From SVS to SSN - The Tejon Pass Claims Another Mach-E

[DevSecOps]

Just received a phone call from corporate. They told me that they've been trying to get ahold of the dealership for over a week and no one will take their call. They reached out to me to find out what was happening with the car. We had a long talk and then were of course very helpful.

In other news, today I went to one of my weekly clients 3 hours from my office in Sacramento. They felt bad that I had HVBJB failure so when I got there today they surprised me with a NEMA 14-50 outlet. They ran over 300' of wire to get it to the loading docks and a special parking spot around the corner for me. The owner said it cost them $8k to install it ?

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[DevSecOps]

I ordered the same one you did after it got thrown out there. It is great to sleep on, I think... just feels so weird LOL. My wife likens it to a bean bag!

I thought the same thing (bean bag) when I first slept on it, especially because of the rustling noise it makes. I took about 1/2 of the fill out and I really like the way it conforms to my neck and head. I am the kind of person who falls asleep in 2 minutes and doesn't wake up until the morning so the noise wouldn't ever bother me. I'm really happy with it so far. Definitely different, but in a good way.

Thank you @KevinS for the recommendation.

 

[GrayWolf]

In other news, today I went to one of my weekly clients 3 hours from my office in Sacramento. They felt bad that I had HVBJB failure so when I got there today they surprised me with a NEMA 14-50 outlet. They ran over 300' of wire to get it to the loading docks and a special parking spot around the corner for me. The owner said it cost them $8k to install it ?

It's not great that Ford corporate can't reach the dealership. I'd hope that the corporate folks would have a "bat line" to the dealership's owners in case of situations like that. Weird.

Your client, however, is freaking amazing for setting up that NEMA 14-50 outlet for you! Definitely a "keeper" there.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Just received a phone call from corporate. They told me that they've been trying to get ahold of the dealership for over a week and no one will take their call. They reached out to me to find out what was happening with the car. We had a long talk and then were of course very helpful.

In other news, today I went to one of my weekly clients 3 hours from my office in Sacramento. They felt bad that I had HVBJB failure so when I got there today they surprised me with a NEMA 14-50 outlet. They ran over 300' of wire to get it to the loading docks and a special parking spot around the corner for me. The owner said it cost them $8k to install it ?

Wow. Sucks that Corporate can’t get through to the dealer. Will they answer any other call, like from a consumer? Maybe you can get Corporate in the line, put them on hold, then dial the dealer for a 3 party call? ?‍?

I love what your client did. I hope they have others who can take advantage of that outlet too. ??

 

[DevSecOps]

Today, after some back and forth on DTCs with Corporate and the Dealership I got the car back with a brand new HVBJB. In my car they put in a LK9Z-10C666-B. "B" is not the same part listed in the TSB, so we'll see how this experiment goes. There was some concern about some DTCs presenting themselves after the replacement of the HVBJB, which I'll continue to keep an eye on.

There's also some other parts that the car might be back into the shop for, unrelated to the HVBJB, but we'll cross that road when we get there.

As for the dealership, the service manager told me today that I was one of the easiest customers to deal with. He praised my understanding of the issue and patience with them since they have a backlog. I am grateful to have the car back, but there are 3 issues that I'll address if I bring the car back to them for any reason.

• Their communication with the customer is bad. They wouldn't return emails and in general didn't keep me in the loop. There wasn't the communication that I would expect - "this is what we intend to do to resolve x, y and z."
• They covered my dashcam, which I'm not happy about. If you don't have anything to hide a camera should be the least of your concerns. Additionally, they covered it for many days, including while it was parked in the parking lot. If someone would have damaged the car at night I wouldn't have any proof of it. I was really disappointed by this behavior. Additionally, since he used a large towel it bent my dashcam at an angle. They also messed with my radar detector for some strange reason (maybe they thought it was a camera?).
• Service repair order says that the modules were reprogrammed and tested. They didn't road test the car at all and, per the logs, they didn't reprogram anything. They just cleared codes. While this could be standard, boilerplate, language it's just something that I noticed as not being accurate.

I checked the underside of the car for signs of obvious damage since the car was towed while I wasn't present and everything looks good.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Glad you got the car back Todd. Seems to me that if I had to do more service for those other parts I would use another dealer. ?‍?

 

[mkhuffman]

Today, after some back and forth on DTCs with Corporate and the Dealership I got the car back with a brand new HVBJB. In my car they put in a LK9Z-10C666-B. "B" is not the same part listed in the TSB, so we'll see how this experiment goes. There was some concern about some DTCs presenting themselves after the replacement of the HVBJB, which I'll continue to keep an eye on.

There's also some other parts that the car might be back into the shop for, unrelated to the HVBJB, but we'll cross that road when we get there.

As for the dealership, the service manager told me today that I was one of the easiest customers to deal with. He praised my understanding of the issue and patience with them since they have a backlog. I am grateful to have the car back, but there are 3 issues that I'll address if I bring the car back to them for any reason.

• Their communication with the customer is bad. They wouldn't return emails and in general didn't keep me in the loop. There wasn't the communication that I would expect - "this is what we intend to do to resolve x, y and z."
• They covered my dashcam, which I'm not happy about. If you don't have anything to hide a camera should be the least of your concerns. Additionally, they covered it for many days, including while it was parked in the parking lot. If someone would have damaged the car at night I wouldn't have any proof of it. I was really disappointed by this behavior. Additionally, since he used a large towel it bent my dashcam at an angle. They also messed with my radar detector for some strange reason (maybe they thought it was a camera?).
• Service repair order says that the modules were reprogrammed and tested. They didn't road test the car at all and, per the logs, they didn't reprogram anything. They just cleared codes. While this could be standard, boilerplate, language it's just something that I noticed as not being accurate.

I checked the underside of the car for signs of obvious damage since the car was towed while I wasn't present and everything looks good.

Time for a few pent up WOTs to help you feel better.

 

[Cjpayne]

Glad you got your car back. Interesting that there are at least two versions of the replacement part. Covering and damaging your camera is ridiculous.

 

[EELinneman]

Todd, it's not just your dealer who has very poor communications. My dealer apparently has gone into radio silence. Ford needs to realize that this is a significant problem with their engineering and that the dealers horrible customer interactions are making things worse.

I'm thinking of getting an FDRS account just so that I can tell the dealer what is wrong with the ar. It appears that they have a trained tech who splits time between two dealers. Just not right. Yes, the pioneers are the ones who took the arrows, as they say, but there doesn't seem to be any improvement over time.

 

[DevSecOps]

Covering and damaging your camera is ridiculous.

First of all, I disable audio recording on my dashcams because in California you can actually be held liable for eavesdropping if you record audio. There are cases where dealerships/technicians have sued for improper use of audio recording via dashcams. I encourage everyone to disable audio recording on their dashcams unless it's during a traffic stop or legal within the state(s) you travel.

Second, part of my profession is protecting data and businesses from threats. I preach privacy, but I also support the right to protect ones property. I would have had no issue if they covered it while in the service bay. My complaint comes from the fact that they left it covered for 5 days while parked outside in the parking lot. If the car would have been struck or damaged I wouldn't have been able to prove my claim. The weight of the towel, combined with the heat (105) caused the VHB to lose it's hold and thus the camera is no longer level. This would have been avoided if they just covered it while in the bay (or unplugged it).

Todd, it's not just your dealer who has very poor communications.

I've seen people from Corporate say that the lack of communication is one of their biggest pet peeves. I'm not the impatient person who pesters the dealer. In fact, I never called them the entire time. Maybe they just expect people to be calling non-stop.

 

[Logal727]

In my car they put in a LK9Z-10C666-B. "B" is not the same part listed in the TSB, so we'll see how this experiment goes.

I thought they weren't making the old bad part anymore so would it matter?

 

[DevSecOps]

I thought they weren't making the old bad part anymore so would it matter?

You are correct, however the TSB calls for -A. I confirmed with Ford that the -B is the correct newest version of the HVBJB for the GT line of MMEs.

This reiterates why I removed the part numbers from my mega thread. They can't even get their own documentation correct so there's no point in me trying to keep up with it.

 

[RMoore]

Just received a phone call from corporate. They told me that they've been trying to get ahold of the dealership for over a week and no one will take their call. They reached out to me to find out what was happening with the car. We had a long talk and then were of course very helpful.

In other news, today I went to one of my weekly clients 3 hours from my office in Sacramento. They felt bad that I had HVBJB failure so when I got there today they surprised me with a NEMA 14-50 outlet. They ran over 300' of wire to get it to the loading docks and a special parking spot around the corner for me. The owner said it cost them $8k to install it ?

Nice of them! I just had an outdoor 14-50 receptacle installed at our beach cottage and my enclosure looks just like that.

 

[RMoore]

Publicity is irrelevant to them, they still are selling every single EV they can make, and will do so even after raising prices thousands of dollars.

Ford is trying to save money on warranty claims -- they spend a ton of money compared with other automakers on recalls, and anything they can do to spread out the warranty cost they know they will incur helps with their bottom line.

They couldn't care less about anything else, so long as regulators are satisfied.

They also need to be accountable to shareholders. I don’t listen to their quarterly earnings call and investor Q&A portion but I would love for someone to bring this up at that venue. I just don’t have a feel for how big an issue this would be to the investor community. On the one hand Ford is dealing with millions of recalls on other models, but the Mach e (and certainly the Lightening) are important to them. The Mach e since it is their first foray into EVs and the Lightening since it is the electric version of their big cash cow. I wonder if they get questions from the major auto journalists about this. Would be great to see Ford corporate be pushed to speak publicly about how they plan to deal with the HVBJB issue (apart from the software recall). I’d love for someone whom they can’t ignore to force them to say why they think it’s ok to not replace everyone’s HVBJB if that’s their stance.

 

[Neil4Real]

They also need to be accountable to shareholders. I don’t listen to their quarterly earnings call and investor Q&A portion but I would love for someone to bring this up at that venue. I just do t have a feel for how big an issue this would be to the investor community. On the o e hand Ford is dealing with millions of recalls on other models but the Mach e (and certainly the Lightening) are important to them. The Mach e since it is their first foray into EVs and the Lightening since it is the electric version of their big cash cow. I wonder if they get questions from the major auto journalists about this. Would be great to see Ford corporate be pushed to speak publicly about how they plan to deal with the HVBJB issue (apart from the software recall). I’d love for someone whom they can’t ignore to force them to say why they think it’s ok to not replace everyone’s HVBJB if that’s their stance.

I'm sure their investors, along with Ford Corp, want them to keep it as under the rug as possible and spend as little money as possible.

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