FORD DENIED MY CLAIM EVEN THOUGH I HAVE ONLY HAD MY VEHICLE FOR 17 MONTHS WITH 17K MILES. SHAME ON YOU FORD.
I purchased a brand new Ford Fiesta ST from Sheehy Ford in Warrenton Virginia. I have owned the car for 17 months and it has 17K miles on it currently. My wife is the only driver of this car and she has been driving a vehicle with a clutch for 31 years with no clutch failures in all her time driving a vehicle with a clutch.
On July 31st 2016 my wife was coming home from dropping our daughter off at work and all of a sudden with no warning at all, the clutch in the vehicle failed to operate leaving my wife stranded in the middle of a busy road.
The vehicle was towed to the dealer where we purchased it and it sat there for three days. I asked the service tech what he thought was wrong with the car and he said he felt confident that it was the master slave cylinder that was faulty and that it would be covered under warranty. Fast forward to the day they removed the transmission for further inspection/diagnosis and they determined that the clutch was the culprit and that it was due to improper operation or abuse.
My wife is 50 years old and has been driving a car with a standard transmission for over thirty years and has never abused any of her vehicles. Stating that it was improperly driven is an insult and saying it was abused is pure speculation I firmly believe this clutch was defective and failed prematurely. I escalated this issue up to Ford's customer service reps and they all determined the same thing the dealer determined. They flat out denied my warranty claim based upon pictures and based upon a determination from the dealer that the clutch was abused or improperly driven. I spoke with a few professionals and distributed the photos of the clutch online and everyone I spoke to said that a clutch should last at minimum of 60K miles and most should last much longer to even 160K miles. The dealer claimed that this was a high performance clutch and I made the statement that if it is a high performance clutch then why did it fail prematurely?
This car is still under the manufacturers bumper to bumper 3 year 36K miles warranty and there is no reason this clutch should have failed other than it was defective or installed incorrectly at the factory.
Now they want us to pay nearly $2,000 dollars to replace a clutch in a vehicle that we only paid $20K within less than 18 months of ownership.
I have contacted my local ABC, and NBC news outlets to further make aware the problems I am having with Ford and to vet my severe dissatisfaction with the way you treat your customers and the fact you are not standing behind a product you make.
Attached are some photos of a clutch that failed at 17K miles. I have a 2004 Subaru with the original clutch of which I took with me to Germany while I was deployed with the military. I drove this car on the German Autobahn and once around the famed Nurburgring and it still shows no signs of even the beginnings of a failure, yet I buy a car that is marketed as a performance vehicle from Ford and I can not even get through two years of ownership and I am being forced to pay for a clutch that failed way before it's time. If you value me as a customer, please step up to the plate and fix this problem.
V/r
Steven Watts
I purchased a brand new Ford Fiesta ST from Sheehy Ford in Warrenton Virginia. I have owned the car for 17 months and it has 17K miles on it currently. My wife is the only driver of this car and she has been driving a vehicle with a clutch for 31 years with no clutch failures in all her time driving a vehicle with a clutch.
On July 31st 2016 my wife was coming home from dropping our daughter off at work and all of a sudden with no warning at all, the clutch in the vehicle failed to operate leaving my wife stranded in the middle of a busy road.
The vehicle was towed to the dealer where we purchased it and it sat there for three days. I asked the service tech what he thought was wrong with the car and he said he felt confident that it was the master slave cylinder that was faulty and that it would be covered under warranty. Fast forward to the day they removed the transmission for further inspection/diagnosis and they determined that the clutch was the culprit and that it was due to improper operation or abuse.
My wife is 50 years old and has been driving a car with a standard transmission for over thirty years and has never abused any of her vehicles. Stating that it was improperly driven is an insult and saying it was abused is pure speculation I firmly believe this clutch was defective and failed prematurely. I escalated this issue up to Ford's customer service reps and they all determined the same thing the dealer determined. They flat out denied my warranty claim based upon pictures and based upon a determination from the dealer that the clutch was abused or improperly driven. I spoke with a few professionals and distributed the photos of the clutch online and everyone I spoke to said that a clutch should last at minimum of 60K miles and most should last much longer to even 160K miles. The dealer claimed that this was a high performance clutch and I made the statement that if it is a high performance clutch then why did it fail prematurely?
This car is still under the manufacturers bumper to bumper 3 year 36K miles warranty and there is no reason this clutch should have failed other than it was defective or installed incorrectly at the factory.
Now they want us to pay nearly $2,000 dollars to replace a clutch in a vehicle that we only paid $20K within less than 18 months of ownership.
I have contacted my local ABC, and NBC news outlets to further make aware the problems I am having with Ford and to vet my severe dissatisfaction with the way you treat your customers and the fact you are not standing behind a product you make.
Attached are some photos of a clutch that failed at 17K miles. I have a 2004 Subaru with the original clutch of which I took with me to Germany while I was deployed with the military. I drove this car on the German Autobahn and once around the famed Nurburgring and it still shows no signs of even the beginnings of a failure, yet I buy a car that is marketed as a performance vehicle from Ford and I can not even get through two years of ownership and I am being forced to pay for a clutch that failed way before it's time. If you value me as a customer, please step up to the plate and fix this problem.
V/r
Steven Watts