Taxi Driver Online

Has anyone had any trouble with Ford motor company warranties or with new transit tourneo mini-buses. I have a problem with my electrics which is a bit too long and complicated to go into on here but the bus has been in to the dealership 15 times with the same problem. I have contacted the ford customer care centre, a guy is ringing me every week for updates. The dealership don't seem to be able to sort this problem out, I am pulling my hair out coz they are taking too long to fix problems and my vehicle is off the road, which means I lose a load of takings. For example it took a day and a half to replace the wheel bearing!! I have aked Ford for a replacement vehicle to use till they sort out my problem, but with it beign a taxi it would have to be plated up by the local authority and ford say that they cannot do this. Any advice on this matter would be very much appreciated.

did you buy it new? and how long ago?

if you bought it new not too long ago you can demand that ford give you a new replacement. i read something like this in this months 'What-Car' magazine. but it was with a car not a mini-bus. worth a try.

The bigest problem with warranties, that is rife in London at the moment is the conditions of them, sorry I can not help with the ford thing as I do not know anyone who has one but I have heard two stories recently one involving Chrysler and the involving Toyata.

Both parties re negged on the warranty deal because the mileage had gone over the recomended service intervals and therefore was said by the dealer to have been a contributory factor in causing whatever it was to fail and therefore it was not covered by warranty.

These guy's said on both occaision the mileage was only a few hundred over, sounds like they are attacking the taxi industry to me.

Regards

Eric

I bought it 12 months ago from The Taxi Centre. Its done 82000 miles, so I don't think Ford would be up for exchanging it.
I'm just going round in circles with it at the moment, the dealership cant diagnose the electrical fault, It keeps going in for a day, and coming out with the words "we can't get the fault to occur, so we can't cure it" ringing in my ears. Every time it visits the dealers it costs me in lost takings.

is it an ECU managment problem?

if ford dont want to know, you might be better off in the long run going to a electrical / ECU chip re-mapper. they re-program the chip by driving around with you and running the vehicle off their software on a lap top, they can then see what is happening on the screen in front of them and sort it out. once they find the best settings they transfer the new set-up on to your ECU chip. costs about £450 and if nothing else should give you better MPG and a bit more BHP/torque power.

i know a driver on another firm who had this done in his MPV and he says it paid for itself in better MPG twice over within 9 months. and a noticeable amount of extra kick as a bonus.

Thanks for your idea, Steveo, the electrical problem is with the windscreen wipers, when they are run on intermittent they blow the fuse in the fuse box. Sometimes this occurs after a short time, other times they can be sweeping away for a few hours. At the mo I don't use the intermittent sweep, they work fine on continuous sweep. The problem is that the Ford Dealership can't cure this, can you believe it?

My man suggests that The Ford dealership changes the wiper motor. He would lay money that something in their is shorting (even though on an intermittent basis)

Hope that helps

Thanks for the suggestion, the wiper motor has already been changed. The problem still persists. Ford want me to take the vehicle off the road for 5 days so they can send a technician to the dealership for an examination. Ford will not provide me with a replacement, plated vehicle so i'm at a stalemate. The past couple of months have been a struggle as it has for all of us in this trade. I am just saving what I can to be able to take the bus off the road for 5 days probably in Feb. I have been considering legal action to try and recover my lost earnings, the bus has been off the road 19 days since april with this problem.

HAVE YOU TRIED REPLACING THE WIPER STALK?
JUST A GUESS

My advice would be take it to an auto electrician who can do a fault diagnosis with a little computer, the big dealers refuse to take them to these people because they will be able to find the fault in a flash and make the dealers look like pillocks.

I had the wiper stalk replaced in November. The dealership workshop manager said he had found a brown sticky substance on it. His diagnosis was either cola or coffee. He said he would bet me any money that my problem was cured. 2 or 3 days later the fuse blew again. Also, a fuse started to blow in the little fuse box in the dash board after this visit to the dealers. This is for the air-con, dashboard heater, and rear window demister. I took it back again and after a day in the workshop they said i could collect it, they gave me two replacement fuses, which i've used.

Does the fuse blow when it's raining???

Scooch it sounds like a problem within the console.

Scooch,
Thanks for the tip, I am buying minibuses right now, and Ford has been crossed off my list

a problem a main dealer cannot sort? no good to anybody cut your losses and get shut quick, and dont look at ford again.

Yes, Nidge the fuse blows when its raining. The wipers work ok on continuous sweep tho. The problem, according to Ford, is that they cannot get the fault to occur when its in the hands of the dealer so they cant pull a fault code from the engine management system or so they say.

Yorkie, how can I get out of this? The bus is on finance, I've only had it 15 months.