I have a ford 450 Partybus that has a 3 year 60,000 mile warranty on the engine/ transmission. The vehicle is within warranty. I took it in because of the check engine light. They found there was no compression in a cylinder, basically I need a new engine. They asked me for maintenance records, the service adviser asked for 3-4 receipts of service which I provided. After 3 weeks they are telling me the car has "sludge" in the engine and they will not cover because of lack on maintenance. I told them I have maintenance records dating all the way back to when I bought the car, now they are saying " well maybe the previous owner didn't maintenance it" . I have had the car for over 30,000 miles so it all just sounds like BS to me. This is costing me about $3000/ week every week the vehicle is out of commission, and a new engine with labor im sure would be another $10,000. Other mechanic shops have told me the issue is not even related to oil changes, and a quick google search reveals this to be a reoccurring problem on this particular model of Ford. What can I do? It seems like they just dont want to fix my car under warranty, i changed the oil on this thing religiously.

 

Ask the dealer for the Ford regional managers phone number and give them a call.

 

I will try that, it seems stupid to say they wont cover a warrantable issue because I don't have maintenance records from before I owned the car.

 

Every manufacturer has a procedure for dealing with problems like yours. You can try the regional manager, as Just Stroking suggested. Or you can call Ford directly. Per the Ford corporate web site, the voice number seems to be 800-392-3673 Mon-Fri 7am - 8pm CT, Sat 7am -5 pm CT, Closed Sunday.

If they can't or won't help, you can get your state Consumer Protection Bureau involved. This web site can tell you how to contact your states office: https://www.usa.gov/state-consumer

 

Is there another dealer in your area you can go to?

 

As a Ford dealership technician myself, I understand their position IF THE SERVICING TECH DID FIND SLUDGE IN THE ENGINE during the teardown inspection. The presence of sludge inside the engine is the "nail in the coffin" evidence of lack of oil changes. And if that dealership were to attempt to put that repair through under warranty, and the time came for WPEC to examine the old engine returned, you can bet for sure that repair would be getting charged back to the dealership, and the servicing technician would be debited for the time he was paid.

To the OP, this is a situation I've been through many times before and it rarely works out favourably for the customer. My best suggestion is to collect ALL maintenance records you have, at the ready to provide to the dealership's regional manager. That is, if the dealership is willing to escalate the matter on your behalf. Are you a regular customer of their's or is this your first time on the doorstep of the service department of the dealership? If the latter of the two, you will be hard pressed to get them to go to bat for you. Either way, I hope you're able to get your situation resolved one way or another. What is the vehicle in question, by the way, just curious?

 

Well if i dont do the repair, they want to charge me $2000 for the diagnostic. I have honestly done all my maintenance's on this car. I have 8 cars, and they are all well maintained. I havent had an issue like this ever before, with any vehicle. I am not a regular customer of theirs. Also the car just recently had the oil changed less than 2000 miles before the problem happened. I am probably just going to hire an attorney. I rather pay $10,000 for a lawyer and 10k for an engine and feel like i tried, than just 10k for an engine and feel like i got robbed.

From the moment i walked in it sounded like they didnt want to repair it under warranty. First they said lack of maintenance, then i said i have all the maintenance records, they said well maybe the previous owner didnt maintenance it. which doesnt make any sense.

Ford 450 gas v10

 

My question would be is the warranty a genuine Ford warranty? Or from an aftermarket company? It appears that the vehicle is a 2016 or older model year; 4+ years old.
Please inform us.

 

If it is an after market warranty they have loopholes to avoid paying a claim. I get mailings all the time offering a warranty if vehicle has less than 200,000 miles.

 

If the vehicle has less than 60000 miles, it should still be within the factory powertrain warranty unless the actual vehicle in-service date has now exceeded five years. Aftermarket warranties aren't worth the paper they're written on. I speak from personal experience. The OP states he is not regular customer of the dealership, so it's extremely unlikely they will go to bat for him. I certainly understand the $2000 diagnostic charge if the repair is declined, due to the level of disassembly involved, to determine the cause of failure. At the end of day, the servicing technician cannot be expected to work for free.

 

It is a FACTORY warranty. This vehicle like many limousines are built , but not sold for almost a year to two years later. At the time of purchase is when the warranty actually begins, this one actually wasn't sold until summer 2017, so it only has 2 years and some months and 59,000 miles. Ford has already confirmed the vehicle IS under the FACTORY warranty, the dealership is saying they do not want to cover.

 

Any chance the cylinder failure caused the sludge? Any idea what caused the cylinder failure? That would be nice to know.

 

That's a good question. The conversation with the service adviser was very vague. it went like this.
"We cant fix it under warranty because we found sludge in the engine because of lack of maintenance"
" What maintenance was lacking? "
"Basic maintenance like oil changes"
"you asked me for my last 3 or 4 oil changes and I gave you my oil change records for the last 15,000 miles"
"Yeah but the car has almost 60,000 miles"
".... Ive done all the oil changes since I bought the car, ive only had it like 25,000 miles"
"Well did you buy it used? maybe it was the previous owner, That's why its always better to do your maintenance with us because when things go wrong it makes this process a lot easier"
"....."

From there the conversation went no where, and I just started asking for the manager ect. The manager said he would take pictures and send it to ford and "see what they say" . Im going to sue the pants off this dealership and ford if they don't cover this engine.
Im going to take the advice in this thread though, and reach out to the regional manager, also tomorrow im going to go in with a 3rd party mechanic, and start documenting everything. Hopefully I can get a better understanding of what exactly is wrong,

 

This whole thing come to mind that with the ford owner website/ford pass you can document all maint, repairs etc. Both the owner and ford svc dept. Quite useful in disputing lack of maint.

I would escale this issue with ford corp.

 

sorry for your woes....FORD does not have a good reputation about taking care of catastrophic warranties...things got so bad a few years ago that FORD had internet monitors patrol the internet and as soon as someone posted a "FORD not honoring warranty " post on a forum...the internet monitors would socialite them to discuss with them off line ....a tactic to keep the negative internet chatter down.

in your case.....you should check with your insurance to see if your policy has mechanical breakdown coverage...mine does and it only costs me 7 additional dollars per months and will be good for 7 years.