I actualy drive 3 towns over to deal with the Ford dealership I like... They have always treated me and my vehicles with respect, they schedule around me, cut me a discount on parts when the wrong ones accidently came in, let me watch them work if it's something simple, and answer every question I have. I only take them warranty stuff and parts orders, and they still treat me like I spend all my money there (which, if you ask my wife, I do)... I've noticed, in general, that the smaler dealerships are the ones that seem to go the extra mile...

 

my $.02: been to crummy small and large stealerships. best one : large in Van Nuys, ca. worst one: really small in Mojave CA. I drive two towns down here in NV to get to a smallish guy that wants a super reputation because the local one has a crappy attitude.

 

Wow you had problems in Mojave. That was the one place I thought was good. Took my Crown Vic in for some radio warranty work and had a cracked windshield the service writer asked how it happened and I said just came out one morning and found it that way. They just replaced that nder warranty to. Also had the Ranger towed in when it smoked a fuel pump they got right on it and made it good.
One of the worst dealers has got to be Eastern Sierra in Bishop. Went up there after work to look at buying a car and the sales man first wouldn't even come out. So I wentin and he said hey if you want to look better make it fast cause we close in 5 min at 5. Talk about not wanting to budge to make a sale.
LPR

 

I've heard good things about the Mojave dealership as well. My belief is that any garage is totally different to one person then it is to another person.

 

I guessing the difference is what kind of problems you present them with. In my case, I had a intermittent short on the cruise control watchspring, and a "clunk" that only happened when going into the Stater Bros south Driveway on 14 when hot. they burned through 15 gallon of fuel, and couldn't duplicate either problem.

selling dealer took about 20 min to diagnose and replace watch spring, they also found an obviously loose bolt on the tranny.

 

I have to say that my local dealer is really small,, 4 bays is all they have in the shop and they treat everyone like gold.They have 1 Diesel mechanic,, same guy for 9 years. When they replaced my motor they tore the old one apart and showed me every part that was trashed, what caused the hole in my block and etc. I even spent an afternoon there watching the guy drop the reman in and shooting the breeze,handing him tools while he was hooking everything up. i think the big dealers are more concerned about volume than anything else..Nothing like small town hospitality.A good dealer makes all the difference in the world when it comes to service after the sale.

 

Day after I brought my truck home it died in traffic and had me really wondering if I had the premier lemon but after a few moments restarted and made it another couple blocks before it died again. Kept up this routine until I pulled into a dealer and asked them what could be wrong. Ran the codes and said CPS??? Next thing out of my mouth was how much and what is it (before I found this site). That will be around $300.00 they say. Started talking to the mechanic and told him my sad story and he got it down to 214.00 but now I found out how much they cost and have learned my lesson. Thanks to all for all your knowledge.

 

Oh this thread is one that could get me in trouble, but to make a long story short bought a 95 F150 drove it home and heard a clunk in the trans immediatly drove it back to the dealership 172 miles on it when I got back, the buy behinnd the counter told me I didn't know what I was talking about and that was normal. At the time I told him no, the mainshaft bearings are going out on the trans, at which he said I didn't know what I am talking about (his mech hadn't even looked at it, and refused to look at it, to the point he put into the ford computor system I was trying to scam ford, and was a complainer) Thats the point the I looked at the certifications for his mechanics and not one master certified ASE tech, which I am a master certified ASE, as well as ATRA and a couple of others he basically through me off the place. Do to his putting stuff on the computor system no other dealership would even look at the truck. fast forward 1-1/2 yrs the trans got so bad you couldn't shift it due to the syncros going out. Finally since it was a different complaint another dealership looked at it, and what did they do, replaced the mainshaft bearings, just like I said was wrong in the first place, now this cured my original complaint but they didn't fix the syncros. so I won that and in the next year ford spent $14000 rebuilding that trans because there was no way they would admit that the trans case had a problem and actually replace it, since I was trying to scam them you know. Heck all they had to do was replace that trans when I told them it was the problem and would have been much cheaper.
BTW for reference I will never ever, set foot on Charles Gabus Ford lot again they are the ones that caused me such headaches with Ford that I almost quit driving fords, and I suggest anyone living in the Iowa area not to go there, because they will rip you and make life difficult for you, plus in this case I should have taken them to court as later on I proved the vehicle had been wrecked during transport and they fixed it without declaring the damage. I am actuallly somewhat suprised they didn't try and use that damage as reasons to void the warrenty, wish they had would have been an interesting day in court.