Lemon Law/ Buy Back

[FreightTrain]

Has anyone ever had a car dealership or manufactor buy their car back. We are having issues with my wifes 2010 Fusion and I'm not sure if I'm dealing with a crappy dealership or crapy Ford Engineering. Our main issues are a crappy radio and a transmission that shifts like it has a shift kit installed. It's been in the shop 5 times for each issue and it's never been fixed. I've got Ford involved because I'm tired of being lied to by a dealership that I have a 10 year relationship with.

The radio receptions is horrible and they've put 4 radios in the car but refuse to replace the antenna or look into a any kind of short. When you drop the car off everyone on the service drive has tons of ideas and agrees that the car has issues but 3 days later they call me to pick up the car but have made no attempts to fix it. The claim they can't seem to duplicate the problems or claim they dont hear or feel the issues with the car. These are the same people that rode with me in the car 3 days earlier and all agreed the car has issues. This has gone on like clock work the 5 times the car has been in the shop.

Ford claims they are now working on the issue and will attempt to fix the problems. They claim they might not be able to help the tranny issue but will issue us 100k mile free powertrain warranty. I've been asked by the dealership to trade the car in and have a meeting with the owner about the issues. I refuse to lose money on the deal since it's 10 months old. We didn't role any negative equity into the deal and we put 2k down. So does anyone have experience in this situation. If you've been threw something like this post up how it went down for you.

[EW]

Good luck with the radio reception if the car does not have a 31" mast on it. Many antennas are amplified now so there could be a few possibilities as to which part is bad but if the antenna is a roof mount euro or in-the-glass antenna you'll probably still have issues.

[FreightTrain]

The problem with the radio is that it goes from crystal clear to a muffled crappy sound every 10 to 15 seconds. It's very noticable and drives you nuts. The dealer claims that they called ford and ford claims that the radio is constantly searching for a better signal and thats why it's doing it. The only problem is Ford claims the dealer has never asked for help on the issue and Ford didn't say this. My sister bought a fusion 2 weeks after my wife got hers and her car doesn't have any issues. We've driven new cars on the lot and they don't do it either.

[SMKR]

sounds like something is loose.

[jdgregory84]

Goddammit. I hate those trannys. Usually don't hear too many complaints about them in the fusions, but in the escapes they cause all kinds of trouble. Let me guess, the symptom of the tranny is if you slow down then re-accel, you can feel a bump, or if you come to an abrupt stop, you can feel a bump? Got a lot of those after the 09B10 recall went out for the TCM reflash. I don't know if they did that before, and people didn't notice it until they heard there was a recall on the trans or if it really didn't happen until the reflash. I had a customers escape in there half a dozen times for the same thing. I was able to duplicate it with her, and sometimes it was worse than others, usually with her driving it was really bad, because she was either pedal to the metal, or slamming on the brake. I don't know if Ford has found a fix for it, but when I was writing service, it wasn't looking good. We had Ford reps out and everything for that escape and when hooked up to the computer while on test drives, it wasn't reading anything abnormal, just an odd characteristic of that trans.

As far as the radio goes, I never had one come in for a bad reception. Sounds like a loose antenna connection. What dealer are you taking it to? I still know a couple of service advisors that'll do you right and will make sure you're taken care of.

[FreightTrain]

Poopnut thats exactly what the tranny is doing. The dealer acts like theyve never seen this problem before. Theyve flashed the tranny once but it didnt help.

[saleen449]

Can I help?

[jdgregory84]

Poopnut thats exactly what the tranny is doing. The dealer acts like theyve never seen this problem before. Theyve flashed the tranny once but it didnt help.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but yeah, even with Ford engineers looking at it, they said it's just a characteristic of the transmission. Trust me, my customer wasn't happy about that. As far as the radio goes, I agree with everybody that one of the connections from the antenna to the radio is loose. If you'd like I can give you a couple of names to advisors at Five Star in NRH that should be able to help you get the reception problem fixed.

Service advisors are told to treat each car individually and not to "acknowledge" that there is a common problem. Trust me, I ended up in my managers office a few times b/c he overheard me tell customers what I thought problems might be from similar experiences.

[EW]

Service advisors are told to treat each car individually and not to "acknowledge" that there is a common problem.

Awesome! We have customers with KNOWN issues on cars have the dealership tell them they've never heard of it before. Losers.

[sc281]

Service advisors are told to treat each car individually and not to "acknowledge" that there is a common problem. Trust me, I ended up in my managers office a few times b/c he overheard me tell customers what I thought problems might be from similar experiences.

That's fucked up.

[ceyko]

This is why I found a good local shop and went that route or doing it myself and quit using dealership service shops.

[FreightTrain]

I appreciate the help Skip and Poopnut, but unfortunately I live about 20 miles north of San Antonio so I'm stuck using the dealership down here.

[DFWtechie]

I lemoned 2 Dodge trucks in row, it was big pain in the ass and what got them really going on the 2nd lemon was the www.dodgesucks.com on the tailgate. Keep taking in to the dealer and send a certified letter to the manufacturer, the letter can be downloaded off DOT's site.

[jdgregory84]

That's fucked up.

There are reasons for it. Good ones, actually.

[FreightTrain]

I told the Dealership and Ford that I'm not accepting the car nor returning the rent of car until the radio is fixed. If thats the way the transmission is I can live with it as long as I get the 100k mile powertrain warranty for free which they've already done. So far the car has been in the shop over a week and the dealership has yet to try anything on the radio. Ford threw a shit fit when they found that out. If nothing is done tomorrow or it isn't fixed Ford told me to take it to a different dealership and they'd deal with the current dealership.