Middlekauff Ford – dubious track record

Middlekauff Ford – dubious track record

As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve been having some issues with the truck-formerly-driven-by-me (now christened “The Schlomobile” by Laureen–I have never felt a need to anthropomorphize a vehicle, but all of Laureen’s cars have had names. I’m currently driving “Scoupey”). Basically, the right rear wheel was wobbling wildly. We took it to our dealer (Middlekauff Ford) once, but the problem still existed. We take it back to Middlekauff, and they say it’s a bent axle. They propose replacing the axle and doing an alignment. Cost – $660. Sigh. This is on top of the $350 that we’re already going to have to pay for the thermostat sensor that went bad (good job guessing that was bad, Dad!). I’m ready to give in on the repair, but Laureen says “No, let’s check around.” So we get a recommendation from a co-worker for a garage that does repairs that’s relatively close to us. The truck goes in, and we get an estimate of $350 if it’s the axle. Apparently, mkford wanted to do a front-end alignment to fix a rear axle problem….Strike 1.
The next day, the people from the garage call Laureen, and she goes to pick up the truck. Total cost? $90. As it turns out, they put the axle on the rack and what appeared to be a bent axle was actually an extra washer that was left in from the last time mkford serviced the brakes. One of the lug nuts wasn’t going flush with the others, and that was the tipoff that it might not be an axle issue after all. They removed the washer, and everything went back to a non-wobbly state.
So mkford introduced extra wear and tear on my tires by not properly completing the repair on the brake service….Strike 2. Then, when we took it in to check out this issue, they charged us for a rebalancing that didn’t fix the problem….Strike 3.
Here’s where human nature gets the best of me. I’d very much like to believe that the rest of the time the dealership worked on my vehicle that they were doing the right stuff the right way, but I’m just way too suspicious of the whole situation now.
Sigh. Life goes on. I’m just thankful that the truck is better now.