Bad Experiences With New 2016 Saleen Yellow Label

This is my on going experience with my 2016 Saleen Yellow Label Mustang that I had built earlier this year. Long story short, there have been very few positive things to say about the car and the company Saleen. Details are below. I plan on posting this on every forum I can find as a warning to other people considering purchasing from Saleen, all are welcome to share this information.

I started looking for a Saleen Yellow label in March. I live in Iowa so there are no Saleen dealers even close to me. I first found one over 1000 miles. A local Ford dealer Ames Ford and Linclon (an amazing dealer by the way has gone above and beyond for me in this situation) said they would be willing to bring a car in if it was ok with Saleen.

First sketchy interaction

After contacting Saleen purely to see if it was ok for my dealer to bring a car in that I was happy with the price, just needed it shipped to a local dealer. Saleen offered to build me a brand new car, with a guarenteed turn around time of 2 weeks. I thought it was strange that they were willing to steal business from there own dealers but hey 2 weeks turn around time souded great.

Second sketchy interaction

Donor car was picked up March 21, two weeks later no car was returned. I emailed Derek at Saleen and was told 2 more weeks.

3rd- 7th sketchy interaction (emailed them once per week)

Constant excuses and lies to why the car was not done, my dealer started asking Saleen where the car was also. They would be told one excuse and I would be told something completely different.

"Car was dirty took 3 days to detail" Derek @ Saleen
1. Saleen took care of shipping and put it on a open truck
2. When I got the car back zero detailing or fine scratches were removed, came on an open truck again, dirty.

Saleen to Me "Can't find anyone to drive the truck to ship the car to you"
Saleen to Dealer "Our truck broke down"

More and more excuses.

May 2nd

Car shows up only a month past the guaranteed delivery, after more reading on Saleen taking over a year to complete cars I fell lucky in a strange way.

May 3rd
I get my first chance to look at the car clean, imedialy notice some aligment issues with the Saleen installed deck lid. Then notice issues with the Saleen window louvers, and then look over the car more, paint issues with the Saleen spoiler, what the heck, I thought this was supposed to be I high quality car and every painted part they put on had issues.

May 4th
Email Saleen photos of the window louvers, Saleen says it just wax from Ames Ford, No, Ames Ford never waxed or buffed the car, I asked them to just wash it because I was tired of waiting for the car.





Story Continues......

Problem #1: Says "Saleen" on it. And that's not a crack, that's a very sad and unfortunate observation.

May 5th provide Saleen with photos of all parts with paint issues and an explanation of each photo.
Spoiler, missing clear coat on one side, missing paint under clear coat on the other.



Rear Deck Lid, multiple gouges deep into the primer, missalignment, exposed fiberglass, paint and primer so thin the fiberglass pattern can be seen in the paint




After seeing photos, Saleen says take it to a body shop to get an estimate

May 6-15 Take it to 3 different body shops and local dealer, all agree 100% the issue is from poor painting and misalignment of the rear deck lid cover hitting my tail lights when closed

May 16th
I provided Saleen with a quote from the Ford Autorized Body Shop roughly $1000 in total. They strangely go quite, I start calling them to get answers.

May 22nd

Get an email from Derek @ Seleen saying they will not be paying for the issues, the production manager and president of Saleen both believe these issues are from buffing burn from Ames Ford.

Derek @ Saleen later states that their quality control person didn't see any thing wrong with the car and they have photos to prove it. I requested the photos but never received anything.

I immediately send Derek @ Saleen and email telling them that this is not the case, the car has never been buffed and that everyone that has looked at the car 100% without question believes the issues are paint and alignment issues. I supply them with the fallowing images of the trunk alignment.







I then call Derek@Saleen again telling them that the paint is their issue and Ames Ford never touched the car with a buffer. Derek agrees to pay for the fixed but wants to send me a new painted rear deck lid cover. I agree and wait.

Story Continues....

None of your pictures are working unless you update(pay) your host.

SVT-DADDY said:

None of your pictures are working unless you update(pay) your host.

Click to expand...

Haha, I clearly don't know what I'm doing, haven't used photobucket in a while, will try to fix shortly.

Use postimg.org

scharfe said:

Haha, I clearly don't know what I'm doing, haven't used photobucket in a while, will try to fix shortly.

Click to expand...

SoCalTim said:

Use postimg.org

Click to expand...

Or if on your pc load by the Attachment icon

SoCalTim said:

Use postimg.org

Click to expand...

SoCalTim, your the man, got it

Sad to hear about your car and others stories like this.

May 22 -June 22

I call once a week, talk to Derek @ Saleen, he tells me the rear deck lid is in the mail. He says he will call me back with more infomatoion.

Every week nothing shows up, he never calls back, Im just getting strung along.

June 22.

At this point Im on a first name basis with the receptionist, she is by far the most competent person at Saleen that I've interacted with. After continually asking to speak to anyone but Derek I get transferred to the COO

The COO sounds like an older lady, and seems to know zero about cars, I was asking where the rear deck lid cover was and she thinks that's the spoiler. She tells me she will talk to some one and call me back.

She never calls back, but I do get an email from Derek, saying that its taken a little longer to make the rear deck lid cover it will be shipped next week (its already been in the mail for 6 weeks?)

June 26

Derek @ saleen now says the car needs to be brought into the dealer for inspection, its already be in over 5 times before for other mechanical saleen issues, but I'll get to that later


June 27- July 26
Sometime in hear Derek @ Saleen backpedals and says they will only be fixing the rear deck lid cover and nothing else because there quality control person didn't see anything and that's good enough for them.

July 27
I send Derek @ Saleen this statement of condition from a Ford Autorized Body Shop, I hear nothing for a week. I call and get the normal, I will check with the production manager or presdent and call you back. I know realize this is code for we will not be fixing this and I will not be calling you back.


This is from saleens warranty policy I contacted them 1 day after receiving the car with the issues.

July 28-present

Still nothing has been receive and nothing has been fixed.

I also contacted the BBB about Saleen who has an F rating and after them blatantly lying and me offering proof of each lie they decided to stop replying to that, its not available to the public yet but I'll post a link once it is.

Ok, so that's the paint issues part, lets move on to

1.returning my property issues
2. mechanical issues that has had my car in the shop over 5 times and the last 2000 miles

Agreed returning of personal property, items missing out the the car.

When I selected the donor vechicle, I clearly overlooked the leather color, it say ceramic. For some reason in my mind I thought it was black.

I get the car and shit, its white leather. The car is scheduled to be picked up in the morning so there is nothing I can do. We contact Saleen and ask if they can change the skins out to black leather, figured they would have plenty of skins from re-skinning the black labels.

Saleen says they can for $575, for that price I request the original skins back, Saleen agrees to return the original leather skins with the car.

Well the car shows up, with black leather, but no skins. I call Saleen, turns out they stole the entire seat assembly out of anther customers black label mustang that was sitting at their shop and have yet to strip my skins off my original seats.

It took about 3 months of the seat covers "being in the mail" before they finally showing up. Saleen tried to say they were not going to return the covers because they did it for free. They told the BBB and my local dealer this, Haha no, my local dealer payed them and kept the reicept, its attached below just for fun.



The donor car had the $95 all weather floor matt option, they some how disappeared, don't know were to but I can guess. I asked Ames Ford if they knew anything about it, they didn't but apologized and gave me a full set of weathertec floormatts for free with out me asking for anything.

Again, Ames Ford located in Ames, Iowa has been amazing with this entire experience. They have even offered to pay for the fixes to the Saleen paint issues, I declined I think the person responsible should pay for it. Again they are highly recommended.

OK lets move on to the most frustrating part of this hole situation

Belt and Pully Issues ......

wow. I would just tell Saleen to buy the car back from you. This seems more trouble than its worth.. just my two cents.

I know if it were me I would have given up a long time ago.

Mechanical issues

Well I'm driving along, I have about 400 miles on the car, start hearing a ticking noise, it gets worse overtime, start hearing belt noises. It started mainly on cold startups but got to the point it always made the noise.

I take it into Ames Ford, they keep the car for a couple of days, Saleen tells them that it is a pully alignment issue, they knew about it when they shipped the car, but clearly didnt care. After less than 500 miles, it destroyed the belt.

Saleen says just throw some shims behind one of the pullys, doesn't offer a kit or procedure.

Well the car is quite for about another 400 miles, then the noise is back. Ames Ford takes it back replaces another destroyed belt, Saleen says they have a solution just don't know when they will ship the solution, this was 2 months ago.

Haha, well another 400-500 miles and well another belt making noise and is shot. Ames Ford gets tired of waiting on Saleen who by know is a running joke by anyone involved in the situation. They have a mechanic who also is a gunsmith. He goes home and turns me a custom shim for fixing the alignment issue. Again Ames Ford going above and beyond.

All this time, the car has been in 5 time, 3 for replacing belts over 3 months, and as far as I know my local dealer has not been paid a penny by Saleen. They don't warranty their paint and they don't pay dealers who do mechanical warranty work.

Well crap, the main reason I bought this car was to have 715hp mustang with a WARRANTY. And now it looks like Saleen isn't going to cover anything, mechanical or cosmetic. Even though the car is under warranty and is show to be covered in Saleen's warranty policy.

8/20

Oh guess what, the belt has gone bad for the 4th time, alignment is perfect, turns out Saleen doesn't know what they are talking about and there is more bad than the alignment, some of the pulleys look to have excessive ware for only having 2000 miles on them. Ill be taking it in this Monday again.

Thats all a got for now, there are many more nit picky quality issues with the car if anyone would like to know but I'll leave it here for now.

Long story short, in my opintion, buy a Roush Stage 3 or just get the Kenne & Bell Supercharger Kit and save yourself $10,000-$20,000. You won't have a warrenty but I feel like I don't have one anyways. I don't expect Ames Ford to keep fixing Saleens issues for free and don't blame them.

Fun fact, Ames Ford was going to become a Saleen Dealer, after seeing how Saleen handled me, they became a Roush Dealer a week later instead. Just another example of how not standing behind your product or word will lead to an failed business.

sbrenskell said:

wow. I would just tell Saleen to buy the car back from you. This seems more trouble than its worth.. just my two cents.

I know if it were me I would have given up a long time ago.

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Haha, given the number of times it been in for the same issue I might be getting close the the lemon law taking affect.

I think they were counting on me giving up also, but I'm a pretty stubborn guy, I work to hard for my money to have a company like Saleen rip me off.

That is just plain terrible fitment on the rear decklid. Looks like a simple overlay, not a replacement panel for the stock piece. Sticks out way past the lower trim body line on the tail lights.

Paint issues also look very poor and unacceptable.

I would have refused delivery of the vehicle before accepting the keys.