On 2015-06-28 1:13 PM, graham wrote:

>> I have had vehicles from most of the NA auto companies... except
>> Dodge/Chrysler, but had lots of experience with them in the fleet at
>> work. I got shafted by all of them. Now I drive buy Japanese cars. I
>> currently have a Honda and a Toyota. I have also had Mazdas. I might
>> have bought another Mazda but Ford bought a big share of the company and
>> I was worried that they would have dropped the Mazda products to the
>> Ford level.
>>
> That link has now been cut!
> It's OK to buy Mazdas.

Good to know. Last two Fords I had were problematic. A Ranger with a
diesel engine was prone to leaks in the oil cooling line. It is not a
good thing to develop oil links in any vehicle and you especially don't
need it in a diesel. One might expect that the line from the engine to
the cooling rad would be a relatively inexpensive part that was quickly
and easily replaced. It was just a length of metal tubing with flared
ends and compression fittings, and should be quickly and easily replaced
by unscrewing the nuts at each end to remove the old one, and hook up
the nuts on the new one to replace. I don't remember how much I got
soaked for that repair but it was a lot, and I had to do it a couple times.

Service was the worst. Even with recalls and recalls I ended up paying
way too much. The battery in my 1988 Tempo failed. No problem Mr.
Smith, it's under warranty.... then I was reminded it was a pro rated
warranty.... 1988... $165 to replace the battery. I bitched about that
saying I could have gone to Canadian Tire and got a battery for $70.
The jerk said it would be a lower quality battery. I doubted it could be
lower quality that the one that died in less than a year. I was charged
an hour for labour... for a job I could have done myself in 10 minutes.
The icing on the cake was $46.95 for an AVR test. The service manager
said they couldn't just send a battery back and them it was no good. Why
not? The test would only tell them the battery was NFG. And why $46.95?
He asked if I thought they just snapped some clamps on the terminals
and took a reading. Yeah.... that is exactly what they do.

I told him to take a look at me going out because he would never see me
coming back in. However, I did go back in one more time. I stopped to
show them my new Mazda. I will never buy another Ford because, quality
of the vehicles aside, the dealers treat the franchise as a license to
steal in the service department.