I had just accepted a job offer for a great new career. The only catch was that the new office was 40+ miles away from my home. Moving was not an option, nor was driving my Ford Excursion. The fuel bill for commuting was going to be well north of $600/mo.
I looked at various options, focusing on cars that would yield me the coveted HOV sticker to help save my commute time. After months of research, reviews, spreadsheets, and test drives I settled on the "perfect" for me Ford Fusion Energi.
I found a local dealer that had one in stock, in a color I was interested in, and went ahead with a lease. You see, I know leases are generally not financially wise, and I know you tend to end up paying too much, but I knew EV technology was changing quickly and I didn't want to invest long term in what would soon be an outdated battery and EV tech. And, it was still cheaper than driving my truck. Win win!
I signed a short 2 year lease and paid close to zero down. Things were looking good! I even completed all of this just two days before my birthday. I now "owned" MY first new car and was excited!
Being the geek that I am, I even took pics under the hood of the 2.0L engine and some the EV components.
I couldn't wait to get my license plate! I knew after my plate came I could submit for my HOV stickers.
They came a few weeks later. The best $8 I think I have EVER spent!
September ~3100 miles
Life was good. I was saving 15-20min each direction to and from work, saving fuel, and getting to drive a brand new car. Also, it was SUPER quiet. I was a happy Fusion lessee.
Flash forward to Dec 5th 2013 & ~8,300miles. Disaster.
I was sitting in rush hour traffic Northbound on HWY85 on the 85-->280N on ramp when all of a sudden I saw this as the car surged forward:
And this:
And this:
Seeing as how I was in stop and go bumper to bumper traffic, I drove like most automatic transmission owners do and drove via the brake, never having a need to press the accelerator. It wasn't till about 5 min later (1/8 of a mile) that it was time for me to merge with the freeway traffic. As I turned on my left indicator and moved my foot to the accelerator to blend with the flow of traffic I quickly realized I was in trouble. The accelerator was DEAD. It didn't do anything. I quickly turned on my right blinker and struggled to cut over to take the Foothill Rd. Exit. Meanwhile, trying to not get run over by freeway and merging traffic.
I pulled off the road into a parking lot. I found that the car moved forward on its own, but that I could only control the speed by braking, and could not control the acceleration.
By turning the car on and off twice I was able to get the yellow dialog box to disappear and was able to drive the car. Everything seemed to drive fine except the once in a while the Hill Start Assist warning would pop up. I should say, all of this happened half way to work, I still had about 20 miles to go, and an important meeting I needed to make. I was still a new employee and trying to make a good impression. I took it slow and stayed in the right lane, not sure if the car was going to act up again, but made it to work without further incident. At least I felt prepared if it happened again, but I was on edge for the whole drive.
Once out of my meeting at work, I was able to call Ford and get some help. Google seemed to have a wrong number for the dealership, so I somehow ended up calling Ford Corporate by accident. They were VERY helpful, and EXTREMELY concerned about what I had experienced. They got Ford Roadside Assistance involved and towed my car ALL the way home to the dealership where I had leased the car, free of charge.
The next day I drove my truck to work, ... thankfully I had another vehicle to drive. In the morning I had called the dealer and was told by the service manager John Henry that my lease did not come with complimentary rental car service. I was obviously a little frustrated with this, but understood. I wasn't at a BMW or Mercedes dealership where they let you borrow "Courtesy Cars". That said, I did feel it wasn't exactly good customer service, especially given the fact that this was a brand new car, it had put me in a VERY unsafe driving situation, and that Ford Corporate had been VERY concerned about my experience. It frankly felt like my car situation was the same to John Henry and Capitol Expressway Ford as if my A/C had broken on my 8 year old car. (That was just a random example, not a fact). It just felt like, Capitol Expressway Ford could have cared less that my brand new car had endangered me, and treated it like any other repair.
I should also be clear. I was very polite, and gracious. I learned a long time ago that yelling, being rude, and being unreasonable doesn't get you far with customer service, so I had taken the approach of bringing sugar to the lemons so that we could at least get lemonade. Also, I was giving Ford the benefit of the doubt. New cars aren't perfect, and "stuff" happens. I figured I was just a bit unlucky and this was a random fluke incident. I had no doubt that the dealer would fix things and I'd be a happy customer. (oh how wrong I was....)
I received word that the car was repaired early the following week. It turns out there was a "software" update for the transmission or PCM and that was going to fix the issue. Seeing as how the issue seemed to have been sensor/computer related this made some sense to me. The online forums supported this finding. As there was maybe a mention or two of similar situations as mine, but always seemed to involve the cold, ice/snow, and traction control.
I realized the morning of picking up my car, that it was almost due for an oil change and that the tires should probably be rotated. These hybrids recommend the oil is changed around 10,000 miles since the engine isn't running as often. I also didn't want to do anything to void my lease. I called John Henry and asked if they had done any of the scheduled maintenance since it was a leased car and it was already in the shop. He replied they "hadn't" and that I'd need to wait a few hours so they could get it done.
This wasn't a big deal, but it sure seemed stupid that I had to remind them of the service schedule seeing as how it's their job, and usually you can't get near a dealer without them trying to upsell services you don't even always need.
When I arrived to pick up my car I was a bit shocked to see that I needed to pay for the oil change. Now normally I would have expected to pay, but given the issues I had had, I kind of thought they might waive the charge as a gesture of good faith and to help with customer satisfaction. On top of that, they hadn't even bothered to plug my car in to charge it. Not a huge deal, but again a simple gesture that would have gone a long way. At this point I was starting to get a feel for the kind of customer service I should expect from Capitol Expressway Ford.
None of that mattered, I had my car back and it was driving great and I was back in the HOV lane and getting great fuel economy. I drove the car for about 5 weeks until the improbable happened.
January 11th & ~ 10,400 miles
January 11th & ~ 10,400 miles
Does that look familiar? Same exact problem as the first time. Thankfully this time it happened on a frontage road to 101 as I was pulling into the parking lot at the movie theater. Thankfully I was meeting my friend there. After the movie he was nice enough to follow me as we took side streets to the dealer. He gave me a ride back to my house after I left the car at the dealer.
Monday rolled around and I had to call the dealer to see if they had received the info in the drop box. I spoke with John Henry and expressed my disappointment and concern about the car. He promised to get to the bottom of it. Before ended the conversation I inquired about getting a loaner car since this was becoming more than a casual nuisance to my life.
At this point I should share that I live roughly 2.5 miles from the dealer. I asked if it was possible to have the loaner dropped off at my house or if it was possible to get picked up since I didn't have anyone around to provide transportation to me and leaving my other car at the dealer was not something I was interested in with regards to security for the vehicle. I was then informed that the loaner would actually be provided via Hertz rental car and that if I showed up there they'd "hook me up" and Ford would cover it.
Long story kinda short, I drove my truck to the rental lot and was given the "Manager's Special" car. Supposed to be the nicest car they had. It was a beat up early 2013 Ford Mustang convertible with over 67,000 miles. They thing was in bad shape. I was appreciative to have a car, but the mileage and lack of a HOV sticker made for a HORRENDOUS week of commuting. Especially on the day I had to go to our SF office (120+miles roundtrip in rush hour traffic). Not wanting to leave my truck at Hertz overnight, I would drive my truck to the car rental each morning and switch vehicles, leaving my truck there during the day. At no time was I informed that they could provide me a shuttle service.
After about 4-5 days in the shop, John Henry called and told me my car was ready. A little skeptical, I inquired about what had been wrong, how they fixed it and if they had been able to replicate the issue. It turned out there had been a physical short in the PCM and that they had completely replaced it with a new one. And to top it off they had been able to replicate the issue (They took it for NUMEROUS test drives and were able to experience the issue, at least so they say). For those following along, that means the car had gone into LIMP MODE 3X times in <10,500 miles. John did however top things off with fixing the little window trim pieces that had been coming off on the front side windows. He even did it for free and without me asking :) That said, they had driven my car over 70 miles (I could track via the myfordmobile app and hadn't bothered to charge the car AGAIN nor even put the 1-2 gallons of fuel in that they had used. Again, not a huge deal in the large schem eof things, but if I was trying to smooth over a customer experience like this I would have had the car detailed, full of fuel and fully charged. I was just blown away with the total lack of care provided to my situation.
Assured that my car was INDEED fixed and that physical pieces had been replaced I drove my car home (after getting a friend to drop me off, again unable to get any kind of courtesy shuttle or dropoff/delivery service from the dealership.
I had my car back and I was assured that it was fixed for good and that it would no longer endanger my driving experience.
Alright, I think that is enough background!!!
