Jenie Benson

Haven't decided yet, but we have been throwing around a number of ideas. Our truck recently died and we just bought another car to replace the truck. so maybe a truck.

Well, I'll be leaving the forum soon. Ford has agreed to offer a re-purchase on my car via the MN Lemon Law after filing with the BBB auto line (38 business days in the shop for warranty in 2 years of ownership and even though they tried to tell me I'd missed some kind of window to have it bought back, the law here is still the law here and when push came to shove, they knew I had fulfilled all the requirements.). I should receive a letter from Ford's legal department in a couple of weeks with their calculation on what they think I should get via the MN Lemon Law. We'll see if their legal department is good at math (goodness knows I am with all the accounting I do at work so I'll be triple checking theirs). Sad to see the car go, but happy to have the mess done with soon. Let's hope they don't try anything funny with the numbers that will force me to take them to arbitration.

Sadly, it sounds like yours is plagued by exactly the same thing as mine. Are you all the way out of warranty or just out of 36K? Did you report this issue to your dealership before you were out of warranty?

Kinda a typo. Yes, the warranty is 3 yr/36K, but Ford keeps telling me it's 2yr/36K.

djc- Sounds like yours managed to work itself out. Mine, however, continues to be a serious issue. Ford has stalled out in helping my dealership troubleshoot the issue. There are no reprogramming updates, etc left to do on my ANC and no further instruction from Ford Hotline on what else to try (not for months and months). I just had my car in for an oil change this week and the diligent service guys tried to get a field service engineer to come out. They left him a message and it's been 2 days and I've heard nothing. This morning taking the hubby to work, the drone and vibration was almost constant every time the ICE was runinng upon acceleration (flat roads even off of a stop light). It was 15 degrees. My paperwork for BBB arbitration is already in the mail and on the way since Ford refused to even acknowledge to me that this is a problem and just kept telling me they weren't going to buy my car back and that it was my fault for missing some kind of "window of presumption" (which they did not elaborate on even when pressed only telling me it was 2 years or 36K miles, which is the mfg bumper to bumper warranty and does not correspond with the window of request for buy back or Lemon proceedings in this state). It's really frustrating to have a dealership who has tried so hard and used all the resources Ford gave them, (and came up with some troubleshooting on their own) and then have someone at Ford corporate say I need to take it back to the dealer and that Ford would "make sure they have all the resources they need to fix the problem" and have the dealership ask me what it is that Ford wants them to do now since they have received ZERO direction. If Ford doesn't take care of this soon and no suitable buy back can be reached by BBB, they are looking forward to staring down my lawyer in court. With all the run around they have given me, I've decided to play just as hard of ball back at them as they have been playing at me. I hope others don't have to deal with this type of crap trying to get theirs fixed and it works it self out like djc's car did. Oh, and FYI, Ford is now aware that there are multiple cars with this same problem and I've made them aware that I know how to get ahold of some of you who have not had any results getting yours repaired either. I'm hoping that also helps you when your dealerships are trying to get Ford to help them.

Not going away :) I spent a lot of money to get my very first brand new car and traded in a perfectly good low mileage car because I really wanted a hybrid and after my looking at the options, the Cmax Energi really was what I wanted. And the one at the dealership had options I liked and was a color I really loved. I'm not about to walk away knowing I am still making payments on something that has basically no resale value due to an issue that cannot be solved that could potentially be something serious and end up costing me a lot more money later to fix or could end up being something that jeopardizes my safety (since they don't know what's wrong with it, anyone's guess is as good as mine if it will be some kind of catastrophic failure in the future or not). Ford may have drastically underestimated my resolve and my knowledge of warranty related things (as well as my persistence - though they may be realizing that now that I kept calling and reminding them that my call had gone unreturned for several days in a row). Totally not letting them get off easy. They chose the hard route for themselves.

Round 4 - Got a call finally from the supervisor in the regional customer care department. Similar answer - not going to buy my car back, but not because I missed some kind of "presumption period" but because Ford doesn't believe I have met the requirements. I asked them to clarify, but apparently only their legal department will clarify and I'm not allowed to talk with them and get any straight answers. So I outlined that I have had the car in the shop for 38 business days for warranty related issues in under 2 years of ownership, that I have had 3 attempts to fix the same issue with no results and that the resale value is basically nothing because in the winter if someone test drove it they would look at me like I was crazy after the car made it's horrible noise and vibration and the only way I could sell it is if I did so in the summer and I was dishonest and did not disclose the fact that it has a problem no one knows how to fix. The supervisor said they were sure Ford could fix the car and that I should take it to the dealership and have them work on it again and that Ford would make sure all resources were at their disposal for fixing it (which I informed her had already happened and they have exhausted resources and it's a waste of time for me to have them try again). My mind is now made up, I will not be buying another Ford of any kind after this is all over. I have no faith that if I did and had a problem with that car such that I needed the help of the regional management that I would get anywhere besides facing a brick wall. I will also be sure to tell anyone I come in contact with about this story and the very bad customer service provided by Ford corporate. The dealership has been great, corporate on the other hand couldn't care less if I like them or not. Started BBB Autoline complaint for arbitration just now. And will be looking for a lawyer since I am not willing to take one less penny than I am entitled to (which it is likely the BBB Autoline will not offer to give me what I am entitled to. From reports I have read, they do not follow the letter of the law when figuring what the buy back amount should be and often try to short change people. I know I'm entitled to entire purchase price of car, including the amount from my trade-in, taxes and fees minus a very specific amount for mileage I have used). Ford wanted to do this the hard way - so be it.

6.11.2013

Still waiting for a supervisor to call me as promised. They missed 2 promised call backs last week (Tues and Weds last week were the days I was told I would get a call from a supervisor "before the end of business tomorrow") . I gave them some leeway given the holiday for the call back that should have come Thursday and thought maybe they would call yesterday or at the very least sometime this afternoon. It's 3:30pm and still no call. The lack of response is disheartening and leaning me away from Ford completely. Not sure I want to visit this circus again if I have an issue in the future that I need to speak with someone at Ford about. This is not anything like what I consider good customer service.

Round 3 - After being dissatisfied with the regional manager and his understanding of the law here in MN yesterday, I called the EV customer relationship center and asked to be put in touch with someone higher up in the management tree. The request was submitted and I was told someone would contact me before the end of business today. At 6pm I had not received a phone call, so I called the EV customer relationship center again and let them know I had not been contacted as promised, that I was unhappy with that fact (and also unhappy that this was the second time in 2 weeks this had happened) and that I expected to be contacted as promised. The helpful agent put in a new request and promised someone would contact me tomorrow by the end of the business day. We shall see......

I'm unsure which mount exactly. They didn't write the exact location on the service record, but I could call and ask them. They are very helpful and would totally tell me. Yes, the mounts are liquid filled. As the service manager said "liquid filled mounts in a cold weather clime is not an ideal match".

don't see why I should be told to NEVER contact Ford about this again. I can contact them as many times as it takes for them to do something about it. And I have every right to be mad at them because they manufactured a faulty product and have not fulfilled their end of the warranty contract in regards to fixing it under the state law. It may be the way of "big business", but it's illegal and rude and it makes me upset with them (people have a right to feel upset even if others do not feel a situtation merits being upset or angry). As for lemon law lawyer, I'm already on the path to that. I have learned a lot already and prior to this I was already well versed on the subject of warranty and liability of manufacturers. I know there are steps that must be done before I can/need to sue in court and I plan to exhaust all of those before paying for a lawyer. (costs incurred for a lawyer prior to a court proceeding is filed are not reimbursable via lemon law). I know I have a case, I am attempting to resolve the issue without causing a long protracted issue that both taxes myself and Ford, and without forcing a branded title on the vehicle so that Ford could potentially sell it to someone else who lives in a warm climate where the problems with my car (of which the only non-resolvable one is cold related) will not be an issue. The process is already in the works. Thanks for the advice.

If you can get it to act up for the dealer, I recommend you get it to them asap. Otherwise, you may find yourself outside the parameters to get them or Ford to do anything to help you. Having a good service record history of trying to solve this issue will certainly not hurt you.

It may take some trial and error, but you should be able to find somewhere you can drive it to make it perform on command. Took me a while to get the nuance of it, but there is a hill directly in front of my dealership that works well and another on the way to the dealership about a block or two from it. Once you find a place it always happens, drive that route over and over keeping an eye on the RPMs as much as you can without being a hazard. It shouldn't take long when the temps are right (below freezing is best) to make it perform on command. The service advisor at my dealership can now making it perform on command even. He rode along with me several times once I could replicate it on command and payed close attention to all the things I was doing and was able to get it to perform on command everytime under the proper temps. But yes, you do have an issue and it will only get worse. Mine started at 700 miles. It went through the first winter before I was able to command it on queue and the dealership couldn't get it to misbehave (they were driving on flat and not giving it enough RPMs). Then the next winter it acted up again. I had it in the shop so many times last winter I lost count of how many. Then spring came and we ran out of time to troubleshoot. I had to wait until winter came (and it came WAY late this year) to have the problem verified again. It's back and this time it's back with a vengence. Frequency is significantly increased. Every time my husband drives it in cold weather, it is horrible. Figure out how to command it to perform on queue and take the service manager of your dealership for a ride and put on a show. If your dealership is anything like mine, the first words out of their mouth will be "what the heck is that?!?!?!"

I'm calling them tomorrow morning. A supervisor of the regional manager is scheduled to call me sometime tomorrow before the end of regular business hours as well.

Dealer did this to my car also, did nothing - well not nothing, it made it so when I used hands free phone, no one can understand what I'm saying cause the ANC is cancelling parts of my voice.

Wondering if the original poster of this thread ever did get a buy back...

I'm with ya on the disappointed. I find it very hard to believe that because when I sent my letter and had the dealership re-verify my issue I was 2K miles and just a couple of weeks past the end of the so called "presumption period" (which by the way, I can find no reference to in my state's lemon law information or statutes - by what I can find, I'm still within my rights under that law to ask for a good faith buy back and not past any kind of window of exclusion) that they would just say "oops, sorry, you missed it by this tiny amount". At my job, and with many of the vendors I work with, the answer is usually "yes, we will extend our goodwill to you on this warranty period since you are a very small fraction of an amount past the end of the period". I did just call and speak with a customer care rep at the EV customer care center and discussed my frustration at hitting an impenetrable brick wall at the regional manager level where I just get told no and when asking about someone higher up who might have the authority to make exceptions get told "I can put you in touch with a supervisor, but Ford is not going to buy your car back". The previous regional manager (who treated me like I was some kind of idiot) had full knowledge of said "presumption period" (this is apparently the job of the regional manager) and when I made it clear I was interested in buy back, he did not tell me to file, or how to file or that there was a cut off period after which I would not be able to ask for a good faith buy back. He just kept saying to me "Ford is not going to buy your car back". This was back in March of this year, when I was very clearly within this so called "presumption period". The bureaucracy of car companies is amazing frustrating. It's no good for customer service. And even worse for customer service that every time a customer has a complaint, they are rerouted to the same person/department who already did not solve their complaint (like when I was trying to get ahold of anyone but the previous regional manager).

Round 2 - Ford fails. Got a call from the regional manager and he says that because the last regional manager and everyone else I spoke with over the past year didn't tell me I needed to file for a good faith buy back within 2 years of purchase or 36K miles (I am now 1 month and 2K miles over and that's because I had to wait for cold weather to surface again) I am hosed. I am now not allowed to even ask for that kind of thing and no one at Ford is apparently powerful enough to make any kind of exception. I am beyond words for how unhappy I am with Ford right now. No exception will be made due to lack of cold weather or all of the records that I spoke with a lot of people over the past year and NOT ONE told me I needed to open a claim prior to 2 years or 36K in order to not have to start official lemon proceedings using the state law. That's right, NOT ONE. It's like they knew that if they made me wait, they'd have me between a rock and a hard place. I've been instructed that I need to contact some 3rd party BBB arbitration line that apparently works directly with Ford (I am also not allowed to work directly with Ford) to file for buy back under lemon law. Which means I'll likely be getting a lawyer shortly since everyone I have talked to so far that has dealt with the BBB arbitration has said they were unhappy with the results and got totally screwed out of a bunch of money. Oh and why didn't the lady from the regional manager's office who left me a message last Monday (and who said in her message someone would call me back the very next day, but then no one did and she rescheduled my call back for a week out and did not call to inform me) why did she not just leave a message saying that I needed to contact someone else? Or why did no one else I spoke with on Wednesday last week inform me I had to call this BBB thing? Or why didn't anyone in the last year tell me anything related to this? Or why did my dealership not even let me know there was information in the back of my owners' manual related to buy back? Oh yeah, cause then they'd have to buy my car back if there was a problem - which there is. It's really too bad Ford just wants to play by their playbook instead of working out custom resolutions with customers cause I had my eye on a new Ford on the lot at the local dealership. But after the conversation I just had, I really don't want a Ford at all. Word to the wise everyone. If you think you have an issue you're gonna want buy back on, DO NOT WAIT one more second. YOU MUST ask for a buy back within the presumption period for your state (if you're not sure what that is for your state, give your state Attorney General's office a call and ask). In Minnesota, it is 2 years from warranty start or the end of the factory bumper to bumper warranty, whichever comes first. Again, DO NOT WAIT. Ford will not tell you any of this until after you are screwed. Please learn from my mistake in not filing last winter, thinking that because Lemon Law says you don't have to file within the 2 years that I could ask for it now. This goes for all Ford vehicles, so please feel free to share this with everyone you know. ( probably goes for other brands, but I don't have any experience with that, so I don't know for sure).

And here we go - round 1 with Ford. The regional management team called my cell while I was at work Monday and the gal left me the phone number of the regional manager who is handling my case and said someone would call me again the next day. I tried to call him, he wasn't available and I left a message. The next day, I received no phone call of any kind on any of my numbers from Ford. I did get a missed call from my dealership on the home phone. Called again today, regional manager not available, straight to voicemail, left another message. Frustrated with the lack of call-back or alternate people to talk to, I called the regular EV customer care line. The first rep I spoke with there said that someone from the regional customer care team had contacted my dealership with instructions and a TSB to follow as well as instructed them to contact the Hotline (same Hotline who has yet to have any real idea how to fix my car). And that they had rescheduled the followup call to me for NEXT Tuesday (so they didn't plan on calling me back yesterday to let me know at least they didn't have info yet, but that they would call me back a week later - due to holidays). I was sure to mention that not calling back on a day you say you will, and then planning to do so a week later was not cool in my book. Called the dealership. Service advisor who is most knowledgeable about my case, says yes Ford did contact them and gave them a TSB they had already performed on the car and told them to open a case with the Hotline. I called the general manager of the dealership and left him a message asking for a return call to chat about my situation. Called the EV customer care line back and spoke with a different rep who said that the TSB the regional care team had recommended was TSB 14-0214. Which they did not show on the corporate end as having been performed on my car. So I looked up the details of that TSB. The symptoms they described are NOTHING like the issue with my car. The car only has noise and vibration upon accelleration between 2000-2400 RPMs and only in cold weather. The TSB indicates that the noise should happen while decelerating. http://fordcmaxhybridforum.com/topic/4792-tsb-14-0214-hf35-transmission-thumpingrubbing-or-grinding-noise/ So I asked to be connected to someone in that care team because I feel like we are not on the same page and they maybe haven't looked at the details of my case enough to be recommending another TSB. I did mention that the longer Ford instructs the dealership to perform TSBs that are not the solution, the less likely it is we'll be inclined to buy another Ford (we have been looking at different Fords to see what we might get instead - not sure about rolling the dice on another C-max at this point). And if they were aware that we have already exceeded the number of warranty days in the shop within the first 2 years of ownership with an issue that will significantly impact the resale value of my car which qualifies my car for Lemon in my state. I was also told that if I was contacting the Regional manager and he wasn't available their phone system is supposed to ring the rest of his team so I can speak to someone which had not happened at all. The rep connected me to the team and it rang everyone and they are all not available, but I was able to leave a voicemail in the team mailbox instead of just the regional manager's mailbox.

I've gotten quite good a finessing it. If it's cold enough for it to happen on it's own, I can now recreate it on command knowing exactly what conditions to put it under. I thought this would help in diagnosing, but all it did was help get the dealership to recognize there was an issue. They still have no idea how to fix it. Like you, it acts up much more often when my husband is in the drivers' seat (like every time he drives in cold weather), but has been doing it plenty for me too. I had that vibration theory too and the dealership tried really hard to figure out what was vibrating to cause an amplified resonance. They just can't find it. I've said this for a while, Ford should buy my car back and tear it down and try to figure out the problem so they can fix the rest of the cars with this issue (or admit they can't fix it and offer buy back to the rest of you).

Last winter, my dealership removed the fuse for the ANC (fuse 22 if you are wondering). Upon test drive (they did and then I also did with the service writer in the car), the noise was still audible, but not as loud. The vibration was still present. This led us to determine that the ANC was amplifying whatever was causing the issue, but the ANC is not the issue itself. My dealership started looking for other things that could be causing it. They found that the noise changed when they shimmed up one of the motor mounts (on the back of the engine near the tranny if I remember correctly). This led them to believe the motor mount might have been the culprit (apparently there was a generation of Focus with that issue). So they replaced the mount with one like was used on the Focus for that issue. This did not change anything. My husband has been saying all along he has thought it was coming from the tranny, but so far, Ford has dismissed this idea. Pay attention to the outdoor conditions when the noise presents. Ours is under 40 degrees (originally it was under 30, but has gotten worse over time). It's under load at about 200-2400 RPMs (as it were) with the ICE running (in EV mode, it is silent as a mouse and I love that - made me contemplate getting an all electric vehicle). I found a spot near the dealership where it was easy to test this out (a nice hill right in front where it was easy to get up to that RPM level in a short distance to test if a solution had been reached, which was helpful for the dealership to know. The one thing to note if you take it to the dealership, make sure they understand that if they keep it in their heated shop and do a repair, they will need to let it sit outside for a while (time depending on the ambient temp) to let the car cool off. My dealership originally had issues with not knowing this. Also, make note if it happens once the car has been driven for distance. We have found that ours doesn't care if you just started it up or if you've been driving for 4 hours as long as the ambient temp and RPMs are within the range of issue. Hopefully yours behaves. I do love the car, I just can't deal with paying this much for something that really isn't what should be expected or more time in the shop. It took me a while to actually write Ford for buy back because I held out hope it would resolve itself and I could keep it.

That was funny. Global warming.... Yes, it has been quite warm (it would appear you and I are in the same state), however, I leave for work early enough each morning that I have managed to catch some of the coldest weather. We took it to the North Shore this weekend and it was 36 on the way home and just kept doing it.

I am not the only one with this issue. There are a few others I know of around the country. We have verified the conditions under which the issue happens and by MP3 file that the noise that accompanies the vibration is identical. So far, none of us have a solution. I may be the first one to request buy back. I just don't want to take the chance with getting another with so many issues. With how much this car cost, I really expected much more. And I did kinda expect Ford to step in a long time ago and offer to help out or make it right, but the only things I've been offered is advise to take it to the dealer (which I have done over and over to the tune of 38 business days in the shop) and the regional manager offered me an extended warranty to 75K (I already purchased one to 100K at the time I bought the car) OR free oil changes for 2 years or maybe it was 1. Either way, with the mileage I'm getting between oil changes, it equated to about $70 in benefit. And when I told him how neither of those things were of benefit to me (for the reasons stated above), he stuck to his script and told me that was all he was authorized to offer. Although this was the same guy who called me after a 17 business day stint in the shop (3 days later when it was cold again, the issue showed it had not bee resolved and I went back to the dealer and had them create a service record notating it). He wanted to chat about the resolution of my issue, but the issue wasn't resolved, just the repair ticket had been closed. When I told him it was not resolved and asked if he'd read the service tickets or talked with the dealership, he flat out said no, he had not. He just saw it was closed so to him that meant resolved. I think that was the last time I decided to bother talking with him. I asked to be put in touch with someone else at Ford, but got him again. Good news is, I hear from the dealership that he has been reassigned and there is a new regional manager.

My 2013 has this exact issue. But I've already sent a letter asking for buy back related to other issues they have not been able to fix.