Another Wonderful Dealership Experience

[gatzdon]

This past Saturday, my wife took the explorer in for the usual oil change, tire rotation, and inspection. After the vehicle inspection, they explain that the front brakes are dangerous and need to be replaced. The also tell her that the battery is shot and needs to be replaced, showing her a test receipt printout that indicates the battery has failed with only 544 cold cranking amps. She declines all service at the time.

Well, looking at the inspection report, both front brakes are listed at 4mm. Not exactly dangerous. Thanks to our beautiful, wide open rims, I visually look at the brakes myself and they are clearly more than 4 mm (at least mm as defined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures). Odd that they are considered 'dangerous' since Motorcraft's Brake Pad Free Replacement Warranty won't replace them until they are less than 3 mm.

The battery is a Motorcraft and only 15 months old, well within the 36 month free replacement period. Sweet.

Take the Explorer to the dealership on Monday. Show them the inspection report. They wisp the explorer off to their quick change bay. Service writer is already telling me wonderful stories about how great Motorcraft Batteries are along with their fabulous warranty.

Service writer then proceeds to give me a printout to authorize a $120 battery.

Ummm. You just told me that the battery has 36 months free replacement when it fails. I remind him that they just put that battery in there only 15 months prior. It felt like I hit him in the face with a dead fish.

Service writer proceeds to warn me that they need to put the battery on their "Warranty Tester" and this will take 45 minutes. I told him I will wait (I think I was supposed to pay $120 to avoid waiting).

10 minutes later, Service Writer approaches me to tell me without shame that my Lazarus battery has miraculously recovered and passed their "Warranty Test" with 776 cold cranking amps.

Thank God for miracles they say.

 

[613GT500]

While I wasn't bombarded with upsells (aka recommnedations) for repair or replacments as my EX is only a year old, I paid extra labor (battery load test, fluid checks etc..) during an oil change; only to have the tech filmed on my dashcam doing nothing buy an oil change.

 

[reserved50]

dealer sounds fishy, sometimes the inner pads wear quicker, I would remove the rims and calipers to confirm, but 4mm isn't horrible.

 

[jade97]

When my mother (and late stepfather) had their 2004 Explorer at their dealer for inspection one year, they failed it because the rear brake pads and rear emergency brake shoes were bad. My stepfather, just said thank you, took the car somewhere else and it passed without issue. He bought the parts and when I went to install them, the pads were only 3/32" less than the new ones, the factory clips were still in place when I removed the rotor to access the emergency brake shoes, which had virtually the same amount of material on them as the new ones had......