alex's dashboard

I brought a new 2008 fiesta style climate last year. A few months in, my car battery went flat after not using it for a just a week. I recharged the battery myself and moved on. This kept happening if I left the car for just a few days, even after a long drive.

I called ford warranty services who sent the AA out to me. The AA guy did some tests across the battery and determined that the battery was faulty (dead cell or something), and couldnt hold its charge. He recommended I immediately take it to a ford garage to replace under warranty.

Upon arriving at the garage, a young "technician" came out and put a crude battery reader across the battery, claiming it was reporting no fault, the reading said just recharge (bearing in mind the AA guy spent 30 minutes with my car with all sorts of devices and laptop, the ford guy spent all of 30seconds determining there was no problem with a simple digital display!).

So Ford kept the car overnight to charge, I collected it and he sent me on my way despite me complaining they have ignored the advice of the AA and it was just going to happen again! He assured me that he would come and collect the car and replace the battery for me if it happened again.

Sure enough a couple of months later the battery was flat again. I rang the ford dealer who came and collected the car, only to receive a phone call hours later to inform the there WAS a problem with the battery (get ready for it...) but because car the was now a couple of months out of warranty I would have to pay £100+ for them to replace it!!!

Sure enough the garage (and customer services) were treating this as a completely seperate incident even though the same problem was occuring that I reported while the car was in warranty!

The best customer services would offer me was 30% off the bill completely desregarding the fact this was the same problem I had reported while in warranty, and the garage kept coming up with a string of new excuses!

I am litterally dased at this whole situation. I cannot believe that ford would screw me over in such a way, I spent 8k on my first car and they have the cheek to pull this money grabbing exercise!

My car battery has died again after charging it last week and I'm literally lost for words.