Ford, the Dealership, and the Customer: a Tenuous Relationship
Ford and its dealerships are, of course, not one and the same. As their legal relationship is one of franchisor-franchisee, their interests aren't always in line. To this end, Ford sends factory represent-atives out in the field when a customer makes a complaint relating to a dealership, and these factory reps may or may not look at things the same way as the dealer. Though both parties know that making the customer happy is the avenue to making more money in the future, making dough on repairs now (the dealership's possible view) or saving money in not paying for a warranty claim (the factory view) may outweigh this in some cases-and lead to claim denial with little or no investigation as to the actual cause of the problem.
Think about it from a business perspective: In general, Ford dealerships want you to come back and buy another car from them, have your car serviced there, and otherwise keep the cash flow coming. They're fully aware that the goodwill you spread will keep them in business. Golick explains, "When a customer has a problem and brings the car in to the dealer where he bought the car or where his family has bought a car, a bond of trust exists where the dealer is inclined to fix the car. In some cases, the dealership personnel will turn their heads to make the customer happy in order to retain him. The trick is to get dealer to look at your side. If the diagnostic scanner shows an incorrect program in the engine computer, or something out of parameters, they have the choice between ignoring it or putting it on file.
"Similarly, imagine a car with otherwise normal computer readings but with a nitrous tap in the intake elbow. The dealership can choose not to see certain things in order to make the customer happy.
"But if you go in there with a bunch of hop-up parts and say the clutch is slipping or a valve guide is bad, the parts may not be directly connected to the problem, so to speak; but it could be that a detonation condition that would have otherwise existed has been aggravated by the computer chip the customer installed. In such a case, the dealer may lay the blame on something other than what is really the true problem."
As mentioned earlier, dealerships are on different levels of program control and authority on the types of repairs they can do. This determination is based on a dealer's warranty cost relative to its sales numbers overall, and depends on the number of people who come into that dealership for repairs and how many of those repairs are done under warranty. "So, depending on the level of repair, the dealership may need authority from the factory to do it," says Golick.
The Magnuson-Moss act often comes into play in this factory-dealer relationship as well, and thanks to it creating the potential for expensive litigation, the dealership may wish to be more lenient with a customer than it would otherwise.
"The dealership's neck is almost always on the chopping block one way or another," Golick says. "Often the dealers get the factory involved at their own volition so that the factory is the bad guy in turning off the warranty coverage. That is, the dealer will say they need approval from the factory representative to fix your car; then they'll go to the rep, and get the rep to say the car has been modified-even though they're the ones who told the rep to say it. The dealership wants you to think it's the factory that denied your warranty claim because when it comes down to a lawsuit-whether it be a Magnuson-Moss suit, a small-claims suit, or whatever-the dealer wants the company to be involved. But dealerships can't wriggle out of litigation so easily. Often the factory asks for dealer participation in the suit if they think there's some responsibility on their part, and the dealer will have to pay legal fees proportionate to their fault in the matter, as per the franchise agreement. So there's some good news for enthusiasts there: If the dealer wants no part in litigation-they have been sued before and know what goes on, for example-they'll try to avoid a suit from the get-go. As such, dealers sometimes by knowing the law and having had experience will just do the repair under warranty and not push it any further."
As one can see, the complex relationship that exists between Ford, the dealerships, and the customers is one in which many conflicts of interest exist. But there's no changing it, and it must be dealt with for what it is.
The lines get blurred even further when Ford creates something like the SVT Owners Association, which holds open track, autocrossing, and drag racing events. You get free enrollment in the organization. What if you snap a halfshaft drag racing at an SVTOA event? Is your part covered by your warranty, when all you were doing was par-ticipating in a Ford-sponsored event, as a member of an organization SVT and Ford enrolled you in?