Advantage Ford

Now 5th time same repairs on our 2004 Heritage edition F150 Their service department is a disaster. Stay away at any cost! Justin Swinton will lie to you at every chance he gets. What I am going to tell y Their service department is a disaster. Stay away at any cost! Justin Swinton will lie to you at every chance he gets. What I am going to tell you here, has been going on for over a year. I have dates of conversations with this dealership as well as all the service documents, won't bore you with the details. We took our 2004 F150 in to repair a leaking pinion seal. I drove to Edmonton that very next weekend, just as I pulled into town there was a horrible grinding noise coming from the rear of the truck. Then next day Saturday, I took it to a local Edmonton Ford dealership. They told me that the pinion nut had not been tightened properly and this had caused a bearing to fail in the diff. (I have proof in pictures and in a letter that was written and given to me from said dealer) I took the truck back to Advantage and told them what happened, with that proof, they fixed the truck, replacing parts at their cost. A while later there was a horrible loud clunk from the rear of the truck, another (unsure if it was the same one) bearing in the diff failed again, they said it was a parts failure, cost would be covered by service parts warranty. That brings us to our more recent bearing failure (unsure if it was same bearing as first 2), which they replaced again, covered by service parts warranty. The very next day we got the truck back, a bearing(s) failed again, unsure which one. When it happened the second time, I asked if it was an issue with the actual housing that was causing failures. I was told, "no that it couldn't be, as the housing was strong and it could not be that, it had to be a bad batch of bearings". So here were are, at the 4th time the bearings have failed. (unsure if it is the same one failing all the time) They are now saying is not a bearing issue, but actual differential housing issue, with truck is "old as it is" that there is too much wear in the housing, that they told me just a few months ago wasn't the issue!?, so that I might have to pay $1500 to $3000 dollars to "probably" replace the axle..? This truck is just over 140K for mileage, that is just over 10k per year on this vehicle, which is nothing for mileage for a vehicle this age. This truck has only ever been to Edmonton or Lethbridge, has spent all of it's life in Calgary, has never been off road, been loaded with anything other than a couple of pieces of wood, or a couple of pails of dirt, ever. ..but the differential housing "has to much wear and might need to be replaced"...? I have talked with other Ford dealerships and axle repair businesses, and was told the only reason why the housing would need to be replace was because of the internal damage caused by the first bearing failure and the repeated bearing failures there after which would damage the internal surfaces of the differential housing.. ..which I asked about the second time that a bearing failed and was told that it was not the problem!? All of this caused by a tech not tightening a pinion nut properly.. We are dropping off this truck again Mar 14-2017, so we will see what kind of xx reason they have this time. All I can say is stay far away from this dealerships service department, they will fail at every turn, blame anyone or anything else but themselves for the terrible workmanship that they provide. Update: It has taken 6 days before we get any news. Mon 20th the "service manager" calls to tells us, and I quote: "the rear tires are not the same size", "the axles are turning at a different speed", "that is the clicking noise you here, the clutches are slipping", "that will go away once the tires are the same size". "the one tire is showing cord" and "we took the rear tires and put them on the front, there was a noisy shake and a terrible pull to the one side" We get the truck home and looked at the tires, there is NOT ONE showing any cord, I measured all the tires, and the rear tires have a circumference size between them a minimal, 1.4mm difference. The front tires where the same size. He said, "they switched rear tires to front, and the rear gear clicking noise went away". We get it home the tires are still on the rear, so they moved them to the front and then back to the rear? I took off the rear tires an put them on the front and test drove it (along with 3 other people), no terrible pull, (I could let go of the steering wheel and it would still go straight down the road), no shake or noise and still the clicking from the rear gears, even with the front tires on the back, which had the same circumference size between them. So I measure the circumference of the summer tires, there is not even 0.5mm of a difference between all 4 of them. It has been 2 weeks and the clicking from the rear gears has not gone away and it is louder than ever. This "service manager" Justin Swinton is nothing but a complete liar, every word that comes out of his mouth is total xx. "the axles are turning at a different speed", "that is the clicking noise you here, the clutches are slipping", If you use that argument, the rear gear should click every time we go around a corner, which they never did, until now. A locker diff would clicking when the axles turn at a different speed, this is a clutch slip diff designed not to make noise when that happens, so says 4 other Ford dealerships. Words cannot describe how completely utterly frustrated we are with their xx and lies. Their service broke this and now they are using whatever excuse they can to not fix what they have broken. I am going to call them again today April 11-17 and we will see what happens. This will be the 6th time to get this fixed. Another frustrating fact, is that the general manager has not called us, nor has he bothered to respond to our posts online, yet to other online posts he responds in a few days..? This is not going to go away, by simply just trying to ignore it. It is now April 18-17, we go to drop off our truck, (which I was told by a person on the phone last week that Brad the assistant service manager was going to look into the history of), today the service advisor Vanessa calls Brad and the shop foreman, Kevin, and THEN they go an look into the history of this truck..? which they had a week to look at the history of and they only do it today?, or they are just playing a game as they could have told us at anytime in the week before we dropped it off today that they were not going to repair it. Needless to say they now are refusing to repair this truck, that they have rebuilt this rear end on multiple times, which they broke the first time when they did not tighten the pinion nut on the original repair, yes it was a pinion seal that we gave them to use, but it was a Ford part seal that we bought from a FORD dealership and it was probably bought from their dealership to begin with. Again, nothing but excuses for their terrible workmanship, (they are now going to refund about $160 bucks worth of shop materials), which they are now refusing to fix, by the sounds of it because we went on a public forum to express the terrible service that we have been getting here for the past year. Which in all of our previous 18 years and 4 trucks we have never had an issue with, until now. After a frustrating conversation with Kevin, who now says it was because of "an issue before", what issue could have that been?, they do all of the service and INSPECTIONS on this truck, if it was from "an issue from before", why was nothing said to us before? Again, nothing but excuses, for their poor service, because in all of 13 years that this truck has been serviced by them (with no previous service issues), they have not told us of ANY "issue from before". Brad tells me that they have "endured the expense of repairing this twice" and that there is now nothing they can do because "this is no longer our issue", but if they had fixed it right the very first time, they would have not had to 'endure the expense of having to repair this twice', is it really that hard for someone here to do their job right? (This is the third time we have had this issue fixed from the the original repair that they had done because of the non-tightening of pinion nut). One should also note, that these repairs are covered by the Ford service parts warranty, so the dealership gets refunded the whole cost, or part of the cost, for these repairs, so I doubt that they had to "endure" to much because of this ongoing repair. Again this is sounding all to familiar, they just keep coming up with nothing but random excuses as to why it is not their fault that this is still broken. Here is a thought, how about yes, we broke it the first time, let us repair this correctly for you. I have asked to talk with the dealership manager, so we will see how that goes, because internet forum shaming doesn't seem to work, maybe we need to go to the local news channels and have them broadcast city wide, no southern Alberta wide about the terrible service that this dealership now provides. If I was looking for a dealership to repair my vehicle, and if I were you, I would not take it here. Update to follow. More

terrible negligent service Absolutely terrible service. They have been trying to fix the same problem with my truck on warranty for 5 months. it has been in 4 times for up to 1 Absolutely terrible service. They have been trying to fix the same problem with my truck on warranty for 5 months. it has been in 4 times for up to 10 days at a time. I don't know if they're milking the warranty for more work or if they're just to stupid or incompetent to find the problem and fix it. it's obvious that they're just guessing at what the problem could be. they let it sit for days with no work done or update and then when they apparently figure it out they lie about when it will be fixed. Then to top it off this week i picked it up after the latest "fix" to the recurring problem and my truck had been vandalized on their lot and had the exhaust system stolen with about $6500 in damage. The incompetent staff couldn't even notice the problem when they brought the truck up to me with the exhaust cut off and smoking. All common sense would say that when my vehicle is in their care they should be responsible for it but they take no responsibility at all and put it on me to take care of the damage. There is no security or cameras watching the lot at all. If not responsible they are at least negligent for not taking proper care. More