Ford Warranty Say No! 2012 Fiesta Metal

diesel_dog

How did you get on?

Short-n-Sweet

After a long chat with trading standards I have been advised to contact the finance company although the car has now been paid for and tomorrow a 3rd party mechanic is going to look at the car and do a full report (the finance want proof from an outside that the car is broken) then we will see what happens. If they agree a service would not have prevented this then we will get repairs paid for if it is still down to my stupid self for missing the service then I will fork out the £2,500 kind of hoping the report does come back and states mechanical fault they would not have been prevented but we will see. If not an Expensive lesson learnt!

Tilt

Did you not contact Ford CS?

adamc260

My experience of Ford... they do not pay out on anything (Warranty wise).

My steering wheel started peeling away after the car (Fiesta also) was a year and a bit old... ford said it was wear and tear despite the car having done about 7-8000 miles so refused to do anything.

Hop over the head of Ford Customer Relation Centre, they're absolutely useless.... Write to the exec office who will hopefully help you out (a bit...)

bigjl

Short-n-Sweet wrote: »

Least I learnt now the hard way that all cars need servicing at 12,000 miles. I think I got confused because other people I know state at 20,000 the oil is checked regularly and all that sort of thing my boyfriend is rather anal about keeping an eye on the cars. There was no warning or sign the car was about to spit oil everywhere. Thanks for your advice everyone.

Every car has a slightly different service schedule.

They are indeed very often 1 yr and 12k but some are 12.5k like a lot of Fords and Volvos, some Nissans are 24 months or 18k miles.

Sorry to say that you will find it unlikely that Ford will help you out this time unless you find a very sympathetic person in the customer service centre of Ford.

And the information on servicing is in the Service book not that owners manual.

Are you suggesting they never gave you either?

And I hate to say that your boyfriend should shoulder some of the blame.

The servicing information is available all over the place,
In What Car, Parkers type magazines, owners forums and Google.

bigjl

kkgree1 wrote: »

I'd be fighting Ford tooth and nail to get them to cover the costs of your repair. I'm of the opinion though that there shouldn't really be anything major going wrong with a car within the first two years!

What if I was to do 100k miles in those two years?

Not sure if the Fiesta has a 1000mile or 3 month service like used to be common and I had done on every new car I have owned over the years.

Current V50 had a 1000 mile service back in 2008 when it was new.

The oil in the vehicle is not meant to last forever, nor is the oil filter.

It could just be something simple that has gone wrong, oil seal perhaps?

But a Used Oil Analysis will be done on the oil that is in there and that will definitively tell Ford what has happened to the engine an wether lack of routine maintenance has contributed.

The Total Base Number of the oil will likely have been completely depleted which means acids in the oil don't get neutralised and cause havoc.

If the vehicle did lots of local runs with lots of stop start and short journeys that could be considered Sever Service and would normally indicate an oil change at half the normal limit.

Some manufacturers use slightly different oils from the factory, these oils are meant to be changed at the 1000mile or 3 month mark as they are not up to lengthy use.

It is possible the OP has unwittingly done 18 times the mileage she meant was meant to on the Factory Fill.

An expensive lesson indeed.

I would advise putting in a brand new Ford engine though, as it is highly likely the rest of the engine is sludged up and there will be increased wear in almost every part of the engine.

A used engine can be risky, unless you are lucky enough to find a nearly new car with the same engine that has been written off.

Those engines are worth buying if they have proof of servicing.

Just because something is new doesn't mean it will never break.

If I was that way inclined I could take a brand new Fiesta from the showroom and it would need to be collected the next day after I had broken the clutch and or gearbox.

Nothing to do with age sometimes just how it is used and maintained.

As the lack of a service is unlikely to have caused any issue with the parts of the car not affected by the missed service it is entirely likely that with a new Ford engine there will be no more issues with the validity of the warranty.

As an example, the gearbox would not be affected as the missed service is unlikely have included a gearbox oil change.


Good luck OP.

Hopefully you can manage to get through it with the least expense.

But think seriously about getting Ford to fit a new engine if you can afford it, they may give a small amount towards it.

Short-n-Sweet

Just an update. The 3 rd party mechanic has taken a look and wrote a letter for me to give to the finance company to prove the car is broken. He has stated a service would not have prevented the car from breaking down - he is also shocked Ford do not know the cause and have not done any basic checks (water pump, pressure test) all way over my head but nothing has been done and he confirmed what I thought that they seem very defensive rude and appears they are trying to hide something - they were not even helpful or sure about letting someone look at the car. I am just worried that once this is fixed it will just do it again because they will not give a cause. It is all well and good saying a missed service is the cause but surely the warped cylinder head is a result of something else (which even if related to a missed service would have caused something to break which then caused the cylinder head to warp) just have to wait on finance company again now.

I noticed a few people keep mentioning the service details are online - could someone please be kind enough to post the link just so I can have a look and learn more than anything. I tried to find some online but unable - Thank you!

fivetide

Thanks for the update OP. Hopefully the finance company will have a bit of clout with ford.

Did you ever call them directly yourself?

diesel_dog

HTH's:-

http://owner.ford.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Owner/Page/OwnerGuidePage&year=2012&make=Ford&model=Fiesta


Whoops, I think that might not be the UK version but a quick google search may sort that out. I can't multi task on this phone.

bigjl

photome wrote: »

many cars have 20000 mile intervals between services so not sure I agree with you.

But if you check the oil they use it is a very specific type of oil.

If Ford put a different factory fill that is changed out at 1000 miles then it would never be intended to run 18k.

Different engines are harder or easier on their oil.

The kind of use the cars sees also affects things.

If it didn't need a 1000mile oil change then that is all good.

But if it is the 1.25 Fiesta that engine is fairly old as is the 1.4 petrol.

They would normally be run on a semi synthetic oil.

Which is fine for 12.5k or so, though I would suspect would need to be changed at half that if the vehicle was used in stop start, urban use all the time.

If somebody thinks the oil that is meant to be left in 18k is the same as the oil that is meant to be left in 12.5k is the same is deluded.

Try and buy the the longlife oil for VAG engines, look at the price of it.

Then price up the oil for the normal service schedule.

Completely different oils, different additive packages, different detergent properties and very different TBN which explains why one is fine for 18k and one is not.

At the end of the day the OP has learned a painful lesson that she will never repeat.

The rest of the car, apart from the engine is unlikely to be badly troubled by a missed service.

A new Ford lump will give the car good providence rather than a used or recon lump from somewhere else.

If the car was three or four years old my opinion would change.

From now on I suspect she will be extremely careful about such things.

A pity she didn't ask on here sooner, but hindsight is a lovely thing.

With a new Ford engine she can look forward to another 10 years of use from the vehicle which I would look at £250 a year for the engine.

As there is no reminder it may be an idea to write it down on a post it note or similar and place it on the inside of the sun isle.

Is easy enough to remember now as it has 18k so next service is around 30k.

A car can easily cope with going a thousand miles past or even two thousand past if it is used on long journeys with little stop start.

Sadly the OP pushed it a little too far.

We all make mistakes.

And the OP's boyfriend owes the OP a slap up meal for being lax in his "man duties".:rotfl: