My van, 05 E350 Super Duty 6.0, has been at the dealer for 9 weeks!!! Started out they said needs a FICM. Then they said it needed an injector. Then they said it needs a new MOTOR?! WTF? I asked how much will that be? They said $12-$13000, but could run as much as $15000 with he work that’s been done. The work that had been done was not needed, my van was running when I sent it in. Now they say it’s going to be $22,500.00! Nine weeks later. General manager won’t return my call. Service guy was to get back with me 4 weeks ago. Still hasn’t called. Do I have any thing I can do?

The motor is in, they have exhaust leaks to fix. It is at Theodore Robins Ford in Costa Mesa, CA.

$22,300 now!

At this point it looks like your options are few. RUN

Then change your name, number and address right after signing over the pink slip to the Ford dealer.

Did you give them the approval to do the work in writing ? What is the vans value ?? That is crazy money for anything 2005 unless it’s a Ferrari.

I think this is a thread that needs the rest of the story before people get nuclear.

There’s more to the story, but that’s the short version. I took the car in on February 28 it was running rough, tow truck driver drove it up onto the flatbed took it to the dealer drove it off the flatbed and parked. It sat until Monday. Monday they called an said it needed a FICM, $1300. I said go ahead. Tuesday they called said they were still working on it, but looks like it needs an injector in cylinder #6. That will bring it up to $2200 or so. I said go ahead. In or about Thursday they called said it may need a new motor. I didn’t understand that being that they were putting an injector in it a couple of days befor, why put an injector in a blown motor? I asked worst case scenario, what will it run for a new motor installed. He said $12-$13,000, could be as much as $15,000 with the work already done. I figured $15,000 is cheaper than s new van, put it in. Then my service guy went out in a medical leave. Do they put another guy in it. It sat that whole week, nothing done to it. The new guy said they pull cars out of the bay while they are waiting on parts. Wrong thing to say, we weren’t waiting on parts, pull the motor. It sat on and off between him getting other cars repaired and finally pulled the motor March 26. He informed me it wasn’t his job, it was the other guys. I told him he should have given it to someone else. Then he told me if my car wasn’t done, the mechanic was leaving for a week! I asked was someone else going to work on it? Going on seven weeks now. He said sure. Not much got done, the motor got put in about the s of 7 weeks to about the beginning of 8 weeks. Three weeks after the motor was pulled I went in to see why it was taking so long. Another service guy looked it up, my new guy was gone. He couldn’t believe it was this long. Went and talked to the service manager. Came back and said they called the new guy, he said the mechanic needed to get back with a list of parts. Promised me they’d get back with me on Monday, and asked if I needed a loaner. I said that would be helpful. He asked his boss, he said Monday I would have a truck. That never happened! That’s when the new guy called me and said the cost would be $21500 or so. I said why the difference, he didn’t have an answer. I called the service manager. He wasn’t in, I left a message. Never called back so I called the next day, asked if he got my message, he said no. I explained I got a price from the first guy, now I got s price from the second guy and why the difference? He said he’d have to talk to the first guy and get back to me. Still haven’t heard from him. But the guy that said I could get a loaner talked to the first guy and acknowledged that the first price was what was quoted to me. So that’s when I called the general manager. Left a message last Thursday, still no reply. Got a call Saturday, that test drive it but it had exhaust leaks, needed two tubes, no charge on the labor but another $1000 in parts. That’s where it stands. I’m writing this on a job site, don’t have all the dates in front of me. But it was delivered on February 28. I was quoted $12-$15000 from one shop, and $13500 from another, complete r&r with studs and mls gaskets, same warranty as Ford. Both reputable shops. I stayed with Ford because they were pretty much at the same price. But not with this new guy. I guess I’ll have to see what there final price will be. But 9 weeks, the others were 6-8 days!

Sorry, not trying to add to your frustration, it’s just for me there were steps here that don’t make sense, not necessarily from your side.

It sounds as though there were pretty incompetent from the get-go. To me it appears there was an injector failure that may have holed a cylinder. A base relative compression check should have caught that, which is what IMO should have been done first along with compensated and uncompensated injector contribution. If it started with a holed piston then the FICM would not have been needed. And an injector should not have been thrown at it, but maybe it was due to a contribution series, but not relative compression.

The situation sounds like a total FUBAR.

A Ford remanned installed in a pickup cost ~$16,000 with Tax, etc back in ‘08. I would not ever recommend a Ford reman, but your there.

Theres a lot of this story that I still have questions about and really don’t want to cause you more angst. At this point you might get some consideration from this screwed up dealership (it is a dealership right), but I think you are going to need legal services to get remedy on this one.

They called today! The service manager, service guy and general manager, all on speaker phone. After lengthy discussion, going over all I stated, they were willing to go down to $19,500.00. I said $17,000.00. They said they couldn’t do that, I told them I would think it over. What does a long block from Ford cost them? They did add a wiring harness and two egr tubes. What’s fair?