Mustang Mach E has major powertrain issues. Dealership/service offering no help. Things to consider before buying this car

[ChasingCoral]

Oh wow that's fantastic.
I just got off the phone with the dealer and they still didn't have any update for me. I've gotten more out of this forum in 24 hours than I have from the dealer in 24 days.
Thank you so much for your help!

You’re very welcome.

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[waldo1949]

Edit: super grateful for all the wonderful suggestions and the offer of help on this forum. However negative this experience, I am glad that it allowed this conversation to all you wonderful people. Many Thanks!

Bought new Mustang Mach E Premium in Infinite blew from Autonation Ford Tustin on April 21st. They had one in stock so I decided to just buy it. Paid sticker price. Once the finance paperwork was completed, sales guy told me that car had some technical issues and had to be kept overnight. So I went home and end of next day was told care is ready and picked it up. On the drive home, care showed a powertrain/brake malfunction error. Also gave a chargeport error every time care was started and randomly turned off while driving.

Took it back to the dealership and they still have the car and have made no progress on fixing it.

Its been a nightmare experience as they have my money and now in possession of my car. They can't be bothered to update me or provide a timeline when this will be resolved. Its been 20 days of this already and I have had a long time to think about things. Here are my reasons why I would NOT recommend this care to anyone.

1. Ford dealership service is not ready: They have no idea how to work on this car. When dropping off, the service adviser told me that they'll likely have to contact Ford hotline and this will take a while. Its been 20 days already and they have done nothing. The warranty this car comes with is pointless if they can't fix it.
2. Ford dealership does not care at all: During these 20 days, dealership has not once initiated any communication. They haven't updated me on the progress or expected resolution. . I'll get a "we are working on it" reply if I keep contacting them a few times. I can't imagine a dealership providing worse service than this.
3. Ford has provided no support: I have reached out to ford directly and they haven't provided any help whatsoever. All I am told is that they've called the dealership and service and have left messages but their calls are not being returned. For a company that's staking its future on BEV, I would expect more support for such major malfunction. Its telling that their influence on dealership is so minimal.

Overall the features, design and idea behind the care is fantastic. The drive is a bit harsh and you can hear lot of road noise but still fun to drive. But the company and dealerships standing behind it offer no support at all if something goes wrong.

I would contact the Ford regional office. Sorry for your problems.
I had a completely different experience at Dorrance Ford in Michigan. Had two small problems. The dealership owner came to me both times and offered to let me take their mach e home if my car needed to stay. It didn’t, but I sure appreciated the offer.

 

[Carsinmyblood]

In reading some of the problems people are having, perhaps its better that my wife and I have to wait 5 or 6 months for our two. Give the next updates a chance to fester and give the locals a bit more reason to up their game.

I'm going to guess that when automatic transmissions were first delivered, dealers were slow to get up to speed.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

In reading some of the problems people are having, perhaps its better that my wife and I have to wait 5 or 6 months for our two. Give the next updates a chance to fester and give the locals a bit more reason to up their game.

I'm going to guess that when automatic transmissions were first delivered, dealers were slow to get up to speed.

Very few people are going to come on these, or any other forums, and post a thread about how perfect the cars are. For the record, I've had zero trouble with mine. PAAK works perfectly within its known limitations (phone in a back pocket, coming from directly behind), no battery issues, no screen whine, no wind noise, nothing amiss. With that said, it's a first-year model, there are going to be issues for all of us at one time or another, and unfortunately, some folks such as the OP here, are going to have serious issues.

 

[Racdos]

In reading some of the problems people are having, perhaps its better that my wife and I have to wait 5 or 6 months for our two. Give the next updates a chance to fester and give the locals a bit more reason to up their game.

I'm going to guess that when automatic transmissions were first delivered, dealers were slow to get up to speed.

This seems to be an isolated issue and Nobody else seems to be having similar major problems.

From this forum I am learning that my biggest issue is the dealership. Perhaps not the most helpful Ford representative that was assigned my case either. Others have had much better experiences. Now that Ford is aware of the problem they are sending an engineering team out to help next week.
There are definitely risks in buying a brand new model. I picked it because I wanted an BEV SUV and the combination of everything Mach-E offers and the price point seemed best to me.
Major lesson for me is to pick a dealership with a reputation of helping customers solve problems.

I will update again with progress next week.

 

[frank.herbst]

Is this another GM guy. You should have asked for your money back or just lived with the results. Check your states laws, most have several days to return for full refund. Hope you didn't wait to long or it's fixed by now.

 

[Audiamer]

It is a small world…I was on my way to that dealer to buy that car when the salesman texted me to tell me someone else (you apparently) just decided to buy it. I instead bought a red one that showed up the next day and we picked up our cars at the same time.

I will say that the Tustin dealer is terrible in many ways and I wouldn’t blame Ford or the car overly much. Those sleezeballs told me you paid a lot over book and talked me into going $500 over and they couldn’t even give it to me with a full charge. They also told me the blue car was reserved for me and they delayed meeting with me to complete the paperwork until it was too late.

If Car companies want to continue with this outdated dealer way of selling, they need to remove these bad dealers. The Carvana, Tesla, etc. buying experience is so much better.

If you can, see about moving your car to the RSM or Huntington Beach dealers, they both did well with my last Mustang, but Tustin and Tuttle Click in Irvine have both screwed me over.

 

[BillPitman]

This seems to be an isolated issue and Nobody else seems to be having similar major problems.

From this forum I am learning that my biggest issue is the dealership. Perhaps not the most helpful Ford representative that was assigned my case either. Others have had much better experiences. Now that Ford is aware of the problem they are sending an engineering team out to help next week.
There are definitely risks in buying a brand new model. I picked it because I wanted an BEV SUV and the combination of everything Mach-E offers and the price point seemed best to me.
Major lesson for me is to pick a dealership with a reputation of helping customers solve problems.

I will update again with progress next week.

I fail to see how that dealer ever got to be a " certified EV dealer"? I ordered my Mach e online, and had a choice of maybe 4 dealers.....Bill Pitman

 

[BMT1071]

I fail to see how that dealer ever got to be a " certified EV dealer"? I ordered my Mach e online, and had a choice of maybe 4 dealers.....Bill Pitman

My guess is that the list of requirements to be a certified EV dealer is pretty short.

 

[Samfunny]

This sounds like a problem with the dealership, not Ford. Thanks to aggressive lobbying from the National Automobile Dealership Association, state laws do not permit Ford to sell or service vehicles directly--they must be sold or serviced through licensed dealers, which are independently owned. This is the same problem that Tesla has encountered. (BTW, if you think your dealer service experience is lousy, try getting a Tesla. Tesla consistently ranks in the bottom of the list for service and waiting months to get service is NORMAL for Teslas.)

 

[JeffKeryk]

Good luck with your Mach-E. I am rooting for you!

 

[Racdos]

It is a small world…I was on my way to that dealer to buy that car when the salesman texted me to tell me someone else (you apparently) just decided to buy it. I instead bought a red one that showed up the next day and we picked up our cars at the same time.

I will say that the Tustin dealer is terrible in many ways and I wouldn’t blame Ford or the car overly much. Those sleezeballs told me you paid a lot over book and talked me into going $500 over and they couldn’t even give it to me with a full charge. They also told me the blue car was reserved for me and they delayed meeting with me to complete the paperwork until it was too late.

If Car companies want to continue with this outdated dealer way of selling, they need to remove these bad dealers. The Carvana, Tesla, etc. buying experience is so much better.

If you can, see about moving your car to the RSM or Huntington Beach dealers, they both did well with my last Mustang, but Tustin and Tuttle Click in Irvine have both screwed me over.

Ha! he told me someone else was interested as well. Glad to hear you are happy with the red!

I actually paid $100 less than sticker price (they just gave me that discount).
Were they having trouble finding your Fordkey pass card? The salesguy didn't know where it was and I just had happened to notice it on the visor during our test drive. He said he needed to get that information to another customer.
Yeah, mine was at 70% charge as well.

I can't wait for companies to skip these middleman dealers. If such experiences continue, I'm sure that day is not too far away.

Turtle Click in Irvine was my next go to, so I'm glad you alerted me on your experience. Someone else suggested Villa Ford where they had good experience. I'll also keep HB and RSM in mind. Thanks!

 

[Jim Glass]

Edit: super grateful for all the wonderful suggestions and the offer of help on this forum. However negative this experience, I am glad that it allowed this conversation to all you wonderful people. Many Thanks!

Bought new Mustang Mach E Premium in Infinite blew from Autonation Ford Tustin on April 21st. They had one in stock so I decided to just buy it. Paid sticker price. Once the finance paperwork was completed, sales guy told me that car had some technical issues and had to be kept overnight. So I went home and end of next day was told care is ready and picked it up. On the drive home, care showed a powertrain/brake malfunction error. Also gave a chargeport error every time care was started and randomly turned off while driving.

Took it back to the dealership and they still have the car and have made no progress on fixing it.

Its been a nightmare experience as they have my money and now in possession of my car. They can't be bothered to update me or provide a timeline when this will be resolved. Its been 20 days of this already and I have had a long time to think about things. Here are my reasons why I would NOT recommend this care to anyone.

1. Ford dealership service is not ready: They have no idea how to work on this car. When dropping off, the service adviser told me that they'll likely have to contact Ford hotline and this will take a while. Its been 20 days already and they have done nothing. The warranty this car comes with is pointless if they can't fix it.
2. Ford dealership does not care at all: During these 20 days, dealership has not once initiated any communication. They haven't updated me on the progress or expected resolution. . I'll get a "we are working on it" reply if I keep contacting them a few times. I can't imagine a dealership providing worse service than this.
3. Ford has provided no support: I have reached out to ford directly and they haven't provided any help whatsoever. All I am told is that they've called the dealership and service and have left messages but their calls are not being returned. For a company that's staking its future on BEV, I would expect more support for such major malfunction. Its telling that their influence on dealership is so minimal.

Overall the features, design and idea behind the care is fantastic. The drive is a bit harsh and you can hear lot of road noise but still fun to drive. But the company and dealerships standing behind it offer no support at all if something goes wrong.

This has not been my experience by any measure. My FE build no. 1635 early on experienced a bad 12v battery and since it’s replacement, the car has performed flawlessly save for minor digital glitches that in no way affected the operation of the car. Sorry to hear of your problybut I’ll wager your are in the less than 1% of such issues.

 

[UW2]

Very few people are going to come on these, or any other forums, and post a thread about how perfect the cars are. For the record, I've had zero trouble with mine. PAAK works perfectly within its known limitations (phone in a back pocket, coming from directly behind), no battery issues, no screen whine, no wind noise, nothing amiss. With that said, it's a first-year model, there are going to be issues for all of us at one time or another, and unfortunately, some folks such as the OP here, are going to have serious issues.

Exactly. No issues so far, been 3 months

 

[SnBGC]

I'm thinking dealer service depts don't bring in (or send out for training) techs until a certain number of E-cars go out the door and/or start asking for service.

Maybe call GeekSquad....?

Not correct. My uncle is a Ford tech and his employer (dealership in Albuquerque) has sent him to Dierborn many times for extensive training and they have only sold a few plug in vehicles at that time.

The dealership is a retailer. Plain and simple. Some better than others.

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