Complaint Review: Ted Britt Ford

Daylight Runnig Light (DRL) in my daughter Taurus refused to turn off when the the key was pulled out. I brought the car to Tedd Britt Ford.

Dan Strouth, a service manager, called me late in the afternoon and said the DRL module is broken and needs replacement, and that replacement will cost about $500 (he gave me an exact number, wich was just under $500). Assuming the module is very expensive, I authorized the repair.

The car was not ready that day. Next day he never called me. When I called the shop, he left, but the car was ready for a pick-up. When cashier handed me the bill, I found that the module costs $88, but that he charged 4 hours to replace a factory-made module. The total charge was $78 more than initially agreed upon, plus I was charged for a loaner car which I did not use (that last charge was removed when I pointed it out).

When I left the shop, I found that the turn signals did not function (they did before I brought the car for repair). Cashier advised me to leave a voice mail message for Mr. Strouth, which I did. Note that the bill was saying that the car had passed a full check up. Next day was Saturday and on Monday Mr. Strouth was on leave, so I came back on Tuesday. He claimed that this is an unrelated defect and wanted to charge me for a new repair.

When I spoke to the service department manager, and pointed out that in any event they released the car to the customer in a non-functional state, he first accused me of bringing the car with an entirely new defect and attempting to blame it on them. When I pointed out that I left a message immediately after receiving the car, he agreed to replace the defect switch for free, but charged me for the part, $88.

Later in the day I found on the Internet that the factory recommended time for replacing the DRL module is 0.7 hours, not 4 hours. I called the manager, and he did not deny the fact but claimed it took 3.3 hours to diagnose the defect.

I called AAA and their technician-consultant told me there is no way the DRL may stay on all the time except when the module is broken and that it should take a certified technician a few minutes, at most half an hour to diagnose this defect.

To summarize, Ted Britt overcharged me for the initial repair by about $250, introduced a new defect in course of the repair, and refused to fixed this new defect free of charge. They say, it accidentally happened at no fault of theirs while the car happened to be in their shop, which may or may not be true (there is no way to verify this) and in any event they should be responsible for the car while it is in the shop.

Igor
Fairfax, Virginia
U.S.A.