Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Ford dealship wrecked my SVT

1) Call your lawyer and get him to advise you ASAP.

1a) Contact the local police and see if they can send an accident reconstruction guy out there. You may have a hard time getting this done, but if you frame things right, i.e. tell them you are blatantly being defrauded by the Ford dealer then you may get it to work. Beware of any hanky-panky between the dealership and the local police. (maybe they fix their crusiers, or maybe they send a case of donuts to the local precinct on a regular basis)

2) Go to the dealership and take picutres of:
your car.

The area where the accident happened, including the toolbox that was struck.

And anything else that you can think of.

Make sure the service advisor, owner of dealership, etc. is around when you do this. If they give you any crap just walk past them and snap away.

3) Do additional investigation if you have the time/energy, per your lawyer's advice. For example pull the tech's driving record if you have access to do so. See if this guy is a total jackoff. It will strengthen your position against the dealership.

4) Go to the dealership after your lawyer sends him a letter of intent to file a lawsuit, and pick up your refund.

5) If this doesn't work, threaten lawsuit, contacting the BBB, the local press, making a website, etc.

6) After they buy your SVT from you, go buy something besides a Ford, and be happy!
(unless of course you decide to go vintage and not let it within 1000' of a Ford service bay)

i agree with all these posts. they are bending you over big time.

You do have an actual claim here. Diminished value. I argued this successfully against a New York insurer. There are several kinds of diminished value. Shoddy workmanship, inferior material, and the fact that your car is worth less because it now has an accident history. If the car is repaired and the repair is satifactory, you can still claim diminished value because your car now has a significant accident history (any good dealership will be able to tell your car has been repaired even if it is a very good repair).

Take your car to a dealership. Have the dealerhip tell you what the car is worth. If they tell you what the car is worth less because it was in an accident, ask them to put it in writing. Present this to the dealership and tell them you want to be compensated.

I had a three year old Honda CR-V that was rear-ended. I successfully argued diminished value and was compensated several thousand dollars in excess of repair costs.

When a car is new and it has been in an accident, the value is diminished quite a bit. A car that is older's value is less affected by accident damage (everybody expects a 10 year old car to have been in at least one accident). If you plan to keep your car a long time the diminished value will affect you less.

I had discount tire jack up the rear suspension and bend both sides. Then claimed they didn't wreck the suspension. They ended up paying for the repairs, but it was an aggravation I didn't need. Especially when the manager claimed the car was that way when they got it.

Seems like everyone has some good advice. I can't stress enough how important pictures are. Take as many pictures as you can and of EVERY angle. DO NOT let them work on or even touch the car until you tell them to. If you have a video camera, take a video of the area in question. Another really BIG negative toward the dealership would be to contact the local newspaper. I know how much a newspaper LOVES bad gossip. I worked for AT&T Digital Broadband and can't tell you how many times the newspapers went to people's houses for interviews....even the local tv crew got in on it a couple of times. The more info you have when you go to the local news, the better.

A good witness!! Then if pictures go missing....

I guess I should really be worried. Car's in getting the Speedo fixed which makes writing down my mileage pointless as they can just take it out before they fix it.

I was being a tight-ass when I brought it in yesterday and verbally confirmed with the guy that NO work would be done before they call me and tell me what needs to be done.

I would do 4 things immediatly, 1 contact Ford Corporate (ford.com) 2, Contact an attorney ( a mean one if possible), 3 Start paperwork with the BBB and 4 take as many pics and video as you can stand without ripping their heads off. Then I would make an appointment to talk with the Owner/ Manager and let him know that you believe you were lied to and that the local press will know it the very next day if the situation isn't resolved immediatly and to your satisfaction. Let him know that you are prepared to play hardball if that's what it takes. They should have insurance to cover it and if they don't they could seriously get in trouble for not having it. I would question whether you could possibly get them for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle!! Good Luck!!

I can tell you from personal experience that raising hell will not get you anything more than a pissed off service manager. They should compensate you for the repair on your vehicle, but I think you would be hard pressed to prove a point, even with a lawyer, that you deserve more money b/c your car is worth less since it's been in an accident. They should be willing to work with you and correct all the problems you can prove they have caused. Keep a record of the work they do and if you run into a problem down the road, they would be obligated to fix it again. Sorry I couldn't be more optimistic, but I found them to be more helpful to me than the woman in front of me who was screaming that they screwed up her car. Hope that helps. :rolleyes:

I agree that it doesn't make sense to get ugly about it. I work in a service business and people can get pretty upset when their high end computer systems are down. So when they start yelling and screaming, I simply remind them that the clock is ticking. If you are losing money while the system is down, how is yelling at me getting the system back up. I have to get the focus back on the objective, to repair the system.

You must do the same thing with the car. You must go in with one objective: "To have the car repaired as good or better than it was when it went to the dealer." And you have to get the service manager to agree to your reasonable expectation.

Before you go in half cocked, see what they want to do.

Pictures are a good idea. I still believe a third party expert checking out there work is a good idea as well.

Like I said, it covers both you and the dealer.

If they do excellent work, then you will diminish the value of the car more by driving it and enjoying it than the dealership has done by bending some metal and breaking some plastic.

Just be reasonable and tell them what it takes to make you happy. Tell them you want them to be successful so you can be happy that you are working with a good dealership. Tell them you would hate to stop doing business with them because they won't make a bad situation, no fault of your own, right.

If they won't, then get the lawyer, etc.

But you have to convince them it is in their better interest to give you excellent service and workmanship.

Cheers,

TB