Six weeks after taking delivery of my Mustang GT is dead.

Well as all of us i ordered my car in March 2016 and the wait began the months clicked by and after twelve months later I was handed over the keys to my Race Red GT Fast Back. Like a lot of us owning a mustang is a childhood dream and to say the car is treated with kit gloves. Washed every week vacuumed polished and treated like a first born. The wheels have never broken traction and you can tell that I haven't even flicked it into track mode.

It all turned to shit earlier this week just five weeks after delivery. The checked engine light came on at 3pm Monday afternoon 5 mins later I am on the phone to my dealer and have my mustang booked in to find out why my car has this light on and the car is parked up in is garage and not driven again.

7:30 Wednesday morning I am dropping in with my car to the dealer and like an nervous farther the wait begins. After an hour or so passes I hear a roar from the workshop and i think to myself maybe they have found the issue and it is being tested. I could not be more wrong.

5 hours later the service manager comes out and takes a seat next to me. He starts to note to me that I have a small misfire in number seven cylinder and they do not know what the issue is. They have done all the normal checks swapped the coils with number five checked the plugs and injectors as per the Ford documentation and all has pulled nil result.

I was told that they we waiting a responce from Ford Australia on what the next step will be. They did mention that there was a solenoid in the inlet manifold that could be the issue but they were waiting for a responce from the tech department at Ford. The dealership have issued me with a car and I had to get back to work.

Thursday afternoon I have not been contact by the dealer so I did decide to drop in on my way home expecting to hear something positive, nope not today. I was meet by the service manager and we went out to the workshop to see spark plugs out and a compression test equipment out. Yes number seven cylinder has les then half the compression then the other seven and it has used over a litre of oil in its short 11km life ( I work as a sales engineer and have clients 500ks away from each other thus most of the time is spent on the highways). I was told that Ford Australia have asked for a leek test to be completed which would be done the following day (Friday) to try to establish if its a head or bottom end issue.

It's 2:30pm on Friday (today) and I make the call to the dealer. The service manager has completed the leak test and yes the test has shown the bottom end has the issue. He then goes on to tell me that he has used a camera to look down the bore and there is small piece ok metallic piece on top of the piston ans there is evidence of a notch on the edge of the piston and the bore has a scuff mark. It's offical the car I have been wanting for has a dead motor.

Apparently the next step that Ford Australia have asked for is the head to be taken off to try to establish what or where the rouge item that is in the motor has come from. Along with this Ford Australia have also advise the dealer that there has only be two other failures like this and they both have happened at the track or strip and that insinuated that I must has treated my car badly which i was astonished and said that my car has never been treated badly and the fact is that the car has never taken to a track of any kind and it has not even had the throttle opened fully or revved over 4500rpm.

I have been told that the next chance they are going to be able to look at my car is on Thursday of next week. This is to be able to advise Ford Australia if the head chamber has damage ( i can not see how you can think is would be in as new condition after having a foreign item being driven into it by the motion of the piston). My question is why are Ford Australia wanting the motor to be torn down before making the decision what parts they want to re-use as apparently the Ford Tech repasentive wants the motor to be pulled down before he makes a decision on if they are going to honour the warranty and then what course of action they are going to use. There is talk of maybe issuing a sort motor thus using the existing heads with have have been heat cycled many times. The issues I have with this is clearly there is a loose item in the cylinder and this has to have an impact with the head, vales and valve seats, there is no machining allowance on the heads for a skim to be taken before the re assembly of the motor.

Yes I am not happy with the way that this situation is panning out for me. I have paid good money for a new car waited 12 months for it after paying my deposit. I have never abused the car in the month and a half I have had the car and Ford Australia seem to want to repair my broken engine with heads that have taken a flogging wont be flat due to the head cycles of normal use and want to wait for every test and deconstruction of the enigine to be completed before making any kind of decision if they are going to honour there warranty.

I don't know if I am being a little presious with this as I would have thought that the result after the car being at the dealer for three days finding a metallic partical in the engine having very little compression in the cylinder and the piston being damaged would action something from Ford Australia to resolve the issue.

Instead I have been told that Ford Australia suspect that I would take the car out to the drag strip or race track flogged the shit out of it blown the motor in the time frame of 5 weeks And they want to do a full investigation on what has happened to a eleven thousand k old motor that's going to take another week before they are told the motor is damaged and unusable in the number seven cylinder.

Customer service at Ford Australia non existent.

Sorry to hear about your situation, Gavin.

I sincerely hope that it all works out for you.

If you feel that you are being screwed around, perhaps a post/PM on Ford Australia Bookface would accelerate things.

11K in six weeks.........flap me!

https://www.ford.com.au/content/dam/Ford/website-assets/ap/au/owner/warranty/NewVehicleWarranty.pdf

Where does it state anything about track use in the warranty??? section 8 states the reasons where the warranty does not apply, none of which are track use.

they can't just write off the warranty, even if you were at the track, something failed and unless it was a modifaction made not by ford, (which could be what they are doing the tear down to find) then it is covered under warranty.

If you don't get results speak to as high up as you can and pretty much follow section 5 in the link. and next stop is going to the ACCC ombudsman.

i'm still waiting for my dealership to get back to me from December regarding the fault codes that came up on mine.

Gavin, this absolutely sucks mate. You must be devastated and furious at the same time.
FWIW if Ford Aus continue to play the "He must've tracked it card" I'd be pursuing this line of thinking -
1. The car comes equipped with track apps FFS. In the US they even ENCOURAGE drivers to take the car to the track and learn how to use it properly.
2. Stasik got a new transmission (or car, not sure) after his auto failed dismally on the track.
3. THEY are the ones who put the friggin rev limiter in place. Track or no track, they are ultimately responsible for dictating the acceptable engine speed.
4. If you really get stuck, I may know a guy who knows a guy who could do some research on your behalf. You see, warranty is a bitch when you can prove the ACTUAL number of cars having these failures, rather than having to take the dealers word for it. Facts matter.
Best of luck with it, hope it all works out well for you.
Dear Ford Australia, please remove head from arse.

Seek legal advice.

Copie said:

Seek legal advice.

Click to expand...

Perhaps you should take heed of [MENTION=26194]Copie[/MENTION] 's advice.

He managed to secure a new, replacement car in next to no time from Ford over a few paint defects and some component surface rust, I believe.

Ford UK invited a load of owners to Silverstone for a day on track....I doubt they'd be in a position to decline a warranty claim had one of the cars had a problem

This is outrageous.

Hate to say it, this is part of the reason why Ford's manufacturing has left Australia, and what is left in Australia continue to disappoint.

Track day or drag strip should not void warranty. And GT cars are meant to be tough.

Seek legal advise
Utilize social media
Put pressure back onto them.

Not only they must fix your car at no cost, but they must compensate for the trouble they have caused you too.

First thing I would be doing is getting on the phone to Ford AU 13 FORD ignore the dealer and what crap they are spewing. Lodge a formal complaint on the process, be firm but polite, it's not the phone operators fault so don't take it out on them. Ford have a fairly robust process for these sorts of complaints and they will assign you a contact person. The dealers PCM scanner doesn't give them access to max speed or rpms so provided there isn't damage under the vehicle they have no basis for their accusation.

They will do their investigation and go from there. Attacking then on social media at this stage is just wasting ammo.

The realistic outcome you will be a new short block, I wouldn't accept anything less then that outcome.

These sorts of problems happen from time to time, I've seen entire rear ends fall out of brand new 500,000 dollar prime movers soon as they had a load put on them.

They may be looking for evidence of nitrous use. After they determine you're clean they'll cover it.

For what it's worth Australian Consumer law is on your side here. I think the problem at the moment is that Ford/Dealer must be given 'reasonable' opportunity to make good the defect. And what is reasonable to them is not reasonable in many cases (such as this) to the customer.

I think Ford will cover the failure for you. But the time taken to get to that point is bloody annoying. Very very disappointing for you and I think a whole group of us share your frustration.

Copie said:

First thing I would be doing is getting on the phone to Ford AU 13 FORD ignore the dealer and what crap they are spewing. Lodge a formal complaint on the process, be firm but polite, it's not the phone operators fault so don't take it out on them. Ford have a fairly robust process for these sorts of complaints and they will assign you a contact person. The dealers PCM scanner doesn't give them access to max speed or rpms so provided there isn't damage under the vehicle they have no basis for their accusation.

They will do their investigation and go from there. Attacking then on social media at this stage is just wasting ammo.

The realistic outcome you will be a new short block, I wouldn't accept anything less then that outcome.

These sorts of problems happen from time to time, I've seen entire rear ends fall out of brand new 500,000 dollar prime movers soon as they had a load put on them.

Click to expand...

I am having an issue with the new short block as the fix. You can appreciate the nature of an alloy head and they generally have to be re-machined before bring fitted to an motor. I was advised that there is no machining allowance left of thus face and they have to measure the head with a strate edge and feeler gauges to see how bent they are before they re installed onto the block thinking that a head gasket is going to take up the variation in gap.

I work in the manufacturing of mining equipment and yes I do understand that things fail and this can happen due to manufacturing or material defects this is understandable. The issue I have is like yourself I have paid there asking price for a product and with this repair conducted with a sort motor I do not believe that it is a equivalent in quality and life span then a motor that has been fitted with heads that are completely flat at the time of installation.

Hi Gavin,

I hope it all works out to your satisfaction - it may take some time.

The least they should do is a complete new engine and take your original donk away to investigate.

The track use is just an insinuation from hearsay it seems; I don't blame you taking this personally (I would too) and you know once they check the computer modules they have no leg to stand on.

Copie's advice is best, escalate it politely to Ford Australia. It has only been 3 days and they have given you the use of a courtesy car. A tech from Ford Australia should go to the dealership as soon as possible as an engine failure is a serious matter.

Cheers

Anything less than a new engine is unacceptable for this failure. That's terrible treatment, I sure hope you can get it sorted out.

Surrexen said:

Anything less than a new engine is unacceptable for this failure. That's terrible treatment, I sure hope you can get it sorted out.

Click to expand...

I am with you on this.