[Ragasruoban]

Posting my own bad experience as my first thread was least expected, but it's important to share the worst that could happen to anyone giving a vehicle for service, especially with Ford vehicles! As of today, it is 30 days since the vehicle has been lying in the service center without any solution!

A quick background on the vehicle and myself
Before going through the painful story, a quick background about myself and my vehicle. I am working as a Lead Engineer for one of the top vehicle manufacturers in India. I own a 2018 Ford Aspire diesel with 55k km driven. The vehicle is driven only by myself & occasionally by my father. We get our vehicle serviced every year before the due date intimation from Ford service to avoid our mind of peace. I have enjoyed the vehicle to date, only to get it ruined by one bad experience from the service center.

On 11th Feb, I decided to get the vehicle serviced at Hans Ford, Chennai (Porur branch). My sister's marriage was planned for the upcoming week, hence wanted the vehicle in good condition before going for a long trip. For the past two years, I serviced at the same location and it has been a very decent experience without any hassles in serving/delivery of my car. But this time it turned out to be the unimaginable.

I drove the vehicle from my home & submitted the vehicle around 10:30 am, after completing the inwarding process. It was a regular 60k km/6th year service with two complaints from my side on, gear shifting being hard and bearing noise being audible at high speeds. The vehicle was submitted in driveable condition, which is the most important point to be acknowledged by the service center.

Upon collecting the vehicle, they informed me that due to the large no. of flood vehicles, it would take at least 4-5 days hence was promised delivery by 16th Feb.

The worst happens
The day before delivery i.e., on 15th Feb I gave a call to my service assistant (SA) to check the vehicle status and he replied that the vehicle servicing was completed and was taken for a test run. However, during the drive, the vehicle had broken down and had to be towed to the service center. The motor would attempt to crank the engine however, it wouldn't start.

He further added that the investigation is in progress and will update me the next day. At this point, i got a bit worried because, to date vehicle has never faced this issue but I had no other option other than waiting for an update.

The next day, I got an update that no DTC errors were shown hence some wiring may have been shorted so wiring-pin testing is in progress to identify the source.

No update till the end of the day, hence I visited the service center on 13th Feb (Saturday) to find out what was actually going on. When I reached and met their service manager, he said the diagnosis was still in progress and they were still unable to identify the root cause. I realized at this point that, they are a new technician team with limited experience hence taking a lot of time for even simple tasks.

Root cause identified but still not over yet...
After 3 whole days of "diagnosis", they identified a fuel line signal error in the system and as per Ford SOP, they had to initially remove the timing kit then followed by fuel pump to identify the root cause.

On 22nd Feb, I got a call from SA saying that the fuel pump was faulty and confirmed that by replacing it with an alternate pump, the vehicle finally cranked up. It was the fuel pump that failed at 55K km, that too exactly at the service center. Coincidence or something else?

On the same day, I got an estimate of 65K incl. labour for the replacement of Fuel pump.

My immediate question was, if the pump had failed coincidentally at the service center, why was it not informed to me while taking the vehicle for service? Why 4 days later it is being informed? Does it mean the vehicle was operational for the last 6 years and all of a sudden it fails in one test run.? If so then what's the cause of failure? No answers from the service center.


Official complaint mail to Ford customer service
I initiated the official complaint email to Ford customer service on 17th Feb before they identified the fuel pump failure. However, it is of no use, since no useful replies except for the routine "Our Ford team is working on this and will get back to you with an update".

I decided to meet and have a talk with their service head to understand the way forward since I am not buying this until Ford gives a proper root cause analysis for this failure. The issue occurred in service center and the vehicle was handed over in proper running condition.
He gave me a little hope saying that a TSR will be raised in the system and Ford will be connecting with them on guiding how to take this case forward. Based on the data collected, Ford will connect with me on telecon to mutually resolve this in the best possible way. With this assurance, I left the service center only to be awaiting this telecon for the past two weeks.

I am not sure what kind of data is being collected/analysis being done for the past 15 days without any useful output. Not sure if this will help me as an end customer, without a car for a month for no mistake of mine.

In reality, the problem is not fully solved with fuel pump replacement! After an extensive test drive, the SA confirmed that the vehicle was choking even with a good fuel pump. They are unable to identify what's the root cause for this problem yet.

With no feedback and visibility of my vehicle being back in good condition, I have completely lost trust and hope in Ford.

Further actions and way forward, looking for suggestions
I am clueless about how to take this problem forward with no support from my industry friends as well since Ford has reduced its hold on serviceability in India.
I would be highly thankful if I could get some direction from the community members on this subject.