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Dealer obligated to repair TSB's during service visits?


Van G

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Just wondering if my dealer should have at least informed, if not done the work for TSB's during my regular service visits.

 

I have a '10 Edge Ltd with the 'corroding' chrome rim edges and wheel bearings are going on them.

 

I'm doing my due diligence on how to get Ford Canada to honour their corrosion warranty (aka: court) and have come across a couple things that I'm assuming a good dealer should know/identify/address during regular service, at least that has been the case with our VW and BMW???

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TSBs are covered under warranty only if you have an existing warranty for the item and/or the TSB itself "extends" warranty coverage.

 

Rust coverage unfortunately is a "penetration only" type coverage. Actually have to make a hole in the sheetmetal.

 

Wheel bearings should be covered under powertrain/drivetrain warranty. If you are under the 5 yr/60K umbrella or have extended warranty that covers these items, you should be good.

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If you had to do research to find out the problems on your car, then they're not really problems. Just because the TSB is applicable to your vehicle doesn't mean that your vehicle actually has or will ever have the problem described in the TSB.

If you expect your dealer to fix problems you don't tell them about, you will be dissapointed.

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"If you had to do research to find out the problems on your car, then they're not really problems."

- not sure I follow

 

"If you expect your dealer to fix problems you don't tell them about, you will be dissapointed."

 

Here's my line of thinking by example: I've been to the dealer a number of times for standard service before I started researching a few things on my vehicle. At least 3 of those service involved rotating the tires and all of them would have involved checking tire pressure.

 

My chrome clad rims show the exact issue outlined in the TSB. Would it not have been good customer service for the dealer to address the issue and let me know that it had been done or could be done at a later time?

 

My only assumption is that they knew of the TSB which I'm assuming is a safe assumption.

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That's a slightly different scenario. The way you said it originally it sounded like you thought they should look up every TSB out on your vehicle and do something.

 

A good service tech might point out that the wheels had a problem, but typically that's your responsibility to bring up. And even with a TSB that doesn't mean it gets fixed for free unless it's still under warranty.

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The 2010 Edge has 25 TSBs written against it. Multiply that by 10-15 different models times the 3-6 years that warranty coverage applies and you have hundreds of TSBs out there. There is no way a tech can be aware of all of them. Besides, I would expect that the tech doing tire rotations is one of the "entry level" guys who hasn't been through a lot of training and hasn't had exposure to TSBs.

 

Even then, not all customers consider all things to be problems. Ford's entire business plan is based around the fact that not everybody is an extremely picky customer and while some might complain

about an issue, others won't.

 

If Ford just went ahead and fixed everything that wasn't perfect without a customer asking, they would be broke in a few weeks.

Edited by Waldo
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Not to mention the fact that us techs can't possibly remember every single TSB for every year and model of vehicle. The TSB's are nothing more than information for US to use to help diagnose and fix common problems. Plus if it is still under warranty, a dealer isn't about to do ANY warranty work they don't have to...... our warranty numbers would be through the roof! If there is a problem that the customer is complaining about, we run OASIS to see if there is a TSB that applies, and determine if warranty coverage applies from that point.... that's all TSB's are for...information only. We do look the vehicles over but it's the customers responsibility to notify us of problems..... our job is to get the car in, fix it, and get it out the door. We're paid flat rate, we get paid to fix your car, not to go over it with a comb and find every little problem..... you drive it everyday, that's your job

Edited by thirdgenlxi
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If I run into a problem with the Edge, I start searching the 'net and broadening the search progressively as each level continues to provide unsatisfactory results. I am willing to cross models & even makes to find the answer. It CAN be time-consuming though (time I am sure the techs do not generally have), which is why having a helpful forum like this is such a valuable asset to the community. Learning & sharing is good for us all. But if the customer does their research and brings up possible solutions, that should be taken into consideration by the serviceperson as well. Collaboration.

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  • 2 weeks later...

At least at the dealer I take my car in for service, they try to actively review TSBs to see what additional service might be required during the visit. On the service record I saw the brake booster, APIM extended warranties without having to ask specifically about them. They also seem to use all of the maintenance tools available to them (inspection reports, maintaining history of previous visits. As people have mentioned before, its all about collaboration but some dealers are more proactive than others.

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