How's your panel aligment?

[Conrad]

Had my car a little under a week and already back at Ford. To say the QC control at Ford is f***king shocking is an understatement. I was convinced the car had been smashed up and damage repaired, turns out a lot of Mustangs are like this!

I was up Ford today and the one in the showroom was shoddy as well. The Sales Manager rang me just to say they've corrected "most" of the issues I pointed out but he wants to see me tomorrow and show me around 8 other Mustangs they have in their compound. It sounds to me he's going to try and fob me off by saying they're all like this, I'll report more tomorrow.

Anyone else got issues? I know I have no pics but I figured I'd see if Ford can sort first before posting up but decided I wanted to ask you guys before tomorrow. My issues were around the boot lid but apparently they've adjusted the rear lights and that's now Ok. I haven't even looked at the rest of the car because I was focusing on the rear. I'll have a good look tomorrow.

Serious question but are Mustangs actually hand made or something?

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[SSC]

Had my car a little under a week and already back at Ford. To say the QC control at Ford is f***king shocking is an understatement. I was convinced the car had been smashed up and damage repaired, turns out a lot of Mustangs are like this!

I was up Ford today and the one in the showroom was shoddy as well. The Sales Manager rang me just to say they've corrected "most" of the issues I pointed out but he wants to see me tomorrow and show me around 8 other Mustangs they have in their compound. It sounds to me he's going to try and fob me off by saying they're all like this, I'll report more tomorrow.

Anyone else got issues? I know I have no pics but I figured I'd see if Ford can sort first before posting up but decided I wanted to ask you guys before tomorrow. My issues were around the boot lid but apparently they've adjusted the rear lights and that's now Ok. I haven't even looked at the rest of the car because I was focusing on the rear. I'll have a good look tomorrow.

Serious question but are Mustangs actually hand made or something?

The Americans have been used to this from ford for years, most aren't so picky as we are, but then we do get better QC on cars over here. Barring the blind peeps doing the underseal inspection :lol:

 

[Beachfun]

Most of the panels on mine are out a bit! Including the bonnet and front bumper even the bolts that hold the front wing on had been adjusted and painted over!
The worst is the boot and rear bumper it looked like it had been in a smash and repaired badly!
It's going in to have the boot and rear bumper sorted which is the worst and the whey will spray the wing bolts at the same time! You will find that lots of other owners have had similar work done at Fords expense .. I have just also asked that images of the crap underseal be submitted to Ford !

 

[Ian whu]

You will probably find alignment issues with every mustang,
iF it wasn't a mustang, then 99% of people would reject the cars, coz I would of done

Had my car a little under a week and already back at Ford. To say the QC control at Ford is f***king shocking is an understatement. I was convinced the car had been smashed up and damage repaired, turns out a lot of Mustangs are like this!

I was up Ford today and the one in the showroom was shoddy as well. The Sales Manager rang me just to say they've corrected "most" of the issues I pointed out but he wants to see me tomorrow and show me around 8 other Mustangs they have in their compound. It sounds to me he's going to try and fob me off by saying they're all like this, I'll report more tomorrow.

Anyone else got issues? I know I have no pics but I figured I'd see if Ford can sort first before posting up but decided I wanted to ask you guys before tomorrow. My issues were around the boot lid but apparently they've adjusted the rear lights and that's now Ok. I haven't even looked at the rest of the car because I was focusing on the rear. I'll have a good look tomorrow.

Serious question but are Mustangs actually hand made or something?

 

[Conrad]

How on earth is this acceptable in this day and age? This issue pretty much ruined what was supposed to be a happy occasion me picking my car up last week.

I've spent all weekend gutted thinking my car has been damaged and repaired only to discover this. It's at least marginally a better scenario than accident damage I suppose.

My concern is when I come to sell somebody will just look at it and walk away assuming it's been in an accident. No way they believe it's just how it comes out the factory!

My Ford dealership doesn't have a bodyshop so I will insist it's sent to one until I'm happy with everything. I shouldn't even have to be dealing with this, I've got to come out of work again tomorrow to meet manager after losing an hour this morning dropping it off.

I bet this won't be the last time I'm up there either.

 

[Mustang1878]

Ironically mine arrived perfect, happy with all panels....THEN......the car had the usual rear bumper paint defect.....passed the car onto ford to have the issue sorted, got the car back with boot panels all over the shop, though its still a F***** awesome car!

 

[Manders Mustang]

I've got about a 2mm uprising on the right side of my boot, other than that, it's all good !

 

[Monty]

I was shocked the first time I saw a Mustang in a showroom (US spec well before they arrived), but had time (about 1 year!) to prepare myself that if I wanted a Mustang, I'd just have to accept it. Was really worried I'd get one of those wonky rear windows (as some of the continental carts were getting), but luckily escaped this.

I made the decision to pretty much stick my head in the sand when it arrived and kind of decided not to go out of my way to look for defects. Had to get boot realigned though as it was slamming into the bumper and damaging the paint. Repaired at dealer but then noticed the panels were all over the shop. They must have been like that before though as it's just impossible on my car to get all the rear panels aligned with each other.

Keep finding the odd dent/scratch/poor panel fit every time I wash it. Try and ignore the best I can.

 

[vernonator]

To be honest my '16 GT has 0 issues with panel alignment, and with all of these threads about mis-alignment I have gone over it pretty close. No issues at all, maybe the Right hand drive cars are coming off a different spur on the line that has some lower end workers?

 

[SteveS]

Quality control has been poor from the start possibly due to the lower level of acceptability in the States (according to Ford). The real question should be why Ford believe its acceptable to deliver a car with obvious flaws. Why it is acceptable is because we keep accepting the cars. We could refuse but I don't know of a case of that happening.
Personally, very happy with the fit and finish on mine at delivery. Panels all appeared good and if anything was noticeably out I think i'd have spotted it. I don't doubt there are slight issues and in a way i'm dreading others pointing them out at either the McMustang2 or NC500 meets ;)
I have a curious issue with slightly more poke on one rear wheel than the other (I reckon about 5mm) and this probably existed from delivery and only became noticeable when the spacers brought the wheels out to the arches. The specialist who did my suspension work reckoned this was not unheard of and doing a bit of research myself suggests this could even be a result of the rear wings being out of whack, but I don't know so much about that. The car drives true and the possibility of cosmetic damage occurring whilst the dealer investigates or resolves this frankly scares the sh*te out of me.
But here's the thing, I'm going to have it up on a ramp pre-NC500 just to check all the nuts and bolts are tight and then, like the underseal, I'm not going to worry about it. I decided a little while ago that I was not going to spend the first years of ownership of my dream car fretting about all its imperfections. In a way i'm fortunate not to have been affected by any "in your face" issues. They would not have been so easy to live with.
My two cents...

 

[twold]

I spotted a panel problem upon inspecting the car prior to collection.There is no way this car had a proper PDI.They said they would sort it before collection,they did not..They offered to deregister it at collection with the insinuation that if I did not want it someone else would.
Rightly or wrongly I took it with the agreement that they would cover the cost of fixing at another Ford dealer.I took it to another dealer and they mostly fixed it .The Ford repairer I took it to was amazed it passed PDI.They could also tell that it had been partly stripped by the selling dealer or somewhere in the chain to try to fix but as the selling dealer had no body shop they clearly decided to just keep quiet and see if a buyer would spot the fault .On top of that there was a lifted carpet and misaligned boot,all fixed by the repairing Ford dealer I took it to.

The truth is that there are some very rubbish dealers out there ,but also some good ones,I sadly got the cr&p one,or am I being unfair and expecting too much?

 

[RSPEC-015]

We haven't had too many complaints over here in Australia about panel alignment. Most of the defects appear to be in relation to paint.

Mine has a very slight bonnet "pinch" in the middle and the rear window is slightly lower on the left side; not much, and my car is black which can hide a lot.

All other panels fit OK.

Car turned up at the dealer with 3 paint defects; they corrected them under the guidance of the detailer who was going to do the Ceramic Pro paint treatment and did a good job. The detailer then did final correction and gave the paint the thumbs up as quite healthy.

My car also feels "well built" with no squeaks or rattles so I think I got a good one - much to my relief, and the dealer has been great too.

 

[goldengooner]

We haven't had too many complaints over here in Australia about panel alignment. Most of the defects appear to be in relation to paint.

Mine has a very slight bonnet "pinch" in the middle and the rear window is slightly lower on the left side; not much, and my car is black which can hide a lot.

All other panels fit OK.

Car turned up at the dealer with 3 paint defects; they corrected them under the guidance of the detailer who was going to do the Ceramic Pro paint treatment and did a good job. The detailer then did final correction and gave the paint the thumbs up as quite healthy.

My car also feels "well built" with no squeaks or rattles so I think I got a good one - much to my relief, and the dealer has been great too.

Reading all this aggro you are all getting scared the crap out of me, but had a long look at mine on Monday and could not see any issues, my dealer Richard said there was a couple of minor ones, I never asked and he never said. Suppose the bonus of a vert you don't have any rear window problems.
One thing that does puzzle me, I used to have an S197 I have been to car meets with 0ver 250 older Mustangs, I have never heard about any body issues till the S550 come alone. When you say its always been with Ford, has it?

 

[matt020876]

The Americans have been used to this from ford for years, most aren't so picky as we are, but then we do get better QC on cars over here. Barring the blind peeps doing the underseal inspection :lol:

Arrr buts that's in Belgium - form living there for 2 years I can honestly say they're mostly all alcoholics lol

 

[Conrad]

Been to Ford today and collected my car. The tail lights had been adjusted along with the boot catch which made a HUGE difference. The boot lid still sits proud of the quarter on RHS by a mm or so but nowhere near as bad. I've spotted a couple other very minor issues but on the whole relieved and happy that mine isn't as bad as some.....

I also met with the Branch Manager who to be fair was very helpful and offered to do whatever it takes to make me happy. He did however show me around another 6 Mustangs including the one in the showroom. EVERY SINGLE ONE of those Mustangs had some kind of panel aligment issue, some truly laughable. I'd be amazed if there's any Mustangs in the country that are perfect (or on par with a car built in Europe/Japan).

I had the full sales pitch from the Branch Manager trying to justify it all with how Ford manage to make an awesome car for such little money, I guess that's all he could do. He was pointing out issues on other Mustangs much worse than mine as if this some how made it all ok. These were customers cars awaiting collection BTW.

I told him 2 wrongs don't make a right! In this case 6 wrongs.

:ford::frusty::frusty:

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