1.0 EcoBoost 'wet belt' issue

[DaveT70]

If you get no joy after all that (which I doubt) and you can't afford a new engine then I would strongly recommend pulling the vehicle and sourcing a good 2nd hand engine (around £1,200-1,500) with warranty, get it fitted and sell the car ASAP and, like me, never buy another Ford again

[DaveT70]

4 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

Just FYI, the sale of goods act has been replaced by the consumer rights act. You can make the same claim, just make sure you quote the correct act so they are aware you know your rights. 

Yes it has, sorry and thanks Alex

[unofix]

1 hour ago, Sarah46 said:

No idea really what we do from here, we can't afford the £4,861.00 to fix it, still paying for Finance

As stated above, you are still in the game !! your vehicle is under finance so keep up the fight. I think at this point a trip to a specialist solicitor would be a wise move. Have a look on line there are a number of them who will give you a 30 minute 'Free' or £50 consultation. It might well help point you in the right direction.

[alexp999]

If the car is financed (not just an unsecured personal loan) you may also be able to start a claim against the lender under section 75 of the consumer credit act. 

 

[Sarah46]

21 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

I do feel for your situation, but realistically I can't see Ford giving anything more than a goodwill gesture of around 50% as they're already doing.

Hi Tom,

If this was a true 50% deal then maybe we would be interested - but 50% of £7,108 = £3,554 each.  In this case we are being asked to pay £4,861.00 because our rate is being done at retail cost, whilst their figure of £2,247 was calculated at warranty rate and so much cheaper. Again, she couldn't tell us why this was, and I feel like she probably shouldn't have told us at all, but she got cornered when we were pushing for her to tell us what the £2k goodwill is made up of.

Hopefully the manager that is going to call us back today ( hahahaha ) will explain it all ! 

[alexp999]

23 minutes ago, Sarah46 said:

Hi Tom,

If this was a true 50% deal then maybe we would be interested - but 50% of £7,108 = £3,554 each.  In this case we are being asked to pay £4,861.00 because our rate is being done at retail cost, whilst their figure of £2,247 was calculated at warranty rate and so much cheaper. Again, she couldn't tell us why this was, and I feel like she probably shouldn't have told us at all, but she got cornered when we were pushing for her to tell us what the £2k goodwill is made up of.

Hopefully the manager that is going to call us back today ( hahahaha ) will explain it all ! 

Sounds like the dealer is trying to make money out of the situation. Why aren’t they doing it at the warranty rate?

[DaveT70]

As soon as Ford agree to contribute, it should be done at warranty rate

[unofix]

and yet another Ecoboost owner fights on .....

 

[Sarah46]

So after a call with the Manager, questions have been answered although not to our satisfaction - but answered.

1. After the review they have upped their offer by another £200, which is nothing considering what we still have to pay.

2. In reference to the warranty / retail issue - the manager has advised that is the way it always is, and that someone should have explained that to us. The customer will always pay the retail cost and they will pay the warranty rate, they said that is what is sent to them from the dealerships - but we assume that they actually ask them to provide the cost at warranty rate.  As far as they are concerned they have offered us 52% of the cost, and she is very sympathetic with us as she admitted she would not be happy with what they are offering, and a lot of people have complained about the retail and warranty differences when being given their quotes.

 

We do have someone calling us back tomorrow, but we will then have to make a decision as to what we do next. We have looked into a 2nd hand engine but the reviews have been awful at best, people given a quote for the engine and then extra charges being added and if they don't pay they hold your car, some people have ended up paying more than 3 or 4 times the original quote. We don't pay, take the car back and have it sat on the drive and sell for parts and continue paying finance on a car that doesn't work. We try and get a loan for the cost, fix it and sell it and hope we can clear the finance. 

This whole situation has had me in bits, am stressed as to how we pay for this. I honestly don't know.

[TDCiST]

1 hour ago, Sarah46 said:

So after a call with the Manager, questions have been answered although not to our satisfaction - but answered.

1. After the review they have upped their offer by another £200, which is nothing considering what we still have to pay.

2. In reference to the warranty / retail issue - the manager has advised that is the way it always is, and that someone should have explained that to us. The customer will always pay the retail cost and they will pay the warranty rate, they said that is what is sent to them from the dealerships - but we assume that they actually ask them to provide the cost at warranty rate.  As far as they are concerned they have offered us 52% of the cost, and she is very sympathetic with us as she admitted she would not be happy with what they are offering, and a lot of people have complained about the retail and warranty differences when being given their quotes.

 

We do have someone calling us back tomorrow, but we will then have to make a decision as to what we do next. We have looked into a 2nd hand engine but the reviews have been awful at best, people given a quote for the engine and then extra charges being added and if they don't pay they hold your car, some people have ended up paying more than 3 or 4 times the original quote. We don't pay, take the car back and have it sat on the drive and sell for parts and continue paying finance on a car that doesn't work. We try and get a loan for the cost, fix it and sell it and hope we can clear the finance. 

This whole situation has had me in bits, am stressed as to how we pay for this. I honestly don't know.

Have you taken this up with ford's customer relations centre directly? May be worth a shot... I've had mixed reviews about them, but anything is worth a try at this stage!

[Sarah46]

14 hours ago, TDCiST said:

Have you taken this up with ford's customer relations centre directly? May be worth a shot... I've had mixed reviews about them, but anything is worth a try at this stage!

Hi TDCiST

This is the Manager at the Ford Customer relations centre we are speaking with, we mailed them when this first happened about 6/7 weeks ago.. this is how long it has taken them lol ridiculous really.

Even the survey they send you when you first mail about your issue will depend on what you get, as one of the first questions on it is " have you ever owned a Ford before?" another little nugget she imparted to us... since our car has been with the dealership, Ford have paid out "goodwills" on 5 cars with engine issues that we know about, at least one a week. I'm sure our contact there is telling us this to give us hope, but in reality it just makes you realise the scale.

[Sarah46]

Well it's been a while since I did an update. So here goes....

We have loaned the money to get the engine replaced and work should have started last week and we should have had the car back by now. That didn't happen and they can't give a reason as to why they didn't do it - they just didn't. Just a phone call on Friday ( when we were supposed to pick it up ) to say car should be ready by this Friday..........

Roll on today and it seems work has started as we have had a call to say that there are a couple of problems....

1. coolant tank is cracked - that will be £23 to fix ( we won't charge you labour )

2.The vacuum pump is broken - that will be £500 please ( again, we won't charge you labour as we are nice like that ) 

Now I think I am being naïve here, as I assumed when you lifted the bonnet of a car that was "the engine" - and everything under that, is what makes the car run and so when you pay over £7k to get the "engine" replaced that meant everything. Ford believe both of these could "possibly" have been broken with the wet belt issue, but as they don't really know - they won't cover the cost and we now have to find the extra money from somewhere as we only took out what we were quoted. 

Apparently the £7k is just for the engine block, anything connected to it doesn't count, and I am actually sat here now wondering what on earth we are paying all this money for ? Have we just spent £7k on a new wet belt ? How do we even know the vacuum pump is broken ? This whole thing just continues to leave a bad taste in my mouth, and if this car is ready tomorrow as the guy seems to be saying - I'll eat my ***** hat. I'm not touching this company ever again. 

 

[TomsFocus]

5 minutes ago, Sarah46 said:

Now I think I am being naïve here, as I assumed when you lifted the bonnet of a car that was "the engine" - and everything under that, is what makes the car run and so when you pay over £7k to get the "engine" replaced that meant everything.

Not necessarily naive.  If you're not into cars then there's no reason you should know.  But yes the engine is a very specific part, not just everything under the bonnet.

It actually covers the engine block, the cylinder head, and the internals (crankshaft, camshaft, pistons, con rods).  Everything bolted to the outside of the engine is an ancillary part.

Cracked tank is very common, I wouldn't be bothered about £23 on that.  But £500 for vacuum pump is ridiculous.  They probably broke it during the engine change...or maybe I'm just a cynic.   Seems like you're stuck with that though, as the car won't be driveable (or at least not safely) without it being replaced.  You could ask them to send you a picture/video of the broken part.  They seem to enjoy taking videos during services so it's not an unreasonable ask.

You've spent £7k on the engine block (with pistons & crank) & cylinder head.  Things like the turbo, gearbox, coolant pipes etc are all swapped onto the new engine block.

[TomsFocus]

This is a brand new 1.0 EcoBoost 'crate engine' for anyone interested.

[Eric Bloodaxe]

1 hour ago, TomsFocus said:

This is a brand new 1.0 EcoBoost 'crate engine' for anyone interested.

Did a quick double take there - thought for a moment you had decided to break your Focus and sell it bit by bit!

1 hour ago, TomsFocus said:

.  But £500 for vacuum pump is ridiculous. 

But on a serious note - I thought so too but just had a quick look at one or two internet parts suppliers - found prices ranging from around £200 (but all "out of stock", strangely) up to around £400 on various brands, so perhaps £500 is believable for what is presumably an OEM part from a main dealer? 

[TomsFocus]

1 hour ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

But on a serious note - I thought so too but just had a quick look at one or two internet parts suppliers - found prices ranging from around £200 (but all "out of stock", strangely) up to around £400 on various brands, so perhaps £500 is believable for what is presumably an OEM part from a main dealer? 

Ah, perhaps that is the standard price for the genuine part now (though I'm sure they were cheaper in the past!).

But for no one to have noticed it was broken until now, either the Indy garage that stripped it or the subsequent Ford garage, and to just lump an extra £500 on to the bill with no alternative, doesn't seem like fair play to me.

[Eric Bloodaxe]

2 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Ah, perhaps that is the standard price for the genuine part now (though I'm sure they were cheaper in the past!).

Lol, I get that feeling all the time!

3 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

But for no one to have noticed it was broken until now, either the Indy garage that stripped it or the subsequent Ford garage, and to just lump an extra £500 on to the bill with no alternative, doesn't seem like fair play to me.

Absolutely - as with other cases, Ford have done nothing to improve their image on this one. The ecoboosts have gainied  a bad reputation which would have been avoided by prompt and more generous action on the various issues.

 

[Sarah46]

I think I am going to write a soap opera on the story of this car, if I don't I may just cry...

So the car wasn't ready yesterday as I fully expected, so I didn't have to eat my hat after all BUT the dealer has rung today to say the turbo failed on the engine test ( looked fine visually when examined, only when they ran it, it failed ).

The only good news from that is that it is definitely due to the existing issue, the bad news is that they now need to ask Ford if they'll pay for all / some of it, they have said it will be about £700 at our retail rate to fix so if they say no, we'll have to add that to the already £525 ish  we already need to pay on top for this poxy engine and crappy car. 

Just waiting to hear back from Ford now as to what they will do. I think pigs will fly before they cover this - but we all live in hope. Fingers crossed.    

 

[Connorfinn]

2 hours ago, Sarah46 said:

I think I am going to write a soap opera on the story of this car, if I don't I may just cry...

So the car wasn't ready yesterday as I fully expected, so I didn't have to eat my hat after all BUT the dealer has rung today to say the turbo failed on the engine test ( looked fine visually when examined, only when they ran it, it failed ).

The only good news from that is that it is definitely due to the existing issue, the bad news is that they now need to ask Ford if they'll pay for all / some of it, they have said it will be about £700 at our retail rate to fix so if they say no, we'll have to add that to the already £525 ish  we already need to pay on top for this poxy engine and crappy car. 

Just waiting to hear back from Ford now as to what they will do. I think pigs will fly before they cover this - but we all live in hope. Fingers crossed.    

 

If this is a MK4 i had a turbo replaced 2 weeks out of warranty, price including labour was £1100, ford contributed 90% towards the cost of the repair leaving me to pay £110 if this sheds any light on the costs

The part was shipped from germany and it took over 3 weeks before the dealership received it

[Sarah46]

34 minutes ago, Connorfinn said:

f this is a MK4 i had a turbo replaced 2 weeks out of warranty, price including labour was £1100, ford contributed 90% towards the cost of the repair leaving me to pay £110 if this sheds any light on the costs

The part was shipped from germany and it took over 3 weeks before the dealership received it

Crikey ! well hopefully it won't take that long as the car has already been off the road for 10 weeks due to trying to get Ford to pay for the engine to be replaced ( we have a 2018 Focus 1.0 ecoboost ST Line Automatic that went "boom" ) the welt belt shredded and blew the engine, so we are having to pay over £5k for a new one ( the engine cost is £7.1k and Ford class this as 52% contribution as they only pay a warranty rate whilst we pay retail cost ). The car is a year out of warranty, so we are told by Ford we are lucky to have been offered £2.2k towards it ( although it has been serviced by Ford every year ). We shouldn't have to pay labour as the vacuum pump has apparently also gone and they are not charging us labour to replace that ( just £500 to fix it !! ) 

[unofix]

4 hours ago, Sarah46 said:

BUT the dealer has rung today to say the turbo failed on the engine test

To be honest I would have been more surprised if it hadn't of failed. In fact just about any ancillary part that gets an oil feed from the engine will have suffered oil starvation.

I know petrol is very expensive these days but I still think a gallon of unleaded and a box of matches would have been cheaper and more satisfying 🤣

[Sarah46]

15 hours ago, unofix said:

To be honest I would have been more surprised if it hadn't of failed. In fact just about any ancillary part that gets an oil feed from the engine will have suffered oil starvation.

I know petrol is very expensive these days but I still think a gallon of unleaded and a box of matches would have been cheaper and more satisfying 🤣

Unofix - you have no idea how often I have wanted to do that !!!! Sheer joy and satisfaction indeed !! might even have done a little dance round it too  😄

 

[TomsFocus]

16 hours ago, unofix said:

I know petrol is very expensive these days but I still think a gallon of unleaded and a box of matches would have been cheaper and more satisfying 🤣

And the insurance company would then have paid for a new car as well!!  

[Sarah46]

Well this is my final update on what has been a very long and winding road....

As normal, even at the last minute it didn't go well. The car was due to be collected on Friday, and when we got there we were told that the Warranty guy had calculated the invoice incorrectly and had charged us for the labour to fit the turbo, so added an extra £200 to our bill. He was arguing with the dealership and so at the point of 6pm we had to leave without our car as he wouldn't amend it. They offered us a courtesy car which we collected on Saturday ( no less than a 1.0l ecoboost ST Line Fiesta Automatic - found that quite ironic!! ) 

Roll on Tuesday and we finally get the car - our final bill for the engine, coolant, vacuum pump and turbo was give or take £4.5k as they added more to their contribution for the turbo. The car then comes round from the back, with a crack on the windscreen ( bad enough that we can drive it home but nowhere else ) .. it needs a new windscreen. Ford of course deny all knowledge and said it could have come in like that but i'm sure we would have noticed a crack like that beforehand. So although we now have our car back, it's redundant until the screen can be replaced. Ford will not cover it as like everything with them " it cannot be proved either way " .

Then to top it all off we get a call today " Hi, i'm calling from Ford, I just wanted to do a quick survey as to how you feel the service has been whilst dealing with us ......"

Ahhh man - she regretted that call 😄

[unofix]

Well Sarah I thank you for keeping us informed of your story, make sure you get the full rights to the book and the film 🤣

I do feel for you, I went through a similar problem with a Ford garage a long time ago (1988) with my very first brand new car. While it was at the dealership they dented the bonnet, broke the passenger side door mirror completely off and for good measure managed to break the drivers side electric window motor !!

I wish you well for the future and in 20 years time I hope you'll be able to look back at this with some humor 👍