warranty, then take it to another shop. Make sure it’s a reputable place because some independent garages are just as bad as the dealers but a good shop will definitely be able to get it done cheaper and probably better quality work. I had the free Toyotcare oil changes done twice for the 4Runner I drive and when that ran out; I did the first oil change myself and discovered that the last technician tightened the shit out of the first three skid plate bolts, then saw the fourth bolt hole didn’t line up with the threads in the frame and must’ve said ‘F it!’ and tossed the fourth bolt in a pile on his toolbox. I went to the dealer to bitch about it and said that was exactly why I work on my own vehicles, then got a replacement bolt and free air filter for my troubles.

Stop rewarding dealerships for denying warranty work and take your trucks and money to a good independent garage or mechanic. Then they will start to do their jobs. They would probably have rather been paid the pittance that Ford offers for warranty repairs over zero dollars. I never understood why people would pay dealerships to fix their out of warranty cars unless it’s something proprietary and even then some third parties are equipped and better experienced with that kind of work.

 

[CoolCoyote]

@Ford Motor Company another actual problem for you to solve, but you'll instead choose to ignore.

 

[Allted]

For $1100, I didn't even get a free bolt. Or maybe They felt I owed them more and they traded me a bolt for a zip tie. They didn't even trim the tail.

Seems weird I felt the need to crawl under the truck this morning to actually make sure they replaced the starter.

 

[Ricksc]

Ford ESP is not available in California. I even checked again this morning. That and I am two months past the 3 year mark.

https://www.fordstoremorganhill.com...2mcqLiZ_eswJNIcFL4oaAtJvEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

This is a dealer in my area they are selling it. Got mine when it was new.

 

[My 2ND Ford]

For $1100, I didn't even get a free bolt. Or maybe They felt I owed them more and they traded me a bolt for a zip tie. They didn't even trim the tail.

Seems weird I felt the need to crawl under the truck this morning to actually make sure they replaced the starter.

Sorry, I would take it back and ask them what kind of shoddy workmanship they were doing! I would also take a close look at the starter and make sure it is a Ford unit. I wouldn't put it past the dealership to install a cheaper unit from XYZ auto parts. I was in the auto parts business for over 40 years and I know the shenanigans that goes on, both at the dealer level and independent garages.

 

[Pedaldude]

For $1100, I didn't even get a free bolt. Or maybe They felt I owed them more and they traded me a bolt for a zip tie.

I don’t know what goes there but if I had to guess, it’s not a bolt but one of those push pin fasteners that break 50% of the time. Replacing one with a zip tie is totally amateur hour work and it’s pretty much par for the course with dealership mechanics. I keep a box of spares for whenever I’m working on any modern vehicle, which is pretty much loaded with the things.

Dealership technicians are basically incentivized to rush jobs as fast as they can because most dealers charge what’s called ‘flat-rate’ or ‘book-rate’ which is the manufacturer’s standard rate of time that various repair and maintenance jobs require and it’s usually pretty generous for time if you live in parts of the country where rust and corrosion aren’t problems. There’s also times where the service writers will pull the scumbag move of stacking up various other things in the book that aren’t even remotely required that the technician would skip. For example ages ago, I replaced a headlight on an Acura Legend and the factory manual wants you to remove the bumper cover which takes like an hour and a half in the book but you can just shim the bumper and take a couple long socket extensions to access the problem bolt. Then there’s times where you bring in a car for one job and then the service writer will say that you should do the other jobs because you might as well but then they stack up all the other stuff into the bill, like removing a part for access three times, even though the technician only did it once. Anyway, when I didn’t have time to work on my own vehicles, I always asked if a shop charged book rate and if they did; I never went there because they are pretty much guaranteed to nickel and dime you, if not flat out just rip you off and also perform shoddy rushed work.

 

[Snakebitten]

Actually the felt "diaper" is bolted to the vehicle from the factory.

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