Help Please! Rejection Of Ford Fiesta St On Pcp

[cgooderham94]

Apologies for the essay...

Back at the end of July I

took delivery of a 'brand new' Ford Fiesta ST-3 on PCP finance. I did the usual
and did a quick walk-round to scan for obvious signs of damage; pointing out some
white marks on the black plastic on the rear bumper (i'll explain this later).
They masked these white marks white bumper plastic restorer and I thought
nothing more of it.

Took the car home, drove

it around for a few days and booked the car in to be life-shined. When the
valeter arrived, he did a walk-round to check for damage before he begins on
the car and was quick to point out some very serious scratching around one of
the rear parking sensors and lower left section of the bumper .

Amongst this issue, about

700 miles on the clock and some really serious tapping sounds developed from
the variable valve timing unit making it sound like a diesel. I took loads of
videos and reported this fault along with a rattling sound when the climate
control was run and before I know it, the car is back at the dealership to have
the problems looked into. IMG_1464.MOV They said they could hear the climate control issue
and followed a service bulletin to re-gas the system (which turns out to have
made no difference at all) but said they couldn't see anything wrong this the
VVT-unit. The car was cleaned whilst on their site (without my consent) and I
drove home rather miffed with the outcome.

After getting the car back

home I notice that the car was absolutely covered in 'swirl' like scratches as
a result of them cleaning the car. I took a video of the damage, along with the
scratching I mentioned on the rear bumper and made a swift complaint to the
service manager. Took the car back in, showed him the damage they had done and
the video I took. He took liability for the swirls but said at no point would
the damage to the rear bumper have occurred on his site whether before delivery
or when it came in for investigation. They paid for the car to be polished but
the valeting company said they weren't prepared to touch the rear bumper
because of the extent of the damage and nature of the lacquer.

Back again to ford to tell

them about the damage on the bumper but once again I was palmed off and told it
did not at any point occur on his site. At which point I left it that I was
less than happy with the outcome.

Again, whilst all this was

happening, I was still not satisfied with the tapping coming from the VVT so I
booked the car back in to Ford but this time a different dealership (but still
a Marshall dealership, I won't point fingers any further). The car went in and
low and behold, they agree that there is an issue but not one that has been
flagged up on ETIS before. So they took up a case with Ford technical, who then
escalated the issue to Ford Germany and Ford China. Two weeks later and they're
resolution to the problem is to 'change the oil and filters'; what a load of
b****cks.

Yesterday, I took the car

to a well regarded body shop local to me to see how much it would cost to have
the rear bumper re-sprayed (after accepting that no amount of arguing is going
to get Ford to confess to the damage). Within about 30 seconds of him taking a
look at it, he pointed out that the bumper had be re-sprayed because of three
tell-tale signs. 1) There was a small amount of masking tape that hadn't been
removed from the reflector 2) The fixing screws showed evidence of being
removed 3) The paint should have a 'three stage pearl' applied but the person
who repaired it had mixed the metallic paint with the lacquer hence the area
did not shine as it should with a three stage pearl. The body shop also pointed
out the appalling quality of the lacquer applied to my car as it gives an
orange peel effect rather than a mirror finish. Needless to say, he insisted I
should take the car straight back to the dealership and reject it.

I look back to the video I
had shot a month prior which I initially showed the service manager and low and
behold you can see the masking tape on the reflector which I had never even
spotted before. At this point I am now furious that I've been lied to by Ford
who insisted that the bumper wasn't damaged on their site. If the bumper really
wasn't damaged by them then then only other place it could have occurred was at
the factory. If this as the case then why was the damage not picked up on the
PDI?? Something just isn't right here!! And now I think about it even more,
when I picked the car up and pointed out the residue on the bumper, this all
points to the fact that someone has tried to cover up the damage by applying
polish which was directly below the area of damage on the bumper. The dealership
never told me about any damage the occurred when I picked the car up.

So the point I have been
building up to is that the car has four defects; 1) the air con rattle 2) the
VVT tapping 3) the damage to the rear bumper and 4) the terrible quality of the
lacquer. So not only have I been sold the car under false pretences, it is also
of less than satisfactory quality as I am left with two mechanical and one
paint faults that STILL aren't sorted. I pay £250 a month for what should be a
brand new car and to be quite honest I am disgusted at the quality the
treatment i've had from the dealership. Needless to say, I'm now putting my
foot down and want to demand rejection of the car. After researching, I am
aware that the sales of goods act has now changed making it much less hassle to
reject a new car that is not of satisfactory quality.

My question to you guys is how should I go about rejecting the car? What would you do in my situation? I've got loads of pictures, videos, emails as evidence. The car is only three months old, they've had numerous occasions to sort these faults out and the sheer amount of them I feel gives me a pretty solid case IMO.

[Phil 87]

They really screwed you over there, I hope you can get it sorted but I don't know anything about rejecting a new car.

What I would say is contact Ford customer services directly and complain about this, and do it by email so you have a record of it all. I've done this when dealing with a horrible creaking sound which turned out to be the gear linkage, and Ford were very good contacting the dealers where I had the work done and making sure it all got sorted. I even got a £75 Ford voucher becasue of the inconvenience lol.

[cgooderham94]

They really screwed you over there, I hope you can get it sorted but I don't know anything about rejecting a new car.

What I would say is contact Ford customer services directly and complain about this, and do it by email so you have a record of it all. I've done this when dealing with a horrible creaking sound which turned out to be the gear linkage, and Ford were very good contacting the dealers where I had the work done and making sure it all got sorted. I even got a £75 Ford voucher becasue of the inconvenience lol.

I contacted Ford customer services a few weeks back as you suggested. A few weeks later and I have good news, the dealership I bought it from have accepted rejection of my car. They are refunding me the full deposit I put down on it. I have placed an order for a Focus ST-3 now instead but have a gruelling wait until February/March next year I'm told.

[Ianb]

Um....Did you order it from the same dealership?

[cgooderham94]

Um....Did you order it from the same dealership?

I did yes, whys that?

[alexp999]

Just FYI, the ecoboost do sound like a diesel at idle due to the high pressure injectors.

The Focus ST sounds very diesel like with the bonnet up at idle due to the injectors and the cam timing being chain driven.

[cgooderham94]

Just FYI, the ecoboost do sound like a diesel at idle due to the high pressure injectors.

The Focus ST sounds very diesel like with the bonnet up at idle due to the injectors and the cam timing being chain driven.

Yeah I appreciate that and was happy with the 'ambient' sound of the engine. The VVT issue was something completely different though and the Ford workshop admitted that there definitely was an issue.

Fortunately, I'm going for a diesel Focus ST so will become all too familiar with a noisier engine; petrol would have been great but I can't justify the running costs on my wage unfortunately.

[Ianb]

I did yes, whys that?

Just appears you've had a heck of a lot of hassle from them..

[cgooderham94]

Just appears you've had a heck of a lot of hassle from them..

Yes your right, I have, but I just can't turn down the offer they made plus I get discount being a group employee. I will learn from mistakes made and keep my fingers crossed for this car.

[Ianb]

Yes your right, I have, but I just can't turn down the offer they made plus I get discount being a group employee. I will learn from mistakes made and keep my fingers crossed for this car.

Of course the flip side is now they know that they can't fob you off....so it's a bit like *touch wood* lightning not striking twice...

[cgooderham94]

Yeah exactly, they've been really good about sorting it to be fair. They've just asked to 'wipe the slate clean' which is fair enough, everyone deserves a second chance.

[jeebowhite]

?I Would ask unofficially and without recurse for their honesty. Did they really not do any of what they said?

[cgooderham94]

I'm certain that they would have had it resprayed and that they have indirectly said that it was them when they asked to wipe the slate clean. It is pretty dishonest but they now know that I won't be messed around.

[jeebowhite]

I'm glad you got a positive result in it!