Subject: 
And then some!!!


Mon, 21 May 2007 01:44:12 -0400
Date:    




In September 2004 my husband and I decided to buy a new truck to use as a personal/business 
vehicle. We fabricate and install granite and needed a heavy duty truck. We love the body style 
of the F350 and thought it would be great truck for us. WRONG! We went to Nichols ford here in 
Fort Worth and found what we thought to be an ideal truck for us. It was a 2003 F350, crew cab, 
4 x 4, long bed with a 6. whatever diesel engine that was "used" with 6000 miles on it. It was still 
under warranty and of course was some what less because it was used and that fit our budget a 
little better. Being the no trusting type that I am, I asked why someone would return a truck after 
only a few months. They said something about an old couple having bought it and he passed away 
and she no longer needed it. Anyway, we were excited to have it. We paid $2000 dollars down 
and drove off with the biggest piece of crap we have ever owned. The first thing to go wrong was 
the windshield wipers and all the running lights sizzled and shorted out. First of about 26 times in 
the shop. We started having trouble with it surging and dying and the transmission slipped. The 
serging thing was the worst. If you didn't have your foot on the brake while at a red light or any 
stopped position, it would literally take off as if you had gunned it! We own a few vehicles and 
trying to parallel park between them here at the house was always an adventure. (hit all of them at 
least once) While driving down the freeway loaded down with slabs (granite that weighed a few 
thousand pounds) it was not a comforting thing to have the truck die on us. Most of the time we 
had it in and out was for the serging and dying. The dealership we bought it from said it "never" 
acted up on them, not once. And they had to have a code on it to fix it. So they suggested putting 
a "flight recorder" on it but theirs was basically lost due to a customer having never returned it. I 
asked why they couldn't just borrow one from another dealership to which I was told "they were 
the only one in the metroplex that had one" What a load of crap that was. Their "always" helpful 
Customer Care line said if they could not help me just go to another dealership. Thank God we 
bought that extended warranty because that saved our behinds a lot of money! Which is another 
story in it's self. Did you know that a Focus and an F350 were comparable vehicles? That's what 
they gave us to drive while ours was being "fixed"! Can't do alot of heavy hauling in a Focus. We 
finally went to another dealership, Texan Ford, ( who told us EVERY dealership owned a recorder) 
which began a whole new big bunch of run around. They said it never worked because we did 
something wrong and it didn't read any problems. They even said we had used bio diesel and that 
was what caused the problems. It was always something we did or didnt do. Frustrated by being 
unable to depend on having our truck to use for our business we decided to just trade it in. Start 
all over paying on something. Every dealership we went to, when told we wanted to trade in our 
03 F350 all asked in the course of conversation if we were having any problems with it. They 
said our trade in value was $12,500 and we owed $26,000 and by the time it was said and done 
a new truck would have been over $50,000 at $1200 per month. We said "what ever" we have 
to something, but they would not finance it. Screwed once again! We got behind on the payments 
because to tell you the truth when you can't use your work truck for work it kind of screws you up. 
Trying to work around "who will have our truck this week, us or Ford". I told them when it reached 
that 100,000 mile mark and the warranty was gone We were bringing it back. What the heck else 
could we do. They said they didn't recommend that but we could not afford that in every other week 
in the repair shop crap. September 11, 2006 we had just returned home from a job and went in to 
change clothes to leave only to find they had repossed that piece of crap! Whoopi...I thought at the 
time. We had tools and materials for a job on it though and found that the company they had hired 
went thru our truck (excuse me..."their truck" at that point) and stole our GPS system. To which I 
never got back! To tell the truth I was relieved to done with the whole ordeal. Little did I know that I 
would have a knock at the door being served by a court clerk saying that we are now being sued by 
Ford Motor Credit (which is no way related to Ford by the way) for $10,000, the balance of which they 
did not get at the sale of our truck. What a way to add insult to injury! Any advice on how to handle 
that? I think they should owe us for all the lost days of work and money on all the rentals and mental 
anguish that we went thru do to their crap and run around! Always love a Ford (especially my 68 
Mustang) but I sure don't trust them. Can you help??
 
Cindy G