I have to take my pickup in for a couple of things tomorrow (turbo not working right) and was wondering if most of the dealerships offer loaner cars? The dealership is out of town and if they have to keep the pickup I won't have a way home. When I set the appointment up, I asked about a loaner and they said they would be able to rent me a car at their cost. Is this normal? Thanks for help with this.
Nelgin

 

Check your warranty before you go, some offer rental car if your truck will be in the shop overnight. Some Service writers however will tell you that you’re not eligible for a rental car if you just ask.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

A friend of mine has a 2 year old mercury tracer and received a new four door f-150 as a N/C dealer loaner while her car was in the shop at the Lincoln/ Mercury dealership for a transmission problem. I had had my brand new F-350 in at the ford dealer and got a geo <o></o>

 

When I took my 2004 F250, PSD,CC,FX4 in for transmission repair (kept it seven days) I ended up with a Focus. This really strikes a raw nerve with me because I did not drive to the dealer in a Focus. With that said let me tell how Johnson Lexus of Raleigh NC treats you, keep in mind Lexus is just a fancy Toyota. I live about three hours from Raleigh NC and I can pick up the phone and call JL with any problem and they will come and get my ES300 which cost much less than my truck and bring me a new RX330 to use at NO charge. Ford, GM, and Chrysler could learn something here!!!!

 

The local Ford dealer gave me a loaner (Taurus) while my 06 F 350 4X4 DRW with 2150 miles on the clock was in getting fixed for a whole dang month. It would not start.

Mark

 

I believe that the Ford warranty provides a loaner/rental if the repairs take over 1 day. My dealer provides a loaner even if it is dropped off in the A.M. and is ready in the P.M. even for service.

 

My dealership has given be a truck to drive every time except for one (which I said a car was okay.) All but one of these instances have been for non-recall stuff. Most of the time I get a 03 or older F150 which still lets me use it a little for work. If I need a bigger truck to pull a trailer they have made that accomidatoin as well. When I took it for recall and needed a car I got a camery, but I told them I didn't need the truck. That is one good thing about my dealership. Levi

 

It's great that there are some Dealers out there that treat their customers with respect. However IMHO when it come to the big three auto makers they are few and far between. All you need to do is read some of these threads and see what a lot of folks are complaining about "Customer Service". G.M. is laying 30k employee's and Ford may be next come January. You can't help but wonder did customer service or a lack there of didn't play a small part in their demize?

 

Loaner car?? HAHAHAHAHAHA!! good luck. I'd say Ford has already laid off 4,000 employees this quarter...but you don't hear that ...do ya? Check the financial news.

GM is paying it's CEO's like 4.5 million a year, not including bonuses...but hey...what's another 30,000 jobs gone?

 

Thanks for sharing your experiences. The dealership claims nothing is wrong with the truck, so they sent me home.

 

This is a large part of the reason I just bought an Audi.

The Import automakers are KILLING Ford and GM in customer service.

 

Shhhh! Let's keep this on the down low. Ford's customer service isn't that bad if you don't know what it's like to be treated well. If I got treated at my Ford dealer the way that my wife get's treated by her Land Rover dealer (also FMC) I'd be a lot more understanding when things go wrong, and because it's mechanical, things probably will. I had to fight my dealership on the last recall to get a loaner car, when it clearly stated on the recall notice that loaner vehicles were authorized. The flip-side, when my wife took her car in for an oil change (takes approx. 1 hr. including detailing the car) they gave her a loaner Range Rover to go down the street to get breakfast. This treatment wasn't vehicle dependent. They treated the people that were having the more reasonably priced Freelander serviced, exactly the same way.

 

Shop around even for warranty work. The dealer that was closes to me wouldn't give me a loaner when they had my truck in to replace the tranny UNDER WARRANTY. They said I didn't buy the truck from them and they didn't have to give me a loaner. You should have seen the look on their faces when I left in my truck that wouldn't shift out of first gear and drove to another dealer that would give me a loaner. Warranty work is as good as any other service work for a dealer when they are slow and want work.

 

Lets not forget that German owned company that sell Dodge trucks in the U.S. I'm sure they have the same complaints about their service also, and you don't hear about that either. Just had to put that in there!

 

Dodges service also sucks in general, but I found a few good dealers when in the middle of the Cummins project.
(By the way, the boys at Superchips are almost done refining/testing what I left behind on the Cummins 600, all I can say is the power is un-be-lievable).

Anyways, Bob Dance Dodge (Longwood, FL) is pretty friendly.
Hmmm........Wait, that doesn't help anyone in here, LOL.

I do have a few Mercedes dealer horror stories.
A friend of mine used to work in service at a Mercedes dealer.
He said some of the car owners were huge douchebags (can I say that here?)

(condascending tone): "Excuse me, Sir, this car is very expensive, much more than you can afford." "Please take extreme care and don't leave a single fingerprint on it"

Well, he didn't leave any fingerprints on it, but he definitely took a lot of miles off the tires and helped the suspension settle a little bit =o)

I guess there is good and bad in all dealers, and I do like Fords products...but when an automaker is hurting, one of the first areas that suffers is customer service. Ironically, this is the one area that should NEVER suffer if a company is hurting.

I wonder when W is gonna have to bail out GM?