Ford F-150 Lightning Purchase Turns Into a Nightmare for Owner
By Brett Foote

Luckily, the automaker was willing to help.

 

Sooooo just like that, Ford gave up, did the right thing and is now heralded as the hero?

 

I’ve seen a few lemon law buybacks on another forum, and I think much of that has to do with service departments who don’t know how to service them. The module problems in the Lightning are relatively unique in the EV world, and my truck lost one in January. My dealer had me back on the road in less than two weeks, but I have no confidence my small local dealer was capable of the same.

I think most lemon law buybacks are the dealer’s fault, and that’s especially true for the Lightning.

 

That's how corporate PR works, I suppose.

It reminds me of the PR mileage they got via selling one single 40k lightning to one influencer and many people felt vindicated via proxy, and pointed to it and said "see! Ford is making 40k electric F150s! All you doubters are just haters for not believing the Pro can be sold at 40k to retail consumers".

It's what it is.

For the record I would love a small single cab electric pickup like a Ranger sized unit at a reasonable price, say around 30-35k. Ditch all the useless entertainment gadgets and just put in a simple drivetrain that gets around 200 miles and I am first one at the dealership with cashier's check in hand.

 

Ford is projected to loose 4.5 billion dollars on EV's this year so what's another ~ $70k buy back that will get resold at some point.

 

Remember the electric Citicar from the 70's?

 

Can you say "got cheese wedge"? I remember when those came out. Golf cart with windshield wipers basically lol.

 

Yep, my neighbor when I was a kid had one he bought new all the way into the 90s, he kept it going alright.

And here lies the rub, if they just electified say, the Fiesta, or even better, a small "Ka" sized one would be practical too, but price would still be a problem if batteries are still to be based on lithium. But of course the legislators and people in charge don't care about cost and benefit before decreeing orders.

 

That's not at all right. What happens when a "problem child" comes in and the local techs can't figure it out with their own skills/equipment, they consult with the Ford tech hotline, it's a private connection between Ford and the tech working on the machine. ONLY when the experts and engineers at Ford can't figure out what's wrong remotely, depending on the severity of the concern will do one of two things.

They will send someone to that dealer to put their hands on personally if they deem it worthy, What Ford calls worthy is anyones guess.

1) They bought back an F150 with a vibration concern while I was there. They had all the 411 they needed remotely.
2) Send a technician out to make a decision what to do.

We had a Lincoln with a seized engine they told us to close the hood and NOT touch it. No clue what happened to that one, they sent a truck to collect it and the owners who were from out of town.

Dealer service departments are high powered extreme Mom-N-Pop garages. If you have the coin to abide Ford's rules for what a dealership should be, pick out a strip of land and start building, they will put a big blue oval on your building. ANYONE can open a Ford dealership. They have the special tools, they have the best technician training bar none when it comes to the product. Where Ford shot themselves in the foot is screwing those trained techs with bs warranty pay so we all left. Now you have the tools, equipment, parts, and all the documentation that goes along with an entire line up of machines where no one with the skills to use said resources would give two thoughts about applying except kids fresh out of school and all the experience they've accumulated thus far.

Sux but it is what it is. Ford seems to think mechanics/technicians are mindless drones that can turn a wrench left and right. (sadly so does most of the motoring public) While that kind of thinking might have applied when the Model T was built, it sure as hell don't apply now when you need more training, ON-GOING training thruout your entire career due to constant changes in technology and design. But a simple grease monkey is expected to know all that because it has 4 wheels right?

The days of changing a set of points are gone, you want to fix todays machines? You're going to do it with a computer and those kind of skills on top of knowing how the system is suppose to work. Many of which skills are NOT found in kids fresh out of school.

Take what I said above with a grain of salt as I left Ford 20 years ago. From the 11 I did work there, I can almost guarantee nothing has changed in that respect.

 

I’m sure most of that is true, but there’s a huge difference between service departments. The best example on my mind is what happened to my mom’s Kia.

She bought an early-build EV9 that was one of the first 1,000 sold nationwide. These early units had a programming flaw that causes them to eat their onboard charger due to a flawed cooling calibration. When this fails, the car will still DC fast charge because it bypasses the onboard charger.

Mom’s car broke with an AC charging fault, so we took it into the dealer. The dealer saw a service bulletin to update the programming, so they updated the software. They then connected it to their DC charger, saw it was charging, and insisted it was fixed. They didn’t understand the difference between AC and DC charging and insisted I was wrong when I tried to explain it to them. We drove home, plugged into the AC charger, and it failed. BACK to the dealer we went. Kia has been selling EVs for more than five years, yet the “EV certified” shop foreman had no clue what the difference was between AC and DC charging. Total was two service visits and three weeks out of service and I had to walk the dealer through the problem from the TSB that I downloaded off the internet.

Kia isn’t Ford, and an EV9 isn’t a Lightning. But this dealer had no idea what they were doing, which caused a repeat visit and additional time out of service. Kia would have had to buy it back if this happened, and it would have been Capitol City Kia’s fault. I drove my Lightning past four other Ford dealers to a place I had confidence in, and it was fixed in 12 days. Would @cali108 ’s truck qualify for buyback if he had a competent dealer?

 

I am only giving experience from a Ford dealer line technician perspective of 11 years. I have EXTENSIVE experience with Ford. Kia is a Korean company. I have never experienced how they do things, I have worked on a few, .. the early ones tended to catch fire.

Explain the angle you're working and what subject. That is if you didn't already read what I stated about Ford dealers being High Powered Mom-N-Pop stores.

 

Who sometimes do a lousy job troubleshooting and repairing failures, which leads to lemon law buybacks. We just had one horror story in another thread, and I can point to a bunch on other forums and social media groups. The common theme is often a service department that doesn’t know what they’re doing.

 

Exactly!! Like I said from the start, Ford screws experienced tech's, experienced tech's say screw Ford. The public is left over with the mess (inexperienced kids) to deal with. Disgusts me to my core but what can I or you do? I'll tell you what I did, I left for greener pastures and loving it. I'm all about giving everything in my being to get the job done. Corporate dont care until their bottom line takes a hit.