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Fiesta Mk 7 'paint Finish'


BHeart
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Hi

I was not going to raise my Fiesta paint issue in these forums but recent findings have left me feeling a bit down and I need to air my views to the members of the Fiesta Forum, so here goes - I will make it as short as possible.

My Fiesta was built on the 9th September this year and I took delivery of it on October 1st but, prior to buying it, I received a call from the dealer who informed me that they had found two small paint defects during the PDI, the first one being on the underside of the bonnet at the offside front edge where the paint had run and flaked off. the second was at the bottom of the inside of the rear nearside door, where it look like a small object had come into contact with the paint while still wet.

My first reaction was to turn the car down but they said they would send me jpeg pictures of the affected areas and if I was still unhappy, then they would refund my deposit. The jpegs arrived within an hour and the paint defects looked just as they had been described so I had no reason to doubt what they had told me but, they had already sent the car to their body shop. They told me that the car arrived with them on 21st September and that it went into the body shop on 23rd and was completed the same day.

The problem is that I'm not sure that they have their dates right because their body shop is about 5 minutes from were I work and I remember that on the week commencing Monday 27th September, I called into their body shop on Tuesday 28th September to view the car for the first time and was told that I had just missed it being collect by the dealer. I asked the office girl about the damage and she explained it to me and it was just as the dealer had said. I asked her if the bonnet had been removed to repair the small paint defect on the underside of the bonnet and she said yes (that reminds me, I need to check if the rear nearside door has also been off). At that point the body shop manager came in and overruled her and stated that the bonnet had not been removed because it would have been too much hassle for such a small paint defect. He seemed like a nice guy so I had no reason to doubt him.

When we picked the car up on October 1st, we had a look around it outside and underneath, then inside, under the bonnet and in the boot and, because of what the body shop manager had said about the bonnet, I did not even bother to look in detail under the bonnet. Apart from the bonnet having too large a gap on the nearside and between where the headlamp and bonnet edge ran alongside, also as you look from the front, the offside front of the bonnet above the grill was nearer to the grill than the nearside.

We took delivery of the car on 1st October and we have had no real problems with it, so far but, since I have been driving it, everytime I lifted the hatch door up, something on the inside of the backdoor and body always caught my eye but I just dismissed it as not worth bothering about. Then last Friday when I finished work a little early, I took the time to look over the hatch door and body in that area and clearly saw that with the door open, the paintwork inside around the door glass was only glossed about one inch in from the outer edges, after that it looked sort of a matt finish and I noticed the same was true of the paint on the body above the lights where the door shuts onto. I then looked inside all four doors and saw that ALL paint was gloss finish, even right into the hinges - this is what I would expect.

The underside of the bonnet was next and, upon closer inspection, it was glaringly obvious that the bonnet has been removed and painted/refitted badly. Also, judging by the sub standard refitting and finish on the underside of the bonnet, you don’t have to be an expert to see that it has been removed and also after refitting, some of the gaps around the bonnet, especially between the headlamps, are not equal but, I would bet that the bonnet was perfectly aligned before the body shop removed it. With regard to the bonnet removal, we are now wondering just why we were lied to and also why the bonnet was removed to repair a ‘such a minor paint defect’? We personally think our car was in their body shop for longer than they have told us it was.

Here are the highlighted points of my concerns:

* Issue with matt finish paint inside hatchdoor and body.

* All of the insides of ALL side doors were gloss finish, the same as the outside but, when I inspected the underside of the bonnet, it was quite clear that the bonnet had been removed!

* The bonnet hinges have not been lined up with were they were originally fitted to to the bonnet – you can quite clearly see where the hinges were originally fitted because the exposed white or grey primer is visible.

* The bonnet hinge bolts have been ‘very roughly’ touched up with a touch up brush.

* If you look from the side of each front wing in the area of the hinges, you can also see large areas of primer on both sides just behind the hinges.

* The inner sides of the tops of suspension mounts have primer on them.

I fully intend to contact Ford Customer Services once we have given the Ford dealer concerned the chance to comment on this resolve the issue to our complete satisfaction and, as the initial £500 deposit for the Fiesta was paid via my credit card, we have certain rights and are covered for issues such as this, so I will be contacting my credit card company this weekend to see what they can do for us.

In conclusion, if we had been informed of the ‘whole truth’ about the extent of the damage to our car, including the removal and refitting of the bonnet, then I would have then checked not only the finish of the work on the bonnet and rear nearside door, but also the finish of the car overall and, given what we know now, we would have definitely not accepted the car. So, it appears that in order to complete the sale of the Fiesta to us, the full facts of the damage, repair and the remova/refitting of the bonnet from the Fiesta were withheld from us and, although I cannot confirm this, I believe we have been sold goods by deception but, I will be contacting my Union’s Legal Department who are available to provide free legal assistance to it’s members.

This is really the last thing we wanted to do and we really do the the car but, we are very disappointed with our recent findings. We contacted the dealer concerned last Friday and we are waiting for a response.

My apologies for the length of the post.

Thanks, BHeart

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From reading your first few posts I could more or less guarantee that we would end up with something like this.

You seem to have impossibly high standards - are any of the defects that you've mentioned actually on a skin panel?

I reckon that you'll have a hell of a time trying to reject the car after this long.

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To be honest with you, you should have checked over the car and all the areas where work had been done BEFORE accepting it.

I do think however, some people have been less than honest with you, no matter how nice they come across, they act that way, so it is harder to for you not to react in a nice way back. I don't think I would have accepted the car once they told me it had a couple of paint problems, as I would be wondering if there were more that hadn't been found.

Good luck getting it sorted

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From reading your first few posts I could more or less guarantee that we would end up with something like this.

You seem to have impossibly high standards - are any of the defects that you've mentioned actually on a skin panel?

I reckon that you'll have a hell of a time trying to reject the car after this long.

Hi AndrewL

Thank you for your response.

I've just been looking at my previous posts and to be honest, I'm completely lost as to how on earth you could arrive at such a 'way off the mark' conclusion and, as it happens, you are quite wrong but, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Apart from my latest post, all my previous posts have been positive about my Fiesta and highlighted many times that we were happy with it and had no real issues. In all of my posts, I asked sensible questions about our new car and they were many other user's who had been wanting to ask those same questions.

Yes I do have high standards and, depending on what goods I'm buying and the amount of money I'm paying for them, then again, yes, my standards can be very high and rightly so when I'm paying out over £11,000. If your saying that you don't have high standards, especially when you bought your new Fiesta, then quite frankly don't believe you.

With reference to my Fiesta's paint issue, when I was informed about the two small paint defects, I had the opportunity to turn the car down, just as 'grin factor' below has said that he would have done but, rather foolishly, I trusted what the body shop manager told me.

The issue now is that, in order for them to get the customer to buy the car, the dealer has lied about the bonnet not being removed to carry out the repair and refitted in a sub standard manner and that is a serious issue.

Thanks, BHeart

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To be honest with you, you should have checked over the car and all the areas where work had been done BEFORE accepting it.

I do think however, some people have been less than honest with you, no matter how nice they come across, they act that way, so it is harder to for you not to react in a nice way back. I don't think I would have accepted the car once they told me it had a couple of paint problems, as I would be wondering if there were more that hadn't been found.

Good luck getting it sorted

Hi grin factor

Thank you for your positive response. :)

Yes I did check over the car as stated and, your right in saying that I should have checked all areas where work had been done before accepting the car but, as I've said, I did believe the body shop manager when he said that the bonnet was not removed. I think you nailed it in your second paragraph, that is so true and is exactly the way that I would have normally been thinking, but the Fiesta did look so nice, especially in red and I think we were caught up in the moment.

But let's not get away from the main issue here, in order to complete the sale of the car to me, the dealer lied about the bonnet not being removed and if they lied about that, what else have they lied about?

Anyway, I'm waiting for a response from the dealer, so we will just have to wait to see what happens next.

Thanks again, BHeart

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From reading your first few posts I could more or less guarantee that we would end up with something like this.

You seem to have impossibly high standards - are any of the defects that you've mentioned actually on a skin panel?

I reckon that you'll have a hell of a time trying to reject the car after this long.

+1 ;)

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+1 ;)

ditto.

every post of yours seems to be a complaint/issue/niggle no matter how menial.

good luck with ford customer service :)

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Hi

Mikester & Ryan9684

What are you two? Idiots, yes I reckon you are and probably spawned from the same 'rotten egg'.

If you can't make sensible helpful responses to members needing help and advice, then resign from the forums and go play with the traffic.

Note to MODS: The two cretins mentioned above should be banned from these forums. Please ensure you do so with immediate effect.

Thanks, BHeart

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What are you two? Idiots, yes I reckon you are and probably spawned from the same 'rotten egg'.

Note to MODS: The two cretins mentioned above should be banned from these forums. Please ensure you do so with immediate effect.

Thanks, BHeart

That seems a little harsh to me, everyone here is entitled to their own opinion.

I understand what you are saying, and I personally completely agree with you on the matter of your car. I would be unhappy if my new car wasnt 100% perfect upon delivery, i dont think your standards are too high. However I feel that you have left it a little late to reject the car now. Best you probably could get would be ford realigning the bonnet for you.

My advice would be to push ford to look at the bonnet to get it seated correctly and not let the paint issue spoil your new car for you.

Funnily enough I only noticed yesterday that my Focus Titanium has a patch of matt black paint on the inside of the rear door bodywork, Ive enjoyed the car LOADS and do not intend to let it spoil the car for me :)

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I'm merely stating what is obvious to clearly not just myself. I've not spoke to Ryan or Andrew before yet they've come to the same conclusion.

I've input more than niggles and complaint threads to this forum and intend to carry on showing all forum users the progress of my beautiful mk7, with this in mind it would be detrimental to ban me.

I for one wouldn't miss the 'problem with some menial problem type threads'.

Maybe we put it to public vote? :)

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Hi

Mikester & Ryan9684

What are you two? Idiots, yes I reckon you are and probably spawned from the same 'rotten egg'.

If you can't make sensible helpful responses to members needing help and advice, then resign from the forums and go play with the traffic.

Note to MODS: The two cretins mentioned above should be banned from these forums. Please ensure you do so with immediate effect.

Thanks, BHeart

I think if the mods read your comment they are more likely to ban you than me :blink:

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