Dealer Experience

[GreenMachine]

*note: This is not a paid ad!

As a lot of you guys would know, my partner and I bought a Fairlane by Tickford about a month ago.

The car was located at a Penrith Ford dealer's yard by a fellow forums member (347stroker) and test driven for me by yet another forums member (trikee). The car checked out ok, so we gave it the green light the same day.

We had quite a few issues with actually getting the car up here and some other arrangements, but that's a whinge for another time.

After a couple of weeks, the gearbox in the car started making noises. When it lost 3rd, I drove it straight to Southside Ford at Wooloongabba (Brisbane) to be checked out.

By the time I pulled up, all it had left was 2nd gear, and that was slipping in and out if revs dropped below 3000rpm.

I was packing it, because we'd basically spent every cent of our savings buying and registering the car, and a big gearbox blowup would've seen us with no car for a VERY long time.

I knew the car was covered under a statutory warranty, but I figured that trying to organise that interstate would be an absolute nightmare, and potentially not even worth the trouble.

At Southside, Adam Wren, one of their service consultants, complimented the FBT, took the keys and the bill of sale from the NSW dealer and basically said "She'll be right". I was pretty sceptical, having read on AFF the hoops that people have had to jump through to get warranty work done on brand new cars.

That day, the gearbox was out of the car and stripped for inspection. The verdict was a total rebuild, with not a great deal of useable parts left in there.

A quote for the repair was provided to the NSW dealer, who said it was excessive, and that they could get it done much cheaper where they were.

Fortunately, I don't have any idea what happened next - Adam Wren and Southside sorted everything out, repaired the car and had it back to me inside a week.

The service team were on the phone to me just about every day, upd@ting me on what they were doing and when the car would be ready.

I've had the car back two weeks now, and the FBT is like a new car - when we first got the car, I assumed that the adaptive-shift gearbox in these things had been specially tuned to feel like the C4 in my ZH just for nostalgic purposes.

So basically, I just wanted to express my appreciation for the effort Southside went to, especially considering that this was a used car that they didn't even sell. I'd recommend them to any Brisbane forums members.

Nick

[Smoke Pursuit]

Glad to here a good story for once, im sure southside made a bit out of it for themselves to which is fair enough.

Great outcome.

[TheSneakiness]

Good to hear it's running again Nick.

[Scruba]

Excellent!! Great to see positve feedback on dealers and especially the workshops.

[You Yangs]

Good to see some dealers doing the right thing for a change because it doesn't always work out that way!

[fiery]

Awesome that you guys have your pride and joy back and healthy again.. and well done to the Southside guys...

It really is good to see a positive thread for a change, makes people think that maybe there is a glimmer of hope of not having hassles..

Well done