So given that background I really felt that the car was fixed and that I was going to be able to enjoy my newish car without the fear of it failing on me in dangerous situations.
WRONG!
WRONG!
This brings me to the latest incident. (I told you this was LONG). Thursday, March 27th 2014 @ ~14,100 miles, I was driving to our new Santa Clara office sitting in the HOV lane metering lights to merge onto 101N from Hwy 87. Two cars from the metering light, my Fusion acts up again.
Doesn't this look familiar?
I was awe struck, I couldn't believe it had happened again! This time it was a VERY scary situation. I knew I could restart the car and limp it to the next off ramp, but on first try it didn't work. As the metering light turned green there was nothing I could do but SLOWLY roll forward and put my hazards on, trying to get out of the way of the 3 lanes of metering lights merging into the congested freeway. Once moving a bit I was able to just use the brake and drive with the stop and go traffic. However, about a mile later traffic opened up and I soon found myself maxed out at 35mph with no accelerator function and cars blowing by me at over 70mph.
I found a "shoulder" to pull over and after a few honks and close calls came to a stop between a concrete wall on my right and cars blowing by at 60+mph on my left. Knowing that it was unsafe to stay there, I was able to get the car restarted a second time which enabled the accelerator and allowed me to move again with CONTROL.
My exit for work happened to be the next exit and I was able to drive the car to the large parking lot. I parked in the middle of an empty section so that the tow truck could come pickup the car easily and went to work beyond frustrated that my Fusion was a complete unsafe piece of junk.
I called the dealership thinking that they know my "case" better than anyone and will obviously drop everything to help an obviously BAD customer experience situation. I was told that John Henry (Service Advisor) was busy and that he'd call me back ASAP. This was at 9:10am. I decided to call the dealer back and ask to speak to the Salesman who had leased me the car since I knew he'd want to at least pretend to care and provide CUSTOMER service as opposed to car service. I hadn't filled him in on any of the previous incidents as I assumed the service department was handling things. The front desk forwarded me to his line. A gentleman answered the phone who was obviously not my salesman and informed me that "Albert"(my salesman) no longer worked there. Before he could hang up I asked if it would be possible to forward me to the Dealership Manager as I was looking to discuss an ongoing problem with my car. He said he'd try to forward me and with one press of a button on his side, I was hung up on.
So... I called the dealer a third time, this time telling the receptionist I wished to speak with the Manager. I was told the manager was gone today and that he'd be in tomorrow (Friday). I asked to speak to someone who was next in charge. I was forwarded to someone who was obviously a bit more knowledgeable and informed me that I needed to called FORD RAV (reacquired vehicle program). At least I was getting somewhere. He said that he couldn't help me nor could the dealer and that this was a corporate issue. Again, VERY little concern for my safety and my experience. He seemed much more interested in "passing the buck" to corporate and made no gesture to help me through the process.
I decided to hold off on calling Ford Corporate since I wanted to be able to answer the phone when John Henry was available, I had been told it'd be about 10min.
2 hours later I decided to call Ford Corporate and fill them in on what was going on as it was clear the dealership didn't care about my situation and John had never called back.
After a few folks I was transferred to an "Energi Expert" and I was given an opportunity to explain what was going on. While not very forthcoming with details and not exactly A+ customer service, she was able to document my issues and laid out the process for getting my situation reviewed by the FORD RAV "team" to see if the lemon law applied here. She informed me that I would hear back within 10 days and that if I don't hear back with in 15 days to call a # and ask to speak to Randene. At this point I was feeling a bit stuck. The dealership wasn't calling me back and corporate was giving me a VERY corporate response and I was supposed to wait 10 days for some "review board" who doesn't know anything about what is going on, and decides if Ford will "buy" my LEASED car back.
At least they forwarded me on to Ford Roadside Assistance to have the car towed back to the dealer. There was NO WAY I was going to be driving that car ever again. Roadside was once again very easy to work with, VERy concerned about my immediate safety and made the entire tow truck thing, EASY!
