i saw a 60's camaro with a beer can dated the same year as the car in one of the fenders. they found it when the stripped the car down for a resto.

 

Heh, my Dad special ordered in 89 an HD F250 4x4, 460 5 spd, custom paint. Along the way it fell off the truck and munched one whole side-dealer said no worries, we will fix it-Dad just laughed and said no thanks.
I know a guy who bought a new cherokee thingy off the lot new, it was forever back and forth trying to fix whistling noises around the doors, finally they did some digging and found out it had somehow landed on its roof-which would normally write off a vehicle-but no, it got sold new.

 

That's some epic fail right there!!

 

Yea to bad there arn't any ex ford auto workers that are members here.I bet they would have some great stories to tell.

 

in the late 70's when working at a dealership in tampa
we had a delivery show up at 8am one day
right behind the semi were the TPD
seems the driver took a road he should not have
there was a pick up on top and in the bed of the truck
there was a traffic light from about 6 miles back
the right rear of the cab was destroyed from the impact
and the driver never knew it even though it was right above his cab
body shop fixed it up good as new (yea right)
and was sold as new

 

There are some pretty good stories in this thread. It just goes to show that you can never take anything at face value, .... not even that a "brand new from the factory" vehicle is undamaged. Makes you wonder if this sort of thing contributes to some people getting "lemons". ?? (yes I know my truck looks like a great big lemon)

 

I worked at a chebbie dealership in the 90s and I can name a couple of them that this type of stuff happened too. One in particular was the first Chev with the at the time new 6.5 turbo detroit, didnt' get the PDI done before work ended so left it sitting in the stall, salesman couldn't wait to try it out and took it out of the shop stopped and closed the shop door without looking and landed it on the bed... yeah you guessed it body shop fixed and painted it good as new, body shop bill to the sales dept stated the total cost was $295 to fix which makes it $5 below the state law of any damage over $300 must be reported on a new vehicle (they just added the rest of the bill to a used car they were fixing for the sales dept that allows $3000 damage on used cars) it's all in paper work as long as the damage "cost" is below teh law they can sell it as new without disclosing the damage to the vehicle.

I also bought a 95 F150 that I had a lot of troubles with, (very long story) I had accused the dealership of fixing a damaged truck (found an area the paint didnt' match and the bed was was not square as well as the door gap wasn't even, but they fixed those) after a couple months noticed the passengers mirror was bouncing a lot and started cracking the door skin took it back in and they figured that the inner support rod hadn't been welded in or had broken lose somehow (amazing how much "accidental" stuff happened to that door) the dealership that was doing the work after I had major issues and legal battles going on with the selling dealership pulled the door panel off and low and behold here was a sticker inside the door that said "made in Taiwan" proving the truck had been repaired (to give credit to ford they did send a new door and new box right off the assembly line already factory repainted to replace those parts)

 

I worked at american axle for 14 1/2 years, currently waiting for a big buyout check. I know you dont want an axle or driveshaft built after lunch on a friday or the last day before a holiday. We used to assemble cv joints for an fcar driveshaft that went into camaros and fire birds. we got the lower part of the joint in crates from spain after spending a couple of weeks on some ship in the ocean, one of these crates came in one time, the things were so rusted i tried to beat the bearing loose in the race and a brass hammer wouldnt even budge em. But lucky for us the engineers saved the day, they said just to fill em with grease and they will loosen right up. so we made him sign off so they were his responsibilty and shipped em. glad i didnt end up with one of those

 

Years ago ,walking past the chevy dealer in town one evening,,,A car hauler sitting there idling ,,,At the rear of the truck ,,one ramp still on the truck ,the other on the ground under a brand new car,,,( wonder if that one got repaired )?...

 

The 70s were the epic low point for the American auto industry from a quality control standpoint. Used to be if you had any connections, you never wanted you car or truck to be built on a Monday or Friday. Mondya was the first day back to work after a weekend and everyone was hung over. Didn't want it built on payday (Friday) cause it was payday and no one gave ****. It it was after lunch on payday, things were even worse.

I had a couple new cars in the 70. Both had similar problems. Noises in the rockers when going up and down hill. The rockers were sealed with welds. One had a marble in the rocker, the other one had a nut in the rocker. Fun. fun, fun.

 

I dont have any personal new car tales...I got a good car...anyways..
I recall seeing a pic in a certain guys book about lemon cars...I recall seeing an early 70s Nova with a munched nose in the pavement and the backside on the front edge of the top of the car hauler...no brakes it said...as bad as those fenders were...it had to have killed the frame...


- cs65

 

it could be posible

-cs76

 

A couple of years ago I was looking at a really nice 1979 F350 super cab 4x4, that was for sale. The original owner was selling the truck. He had a hugh camper on it and everything was original. He was a very proud owner and was giving me the entire history of the truck. He had a compressor installed under the hood for some reason and had the air holding tank installed on the passenger side infront of the rear wheel when he noticed some plugs in the inside of the bed, it looked like someone had fiber filled a dent or something. Anyhow he did his own investigation back in 1979 and found out the truck was damaged when it was unloaded to the dealer. I don't know how these trucks were delivered, anyhow he could not believe that the dealer would repair the damaged and not disclose the information. He fought it and recieved a $1500 rebate on the truck. So from reading other post this was a common thing with these old truck, probably still happens today.

 

I worked at a Ford dealership as a mechanic in 93 and 94 while not working on airplanes. I don't have a damage story but they must have used a lot of white cotton gloves. I would do the inspection and remove the hold down brackets on the cars and trucks when they came in. I had a lot of white cotton gloves that would be in the hose clamps and a lot of other locations on the vehicles. They would get stuck under the clamps and go out with the car. The white glove test.

 

My brother worked at a "pre-delivery" site in the late 70's early 80's, ford vehicles would come in by rail and trucks and there was no such thing back then as drug screening. The people that worked there at night were always on something and they really thrashed the new cars and trucks. The place shutdown in the late 80's. They installed "dealer options" and repaired damage aquired during shipping.