Tricks to having warranty work done?

[Krackle959]

When I had a problem with the def heater faulting on my 8 month old Ram 3500 6.7L, I ended up filing a complaint with FCA. The dealership kicked the can for 3 months saying parts were back ordered, and its on its way, but never showed up. Once I was a month away from needing an inspection sticker and having a check engine light on is an auto fail. I was told to continue driving it 80 miles a day with the check engine light on, I asked for it in writing from the dealer in case something more serious went wrong I had someone to blame. They refused, and after clearing the code 3 times, they were one stop away from buying the truck back under lemon laws.

I went up the chain. Turns out the dealership was being sold, and couldn't order parts for 60 days due to the sale. The woman at FCA overnighted the part to the dealership, sent me the tracking information, and called me to tell me it was in. The dealership couldn't understand how I knew the part was sitting in their shop, they doubted me again. Once they got a call from the woman at FCA the next day my truck was fixed and haven't had an issue sense. I did get a check for 3 months of payments from FCA for my hassles.

Don't get me started on the stupidity of engineers who design a def tank with the pump and heater inside of it, and make it all one piece. You can order just the parts but it takes longer to swap out the parts and reinstall the tank versus just swapping a complete setup.

 

[61scout80]

Man this thread really makes me want to go buy a Ram :rolleyes:​​​​​​

Seriously why does anyone buy pos FCA vehicles, all I ever hear is stupid quality issues. I mean I kinda get the "for ma Cummins" since they're the only modern diesel that looks like you might be able to work on. But the guys buying gas rams or even worse, their cars. I don't get it.

Even if you argue that all modern vehicles have issues, which is fair, I've never heard anyone who was happy with FCA warranty services.



I say this as the all mighty unbreakable honda that I bought is sitting in the shop for the 2nd time, same issue, in under 500 miles. :rolleyes:

We've bought three new cars in my life. A 2001 Ford, a 2008 VW and now this 2019 Ram. Each had problems, the VW probably should have been lemoned. Without fail they've all sent out the deaf guy to diagnose a noise and the blind guy to diagnose a visual.

The only time I've had good warranty service was with my wife's Genesis Coupe we bought at Carmax with their warranty. After reading Doug DeMuro's articles about his insanly unreliable Rover that he bought at Carmax with that warranty I was happy to pay for it.
It had a problem, I took it to carmax. I asked the tech to go for a ride with me, showed him what the problem was and he was flat out honest. "There's an issue, everything I can check seems good, so we're going to send it to a hyundai dealer since they should be much more familiar with this car. I just don't see enough of these to know the common issues. We'll pick up the bill, all you need to do is take it to (hyndai dealer)" The hyundai dealer was just as miserable as every other dealer I visited for service, which shocked me since Carmax was picking up the tab.


I'm hoping to keep this truck no less than 10 years or until there is an HD truck with decent self driving capabilities. Unfortunatly in 'murica we love our trucks so much they can be less then stellar, way overpriced and still have people lining up to buy them. I really wish some Asian manufacturers would get in the HD game to put pressure on the "Amereican" brands to up their game.

I was fine with the Ford or the Ram. Both are as good as you can get with an HD truck, look good and are reasonably reliable. My decision came down to price, apples to apples options made the Ford $10,000 more than the ram, but Fords have a historically lower resale price. So I'd be paying more for an equal truck that would be lose value faster than the cheaper truck. That's really what it came down to for me.

As far as GM, I think they are a shell of the brand they once were and are only in business due to people with blind brand loyalty. Their new trucks are so ugly, feel years behind and the entire brand seems to have shit build quality anymore. I think the bailout made that company worse in the long run.

 

[61scout80]

Almost every person I know with a CR Cummins has had major issues. Mostly injector related, which can cause many other major issues. Guys who bought them new seem to have good luck though. Don't even get me started on the transmission. The engine isn't the only part of a truck btw

This is a lot of why I decided to buy new. I couldn't find a listing in a price I was willing to pay for a used truck without knowing it was properly cared for. There's too many wives tales and myths around diesels and I just didn't want to buy something that someone fucked up. I absolutly didn't want to buy something that someone modified, deleted, etc. It all just sounded like a way to end up paying more overall to fix an older truck with the prices people want for them.

 

[barrelroll]

I bought a new 2018 Ford Focus for cheap to pile the miles on driving 100+ miles a day to work so I didn't have to worry about repairs. In 1 year of ownership after 5 trips to 2 different dealerships to get the same issue fixed I think they finally maybe fixed it. I made it someone else's problem and bought a $2,500 cherokee to put 100 miles a day on. Driving 1/2 hour each way to the dealership, getting the run around, having to change out demos because I was putting too many miles on them, no calls back, ect. I decided my time just wasn't worth it. I'm not sure we'll ever buy new junk again. The whole point of buying new junk was so we could drop it off broken and get a call when it's done to come pick it up.

Unless I knew a dealership has a good service department I wouldn't chance it on counting on a warranty again. Warranty work doesn't pay as well as normal work and there's very little mechanical talent left in dealerships any more. So you get some kid out of wyotech throwing parts at your junk as quick as possible to push it out the door.