smurfslayer
Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. We’re hunting sasquatch77
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2016
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Are any of these worth a poop? I and alot of others are outside warranty with no option at "ford" are any aftermarkets worth buying? Approx cost? Im at 68K miles.
@FordTechOne said it very eloquently.
I’ve lived the experience. I’ve had no extended warranty, Ford ESP, Subaru extended (wife’s car) and an aftermarket Allstate warranty. I don’t buy them for everything, some cars / trucks I want to modify, others I want to keep for a long time and put away miles.
My ’97 SVT Mustang lost a cam chain tensioner - the oil pressure wouldn’t actuate the tensioner. The car started, and ran fine over about 2100 rpms, but idled like cr@p, and it was obvious something was wrong. However -- wait for it -- It wasn’t throwing any codes. this is the car I had the allstate warranty on, and the reason that I believe, like @FordTechOne, that you should get a factory extended warranty or none at all.
Like he said, the first thing allstate did was demand all service records. I had them. 2 weeks later, they sent an inspector, who noted the car was lowered - true. Denied. The mechanic told the guy right then and there, “suspension has nothing to do with the symptoms this car has”. Escalate to underwriters, 2 weeks later, they authorize up to $1000 for tear down and analysis. Then the inspector returns, finds something he doesn’t like in the engine bay. Process repeats. I’m now 5 weeks into this repair and the engine is broken down to it’s components. This does not go well. Nothing looks out of spec, etc. It takes 3 times through for them to find the bad tensioner - a part that cost less than 70 bucks.
I got out of there for about 1500 bucks, for a failed 70 dollar part. Had I not gone to this performance shop, I’d not have had the advocacy from the mechanic against the warranty inspector. Both times he told the inspector “I will testify in court, free of charge for my customer that this denial is unwarranted and the items you’re flagging are completely unrelated to the failure. I’m a 20 year ASE certified Ford master technician, how about you?” Funny thing is that he’s the same guy who missed the failed tensioner twice after the tear down. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure it was easy to miss.
Time down for the repair was almost 4 months.
Not saying this can’t happen with a factory warranty or ESP and especially with performance vehicles that we like to modify, but, I had mods on my Lightning - not a lot, but a few. When the AC compressor failed like 6 or 7 years later, Ford ESP covered it with my $50 copayment. No drama.