Ford refuse to honour 8month old battery warranty
Discussion
I've been having electrical issues with my 2014 Ford Focus since 16th of December
This started with the alarm going off intermittently overnight, which then meant by the next morning the battery was dead
Car went back to the dealership (bought in Jan 2019 and they replaced the battery with a new one in April) who said they had no idea what was wrong and decided to send it to
Ford instead
In the course of taking it to Ford new problems arose:
Ford looked at the car from 2nd of Jan and after fitting a new battery all of the issues have seemed to be resolved.
Unfortunately though they are arguing that the battery in the car failed due to "driver profile". They have offered no explanation as to what this means and even said that they couldn't speculate on how I drive it, but are still using it as an excuse to not put a warranty claim in for the battery which is only about 8 months old
I'm at my absolute wits end at this point as they don't seem to want to back down and if they don't I'm left with a £360 just for a battery. I've spent loads on buses and taxis since December as I've had no courtesy car offered throughout the whole ordeal and I'm desperate to get my car back, though don't believe I should be on the hook for a part that surely has several years warranty and is less than a month old
Does anyone have any advice on how to proceed? I've been advised by friends to go through my car finance company as they can chase these sort of things, but I'm reluctant to play that card until I have to as I imagine it would mean being without the car for a lot longer
Mod edit. No name and shame.
This started with the alarm going off intermittently overnight, which then meant by the next morning the battery was dead
Car went back to the dealership (bought in Jan 2019 and they replaced the battery with a new one in April) who said they had no idea what was wrong and decided to send it to
Ford insteadIn the course of taking it to Ford new problems arose:
- Jump starting the car would cause a power steering failure message to appear
- A "Steering wheel lock engaged" message kept flashing every 10s when driving (car drove okay)
- When turning the car off the engine would stay running after pressing the stop button. To begin with, opening the car door would cause the engine to shut itself off but eventually this stopped working as well
Ford looked at the car from 2nd of Jan and after fitting a new battery all of the issues have seemed to be resolved.Unfortunately though they are arguing that the battery in the car failed due to "driver profile". They have offered no explanation as to what this means and even said that they couldn't speculate on how I drive it, but are still using it as an excuse to not put a warranty claim in for the battery which is only about 8 months old
I'm at my absolute wits end at this point as they don't seem to want to back down and if they don't I'm left with a £360 just for a battery. I've spent loads on buses and taxis since December as I've had no courtesy car offered throughout the whole ordeal and I'm desperate to get my car back, though don't believe I should be on the hook for a part that surely has several years warranty and is less than a month old
Does anyone have any advice on how to proceed? I've been advised by friends to go through my car finance company as they can chase these sort of things, but I'm reluctant to play that card until I have to as I imagine it would mean being without the car for a lot longer
Mod edit. No name and shame.
Edited by Scrump on Tuesday 21st January 21:01
This is a bit of a backwater of PH.
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You’ll get a lot of bks to sift through if you post in The Lounge,
You’re too new to post in Speed Plod & The Law, which is actually your best place to post, but if you Report your own thread you can add a message to the Mods and they might be kind enough to grant you earlier access.
You may have more replies if you post in General Gassing.
You’ll get a lot of b
ks to sift through if you post in The Lounge, You’re too new to post in Speed Plod & The Law, which is actually your best place to post, but if you Report your own thread you can add a message to the Mods and they might be kind enough to grant you earlier access.
I'm guessing that the car was bought from somewhere other than a Ford dealer. Maybe the first battery fitted by whoever, wasn't a decent battery (do they still need Calcium based batteries on Ford's of that era)? Anyway it sounds like the Ford dealer hasn't done anything wrong and the issue with the battery lies with whoever supplied and fitted it. More details needed...
A1VDY said:
swisstoni said:
How was the figure of £360 arrived at?
This. Standard battery approx £75
SS battery no more than £150.
£360= pi55take.. or having pants pulled down and having to take the rough end of a pineapple..
Scrump said:
swisstoni said:
How was the figure of £360 arrived at?
I am guessing something like:Diagnosis and fault code reading £100
New battery £160
Battery fitting £100
My MIL had a similar bill from a main dealer (not Ford) for a new battery in her car.
Another case of being financially assaulted..
A1VDY said:
Diagnosing a faulty battery with the latest type testers takes no more than 2 mins. Fitting the average battery takes approx 5 mins.
Another case of being financially assaulted..
I fitted a battery to a Galaxy two months ago. Took a fAnother case of being financially assaulted..
king lot longer than 5 mins. Complete pain in the arseA1VDY said:
Diagnosing a faulty battery with the latest type testers takes no more than 2 mins. Fitting the average battery takes approx 5 mins.
Another case of being financially assaulted..
The Ford dealer was probably asked to diagnose faulty electrics doing weird and wonderful things, the fact that the car had already had a new battery was probably a red herring in the mix.Another case of being financially assaulted..
I had a car once where a front wheel and a section of wheel-arch liner had to come off to get access to the battery. Just saying, like.
OP is making the usual mistake of thinking that a Ford franchise dealer is Ford itself. My reading of the situation is that the Ford dealer's service department replaced a battery that the original supplying dealer is alleged to have changed. They are not obliged to honour any warranty on a part supplied by someone else I would have thought.
OP - take the bill on the chin, recover your 8-month-old battery from the Ford dealership and go back to the original supplying dealer telling them the battery they fitted was duff. As they supplied and fitted it as part of a repair technically there was no cost to you for it but they might refund the value as compensation if they can recover the cost from their supplier?!
Plus, check the date codes on your "8 month old" battery and check that it actually met the spec for the car. There's always the possibility the battery was just one they had lying around that was part-used and of the correct physical size.
OP is making the usual mistake of thinking that a Ford franchise dealer is Ford itself. My reading of the situation is that the Ford dealer's service department replaced a battery that the original supplying dealer is alleged to have changed. They are not obliged to honour any warranty on a part supplied by someone else I would have thought.
OP - take the bill on the chin, recover your 8-month-old battery from the Ford dealership and go back to the original supplying dealer telling them the battery they fitted was duff. As they supplied and fitted it as part of a repair technically there was no cost to you for it but they might refund the value as compensation if they can recover the cost from their supplier?!
Plus, check the date codes on your "8 month old" battery and check that it actually met the spec for the car. There's always the possibility the battery was just one they had lying around that was part-used and of the correct physical size.
Edited by Evercross on Wednesday 22 January 07:31
syrinx said:
- Jump starting the car would cause a power steering failure message to appear
They have a smart charge (?) system that bumps up the voltage when it detects the battery is low, therefore when you attach the jump leads it gets more juice than expected and can fry circuits/modules causing faults.
A lot of modern cars don’t like being jump started and you shouldn’t connect both leads to the battery, the positive goes to the battery, the negative to a suitable earth point on the car.
The Focus usually has an EFB battery and no coding is needed (mk3 Focus) I would have expected a battery to be around £150 fitted, starter motors play up and give the symptoms of a failing battery. I would guess the constant jump starting has fried the battery and that’s why they won’t honour the warranty.
Oh and if anyone can replace the battery on a transit in 2 minutes they are doing very well.
The Focus usually has an EFB battery and no coding is needed (mk3 Focus) I would have expected a battery to be around £150 fitted, starter motors play up and give the symptoms of a failing battery. I would guess the constant jump starting has fried the battery and that’s why they won’t honour the warranty.
Oh and if anyone can replace the battery on a transit in 2 minutes they are doing very well.
Thanks for the advice so far everyone
Just to clarify a couple of points as I probably didn't explain myself that well in the OP:
Lookers Ford have said that if the battery was proved to be faulty they would 100% honour the manufacturers warranty since it was an original Ford battery that was previously placed in the car by Evans Halshaw 8 months ago
They are refusing to honour the warranty because of what they see as causing the battery to fail. I'm a complete novice at this sort of thing but the way they explained it is they took the dead battery off the car and trickle charged it for two days. It then showed a "Charge OK" message on whatever tests they use, which is the reason they're refusing to honour the warranty, but the battery still won't hold any charge at all and therefore is completely unfit for purpose
I have looked elsewhere and Halfords seem to do an equivilent battery which would only be £130 fitted. If the bill at Ford was closer to that I probably would have just bit the bullet and paid it. At the moment my big worry is that I pay the £360 to get a new battery and in a few months time that battery goes as well as there could be some underlying electrical issue in the car that has so far not been found and is hidden by a new battery
Because of this and the fact that both garages seem to be blaming eachother for the bill (I still don't understand why Evans Halshaw felt the need to take the car to a Ford specialist just for the sake of a battery fitting, and didn't even ask for me to authorise taking it there either before it was booked) the cource of action I've chosen to take is to get the car finance company involved to see if they can kickstart the process
Suddenly when all these issues have come about I recall originally going to see the car back in january 2019 before I purchased it when the salesman at the dealership attempted to start the car and it had a dead battery so he had to jump start it. At the time his reasoning was that because it was cold they have to do that to a lot of cars there, which seemed valid at the time although in the context of all that has happened has started to raise some red flags with me
Just to clarify a couple of points as I probably didn't explain myself that well in the OP:
Lookers Ford have said that if the battery was proved to be faulty they would 100% honour the manufacturers warranty since it was an original Ford battery that was previously placed in the car by Evans Halshaw 8 months ago
They are refusing to honour the warranty because of what they see as causing the battery to fail. I'm a complete novice at this sort of thing but the way they explained it is they took the dead battery off the car and trickle charged it for two days. It then showed a "Charge OK" message on whatever tests they use, which is the reason they're refusing to honour the warranty, but the battery still won't hold any charge at all and therefore is completely unfit for purpose
I have looked elsewhere and Halfords seem to do an equivilent battery which would only be £130 fitted. If the bill at Ford was closer to that I probably would have just bit the bullet and paid it. At the moment my big worry is that I pay the £360 to get a new battery and in a few months time that battery goes as well as there could be some underlying electrical issue in the car that has so far not been found and is hidden by a new battery
Because of this and the fact that both garages seem to be blaming eachother for the bill (I still don't understand why Evans Halshaw felt the need to take the car to a Ford specialist just for the sake of a battery fitting, and didn't even ask for me to authorise taking it there either before it was booked) the cource of action I've chosen to take is to get the car finance company involved to see if they can kickstart the process
Suddenly when all these issues have come about I recall originally going to see the car back in january 2019 before I purchased it when the salesman at the dealership attempted to start the car and it had a dead battery so he had to jump start it. At the time his reasoning was that because it was cold they have to do that to a lot of cars there, which seemed valid at the time although in the context of all that has happened has started to raise some red flags with me
Evans halshaw are absolutely the worst and so it would not surprise me if the battery they fitted was a used one from another car on the lot.
They swapped the new tyres on my wife's car with barely legal ditch finders between us buying and collecting.
If I were you, I'd just take it on the chin, buy a new battery from ecp, and then either fit or yourself or get a trusted garage to do it
They swapped the new tyres on my wife's car with barely legal ditch finders between us buying and collecting.
If I were you, I'd just take it on the chin, buy a new battery from ecp, and then either fit or yourself or get a trusted garage to do it
Is the car running and starting ok now?
If so I’d just pay up and learn a relatively cheap lesson that you don’t go to franchised dealers for vague investigations. They are just about trustable for very clearly defined tasks like servicing, (if you want to pay the extra).
The duff battery could easily register ‘Ok’ after it has been charged up. But leave you stranded somewhere the next day.
But it’s not worth arguing the toss and the time it would take.
Make sure you have a new battery now and move on.
If so I’d just pay up and learn a relatively cheap lesson that you don’t go to franchised dealers for vague investigations. They are just about trustable for very clearly defined tasks like servicing, (if you want to pay the extra).
The duff battery could easily register ‘Ok’ after it has been charged up. But leave you stranded somewhere the next day.
But it’s not worth arguing the toss and the time it would take.
Make sure you have a new battery now and move on.
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