After months of research of both the FFE and the Leaf, I purchased a 2013 from FFE off the showroom floor of my local dealer on Thursday, October 25th at around 8:00 PM. I drove it home and spent from 9:30 PM till midnight playing with the settings in Sync and otherwise moving into the car. I already have a Schneider EVSE, so I charged it overnight and woke up Friday morning ready for my first drive into the office. As you can imagine, I was happy and ready to show off the car to the people in the office.
I made it about 15 miles into my 22 mile one way commute to the office, when the "Stop Safely Now" message appeared on the dash. When it says this, it is not a choice... You will be stopping, safely or not, because the accelerator no longer functions when pressed. Luckily I was in a residential area on a lightly traveled road and made it onto the shoulder. I remembered reading some posts about getting this message and people just needing to "reboot" the car and they were fine. I did so, now frustrated that I've got to drive to the dealer to see what is going on. About another half mile later, this time on a busy 40 Mph road with no shoulder, it happened again! I was in a bad spot and now powering down and back up didn't seem to help. Finally after letting it sit for a moment, there was a break in the traffic and it let me start rolling enough to get off to a safer place to be before the "Stop Safely Now" message appeared again. It is now 7:20 AM, less than 12 hours since inking the deal, and I'm already calling roadside assistance to have the car towed to the dealer I purchased from. I am not a happy camper.
At noon, tired of waiting to hear from the dealer, I called and was told that because the car sat on the showroom floor, with people going in and out of it so much, that the 12v accessory battery was dead. They were sure that is what caused the issue, but they are also not able to get the car to pass some performance tests. At this point, they are waiting to hear from Ford as to what to do next. Ford never got back to them by the end of the day, so I get to keep the 19 MPG Ford Taurus loaner boat over the weekend!
I left them alone today (Monday) until I could no longer stand not hearing from them at 3:00 PM. I called them, and they claim that they ran some more tests and sent the reports to Ford and have been waiting since 2:00 PM for Ford to get back to them. Now it is Monday evening, and I still have the Taurus. So far owning a FFE isn't what I was hoping.
To add insult to injury, there is other bad news. When I negotiated the deal, I got the dealer to agree to install the HomeLink visor that was available on the 2012 FFE. When I negotiated the deal, the service department was closed, so they said that they would get back to me, as all I needed to pay for was the dealer cost of the visor itself. On Friday, they could not find the part number for the visor, so I, the customer, gave the Ford dealer the part number from about 2 minutes of internet research time (thanks Charged Up). Today when I called them for the status of my car, they are balking on the install of the visor. Apparently the only thing they do hear back from Ford is that the HomeLink visor is not officially approved on the 2013 FFE. They went so far as to say that the power or cabling is available in the area needed, but would not say it is supported. So now the dealer is hinting at that installing the HomeLink visor would void the warranty on the electrical system if they can't get Ford to approve the installation. They are still looking into it though... gee, what do you think their answer will be in the end?
Anyway. Just thought I would share my experience. I hope everyone else that decides to pull the trigger on a FFE has a better experience that I have had thus far.
Tahlpaul
I made it about 15 miles into my 22 mile one way commute to the office, when the "Stop Safely Now" message appeared on the dash. When it says this, it is not a choice... You will be stopping, safely or not, because the accelerator no longer functions when pressed. Luckily I was in a residential area on a lightly traveled road and made it onto the shoulder. I remembered reading some posts about getting this message and people just needing to "reboot" the car and they were fine. I did so, now frustrated that I've got to drive to the dealer to see what is going on. About another half mile later, this time on a busy 40 Mph road with no shoulder, it happened again! I was in a bad spot and now powering down and back up didn't seem to help. Finally after letting it sit for a moment, there was a break in the traffic and it let me start rolling enough to get off to a safer place to be before the "Stop Safely Now" message appeared again. It is now 7:20 AM, less than 12 hours since inking the deal, and I'm already calling roadside assistance to have the car towed to the dealer I purchased from. I am not a happy camper.
At noon, tired of waiting to hear from the dealer, I called and was told that because the car sat on the showroom floor, with people going in and out of it so much, that the 12v accessory battery was dead. They were sure that is what caused the issue, but they are also not able to get the car to pass some performance tests. At this point, they are waiting to hear from Ford as to what to do next. Ford never got back to them by the end of the day, so I get to keep the 19 MPG Ford Taurus loaner boat over the weekend!
I left them alone today (Monday) until I could no longer stand not hearing from them at 3:00 PM. I called them, and they claim that they ran some more tests and sent the reports to Ford and have been waiting since 2:00 PM for Ford to get back to them. Now it is Monday evening, and I still have the Taurus. So far owning a FFE isn't what I was hoping.
To add insult to injury, there is other bad news. When I negotiated the deal, I got the dealer to agree to install the HomeLink visor that was available on the 2012 FFE. When I negotiated the deal, the service department was closed, so they said that they would get back to me, as all I needed to pay for was the dealer cost of the visor itself. On Friday, they could not find the part number for the visor, so I, the customer, gave the Ford dealer the part number from about 2 minutes of internet research time (thanks Charged Up). Today when I called them for the status of my car, they are balking on the install of the visor. Apparently the only thing they do hear back from Ford is that the HomeLink visor is not officially approved on the 2013 FFE. They went so far as to say that the power or cabling is available in the area needed, but would not say it is supported. So now the dealer is hinting at that installing the HomeLink visor would void the warranty on the electrical system if they can't get Ford to approve the installation. They are still looking into it though... gee, what do you think their answer will be in the end?
Anyway. Just thought I would share my experience. I hope everyone else that decides to pull the trigger on a FFE has a better experience that I have had thus far.
Tahlpaul