Car will not start

[kinshi]

UPDATE:

Just renewed my loaner for the THIRD time now (3rd 28-day loaner period), I find out that Ford is making the dealer jump through all sorts of hoops, despite the fact the tech knows its the TCM, so they made them swap out a wire harness, that failed, then Ford made them swap out the PCM, they did, and that failed to fix it as well, so now its been a week and a half since that result was recorded and Ford cannot be bothered to review the dealer findings and call them back (still waiting on Ford to review the latest round of findings and approve the TCM replacement, and of course all the time it will take to ship all that, install, and test...and that is of course contingent on the parts availibility, as I have a hard time imagining Ford has a lot of spares lying around for such small vehicle production runs.)

The service manager is now engaging the Ford regional service manager to see if they can prod Ford into responding.

I am amazed at how unresponsive Ford is being, now I have the dealer whining a bit about how this warranty service is now costing them money too. (Ford made them eat the cost of the PCM since that is not under the factory 8 year/100k miles warranty for the "hybrid" parts, so the dealer had to pick that up under their own power train warranty. (despite the fact the tech knew the PCM was not going to fix the problem, but Ford forced it on them anyway in order to proceed with their warranty parts approvals)

I am thinking if I get the car back by Fall it will be a miracle. In the meantime, I keep racking up massive miles on the loaners they keep putting me in.

The upside is at least I am still driving a Ford Focus (the loaner), so I can sorta pretend I am driving my actual car and the MPG is decent (in a 2018 Focus gas now, last loaner was a 2017 Focus)...but man, the gas versions are gutless going up hills compared to the EV

[carbuff]

So, Im back after my account mysteriously being deleted. Yikes, must be the russian (ford) hackers at it again. My car is still at the dealer. After finally installing a new harness and not breaking the retaining tabs, (3rd times the charm), They are trying to justify replacing the battery. Dearborn sent the engineer with a special machine to hook up to the car to monitor the battery or something. They are in the process of driving it around to try and get a red ssn triangle. The yellow wrench light is on constantly (the same hybrid battery isolation circuit fault) But ford actually gave them permission to order the battery if they could get it to ssn. I would be surprized if it did, as it only ever did it when I went to start it, not while I was actually driving. I think though that ignoring the yellow wrench for a long time might trigger the ssn. There is also the chance that ford might ok the battery after reviewing all the info that the machine gathers from the car. I hope to find out more this week.

[carbuff]

UPDATE:

Just renewed my loaner for the THIRD time now (3rd 28-day loaner period), I find out that Ford is making the dealer jump through all sorts of hoops, despite the fact the tech knows its the TCM, so they made them swap out a wire harness, that failed, then Ford made them swap out the PCM, they did, and that failed to fix it as well, so now its been a week and a half since that result was recorded and Ford cannot be bothered to review the dealer findings and call them back (still waiting on Ford to review the latest round of findings and approve the TCM replacement, and of course all the time it will take to ship all that, install, and test...and that is of course contingent on the parts availibility, as I have a hard time imagining Ford has a lot of spares lying around for such small vehicle production runs.)

The service manager is now engaging the Ford regional service manager to see if they can prod Ford into responding.

I am amazed at how unresponsive Ford is being, now I have the dealer whining a bit about how this warranty service is now costing them money too. (Ford made them eat the cost of the PCM since that is not under the factory 8 year/100k miles warranty for the "hybrid" parts, so the dealer had to pick that up under their own power train warranty. (despite the fact the tech knew the PCM was not going to fix the problem, but Ford forced it on them anyway in order to proceed with their warranty parts approvals)

I am thinking if I get the car back by Fall it will be a miracle. In the meantime, I keep racking up massive miles on the loaners they keep putting me in.

The upside is at least I am still driving a Ford Focus (the loaner), so I can sorta pretend I am driving my actual car and the MPG is decent (in a 2018 Focus gas now, last loaner was a 2017 Focus)...but man, the gas versions are gutless going up hills compared to the EV

So,any progress on this? When they replaced my tcm, I was shocked at how fast it got to the dealer, just a few days. It was the month to install it that was the problem. And of course it ended up not being the problem but a $15k wild goose chase. They should have taken that money and bought me an off-lease 2017.

[carbuff]

So, it looks a though the special machine sent from Dearborn to diagnose my problem is turning out to be another willd goose chase. Shocking!!! My car will give them the wrench light indicating the fault every time they drive it but ford wants to see an ssn before they will replace the battery. So, its obvious that the car is broken and they cant return it to me but they cant fix it or wont fix it either. Hmm, what a conundrum. They need to buy it back, what a great idea. Maybe Ill mention that to them again. For the millionth time. LOL. No, but Ford really does suck.

[carbuff]

So, yesterday I spoke to the president of Sayville Ford, aka the Ford Giant, one of the largest volume Ford dealers in NY. She told me that I needed to get a lawyer and that Ford was not going to do anything for me. Imagine that, The president of one of the largest dealers in NY has no faith in the company she represents. What a sad state of affairs it is over at Ford when their own dealerships, representatives of their company, have no faith in them. Pathetic.

[tinilk]

Did *she* say the word "lawyer" with no prompting (or screaming fit) from you? If so that's kind of unbelievable.

Before this whole fiasco, I naively thought "under warranty" was sort of like insurance, meaning they'll fix your car back to its original condition reasonably quickly, at no cost to you. But in practice it means that Ford Corporate drags things out as long as they can and micromanages the dealership's every move by dictating exactly what will or won't be reimbursed. The strategy seems to be to keep this up until your car is no longer "under warranty" and then you're welcome to spend as much money as you like, having the dealership try replacing this $3500 part or replacing that $5000 part.

[virulent]

It makes me sad there are cases like yours that leave a dead FFE at the dealer for months and months.

My 2017 FFE died the first day I picked it up with 430 km on the odo. Week 1, the dealer was able to diagnose dead motor. New motor in shipment from Ford. Week 2, received new motor from Ford and swapped it. Car has been error-free since then. The report I received afterwards was shocking because of the amount of errors the car was throwing and that the dealer was able to so quickly triage the issue and obtain a replacement motor. Then I see the amount of crap people go through on here and the FB groups and understand I had a pretty unique experience with Ford

I hope they finally just replace the battery for you.. It seems like all of the "waited months" issues end up with a new 33.5 kWh battery at the end of it all, which might be a plus..

[carbuff]

Did *she* say the word "lawyer" with no prompting (or screaming fit) from you? If so that's kind of unbelievable.

Before this whole fiasco, I naively thought "under warranty" was sort of like insurance, meaning they'll fix your car back to its original condition reasonably quickly, at no cost to you. But in practice it means that Ford Corporate drags things out as long as they can and micromanages the dealership's every move by dictating exactly what will or won't be reimbursed. The strategy seems to be to keep this up until your car is no longer "under warranty" and then you're welcome to spend as much money as you like, having the dealership try replacing this $3500 part or replacing that $5000 part.

Yes, she did. She knows the deal I guess. But stay tuned, there appears to be a deal in the works. No thanks to Ford btw, all through the good graces of the Dealership. I will update this soon. And yes your assessment of the warranty situation with these cars is correct. It wont nickel and dime you after warranty. It will plain bankrupt you in one shot. LOL.

[triangles]

Carbuff IANAL but it sure sounds like you have a water tight case for breach of warranty. If successful I would think that means you get lawyer fees from ford, plus punitive damages then you can take all that money and put it toward a Tesla Model 3. Be finally done with Ford.