@FordTechOne please correct me on this as needed. I have a good friend who last year retired from a very, very large Ford stealership in Northern Virginia. He was a master tech and If I recall correctly theirs was the largest service department in the metro DC area. They had shifts so they were open later in the evening.
He lamented to me a tale of an Exploder that wouldn’t start. I think a mid to late teens model, but still under warranty. He couldn’t for the life of him find an issue, asked to talk to the owner. S/A did but just took verbal notes. He never got to speak to the owner directly, wanted to know what happened prior to the non start.
truck had voltage, no DTC, modules passed, no obvious reason not to start. he’s getting into checking the vehicle network - but, he’s out of allowed time for the repair.
Ford reimburses a specific amount, after that, the stealership is on the hook and they won’t auth. further research. After a few days, he convinces the service manager to conf call the owner. It turns out, the owner bumped a parking lot pole, pulled forward, parked and it wouldn’t start after that. My buddy says “I know what it is”. he pulls the bumper assembly, harness has several wires pinched. New harness.
The thing is... this is not a warranty repair, it’s a collision. The stealership did end up covering under ‘customer goodwill’ - they’re not all bad. But, he told me that was not uncommon. Once a repair exhausts the reimbursement time / cost, the stealership says “move on”.
I don’t know if this is common practice, universal, or rare.
I’d bet that the stealership here has to “eat” the cost of future repairs and doesn’t want to.
