Buyer Beware!

On 10-16 my wife and I dropped our 2002 Focus ZTW off at Ford of Orange. It was misfiring badly and the check engine light was either on solid, or blinking ominously.

On 10-17 Oscar Rosales, the service adviser, called me and told me that there were two problems with the car: 1) The spark plug wires were bad. 2) The ignition coil module was bad. The latter was covered by the $50 deductible of our extended warranty, but he told me it would cost $299.95 (+tax!) to replace the wires - which were not covered under warranty. I did some online research and quickly discovered that the wires could be bought for as little as $20.27 (autosupplywarehouse.com), or as much as $33.99 at my local Autozone.

On 10-18 I went back to Ford to inquire as to their outrageous price. I was told that the wires cost $70, plus 2 hours of labor, plus a 1/2 hour for sharing the diagnostic charge with the warrantied repair. I asked Oscar if he had ever changed spark plug wires in a car before. He said he had not - a great qualifier for a service adviser! I explained to him how ridiculously easy the process is, estimating that it could take no more than 5 minutes - a far cry from 120 minutes! I told him that it was ok to do the warrantied repair (coil module), but that we were not going to pay $299.95 for a $20 part and 5 minutes of effort (half of which would have to be done under warranty to remove the coil module!). He told me that they could not replace the coil module until the wires had been changed. I told him to bring the car up, that I would fix it and return it to him. I took the car to the street next to the dealership, parked it legally, and popped the hood. I removed the old wires and installed the new ones, including re-mounting the factory wire clips. According to my stopwatch this took all of 2 minutes and 38 seconds! I drove the car back to Oscar, having picked up the car less than 5 minutes before, and told him to fix the coil module. Needless to say he looked very surprised!

For some reason, it took them 2 more days to replace the coil module - a process that takes about 15 minutes. While I am generally in favor of our capitalistic society, it concerns me when a company willfully misrepresents the cost and difficulty of a simple repair to the public. I knew better, and my knowledge saved us about $270 (730%). I am writing this so that other customers will: 1) Avoid Ford of Orange as to enforce a penance upon this dishonest company. 2) Be skeptical with regard to the true cost of automotive repairs - so often misrepresented by dealerships.

p.s. Along the lines of the preceding, I had a similar incident at Crevier BMW's service department. I took in our 540iT because the PDC (Parking Distance Control) sensors were acting strangely. Later that day I received a call and was told that the repair would not be covered under warranty because it was their assertion that the wire on one of the sensors looked like it had been "chewed on". They could replace the sensor for appx. $270, or try to repair it in an estimated 2 hours: for $250. I told them not to repair it. I picked up the car and took it to a local independent BMW repair shop BMS (714-429-0257, in Santa Ana). I repeated the story to the owner of the shop and he popped the faulty PDC sensor out, soldered the wire, and replaced it in less than 15 minutes. Another case of a dealer trying to milk a gullible public.