I won't buy from Pugmire again!

[Wires]

(EDIT - 12-10-2004) Please read further than this post, the situation is far different than I thought it was - this post is incorrect and misleading. I will not change it after the fact, I will just add this disclaimer.



I purchased my 2003 Mercury Marauder from Pugmire (Town Center) in Kennesaw.

The internet sales director acted insulted when I suggested that I should throughly inspect the car - as I had been burned before. He insisted that they were a franchised Lincoln/Mercury dealer and that they would NOT sell me a defective car.

However, it appers to me as if they have done just that.

The valve seals are defective, and the car smokes on startup.

This is not an inexpensive repair.

The car was never started cold in front of me, and it was started and warmed up prior to my inspections - there was no way I could have detected this problem.

I should have insisted that I be allowed to take it to another dealer for inspection - but I foolishly believed their internet sales manager.

No one at this dealership will even return my calls or E-mails. It is my opinion that this is NOT the proper way to do business.

[SouLRioT]

is your warrenty intact still? If their not working with you, for the sake of getting the car fixed I'd go to another one and then make the proper complaints as needed.

[Bradley G]

Welcome Wires,
Give us more info,there's tons of support here.Even Used, there is a warranty?Powertrain alone would be a covered repair.Sounds like the dealer needs an "In House visit"Fill us in and you will be shocked at the wealth of help available.;)
Bradley G

[Wires]

The problem is, it has almost 54,000 miles on it.

While Chrysler used to (I don't know if they still do or not) have a longer powertrain warranty, I don't think Ford does this -- I think it's just 3 years or 36K, whichever comes first.

I am the second owner of the car, and I am guessing that the original owner didn't notice or didn't care about the valve seal smoke. I know she parked it outside, so the normal condensation white smoke may have "masked" the oil smoke - which looks to me to be a much lighter blue than the valve seal oil smole I remember from my Small Block chevrolets.

What really bothers me is that the NO ONE at this dealership will speak to me - When I call I get voice mail systems and I leave messages that aren't returned. I send E-mails and I fill out their customer feedback form on their website.

I called another dealer to get a rough idea of what this will cost me - is 1100 dollars about right for 32 valve seals? (parts and labor)

[Bradley G]

Hey Wires,

Most dealers in my area offer a short term "good Faith" powertrain warranty for at least 1-4 months included in the price.In Il. the dealers a required by the law to disclose any warranty included or eligible.You are right about 3 year 36000 mile factory warranty, all domestics the (big three) are the same.(with a few exceptions)
Bradley G

[MarauderMark]

I called another dealer to get a rough idea of what this will cost me - is 1100 dollars about right for 32 valve seals? (parts and labor)


Yea i dealt with creeps like that as well.heh smoked em up in there lot.i just got done paying $2,700 for head gaskets and bolts .
how about a quote from someone other than a dealer ? what will they do and replace?

[Marauderman]

i just got done paying $2,700 for head gaskets and bolts .

.........dang Mark....head gaskets already------how many miles on yours....something go wrong somewhere.......was just wondering.....Tom

[Wires]

UPDATE:


I attempted one more time to call someone at the delership, and a very helpfull person directed me to the General Manager for the Town Center location. (I was unaware that that position existed)

I spoke with him, and he will have his service people look at my car and confirm the diagnosis. So me earlier commets are no longer true - someone did contact me.

[jgc61sr2002]

UPDATE:


I attempted one more time to call someone at the delership, and a very helpfull person directed me to the General Manager for the Town Center location. (I was unaware that that position existed)

I spoke with him, and he will have his service people look at my car and confirm the diagnosis. So me earlier commets are no longer true - someone did contact me.


Wires - Welcome aboard. :D Sounds like you got to the right person at the dealer. Good luck with the repairs. Keep us posted.

[Festus]

UPDATE:


I attempted one more time to call someone at the delership, and a very helpfull person directed me to the General Manager for the Town Center location. (I was unaware that that position existed)

I spoke with him, and he will have his service people look at my car and confirm the diagnosis. So me earlier commets are no longer true - someone did contact me.

Hi Wires and welcome,

When you are done with Pugmire (which I suggest to be as soon as possible) have your car serviced at Team Ford on Cobb Parkway. They pretty much service all of the Marauders in the Atlanta area and they are the best. Do a search on TEAM FORD and you will get about a dozen pages of hits on them.

In case you weren't aware the Atlanta owners have a regular get together the 3rd Saturday of every month at 8:00 am at the Cracker Barrel at the intersection of I75 and Delk Road. Team Ford is around the corner and we usually migrate over there after breakfast.

Eric

[SergntMac]

You say you "got burned before" and now imply you are getting "burned again." What's the common denominator here?

While you think about that, "blue smoke at start up" isn't AIDS. It's not over, you're not done, it's not hopless. This issue alone is still very high in the air, no final conclusions have been agreed on and "valve seals" could be as wrong a conclusion as declaring syntheic oil too thin, both in cause, or, solution. Take a breath?

Your post kinda says you bought a used car over the Internet, I hope you got a decent price. Nonetheless, we here have learned much about this special automobile, and we share 411 with each other on a routine basis. Seems like we know, exactly, how to rebuild this car from stem to stern, port to starboard. Like there hasn't been one screw, or, one bolt on the MM that hasn't been turned by someone here. Don't sweat the details, until we turn up the heat. What ever you will come to need, we can help fix...Take another breath?

What did you pay? What features did you get? How do you want to drive your MM? Just have a few dead presidents in your wallet and we'll get ya done, K?

[CRUZTAKER]

Mac is correct....we are still addressing those issues ourselves.

There is such thing as the Lemon Law, let's hope they work out the issues for you. :up:

[Tallboy]

Mac is correct....we are still addressing those issues ourselves.

There is such thing as the Lemon Law, let's hope they work out the issues for you. :up:
lemon law does not apply to used vehicles.

[Patrick]

Hi Wires and welcome,

When you are done with Pugmire (which I suggest to be as soon as possible) have your car serviced at Team Ford on Cobb Parkway. They pretty much service all of the Marauders in the Atlanta area and they are the best. Do a search on TEAM FORD and you will get about a dozen pages of hits on them.

In case you weren't aware the Atlanta owners have a regular get together the 3rd Saturday of every month at 8:00 am at the Cracker Barrel at the intersection of I75 and Delk Road. Team Ford is around the corner and we usually migrate over there after breakfast.

Eric

Welcome!!! Exactly what Eric says!!!!!!! Team Ford will DO you right!!!!!!

[Wires]

(Sorry for such a long post)


You say you "got burned before" and now imply you are getting "burned again." What's the common denominator here?

While you think about that, "blue smoke at start up" isn't AIDS. It's not over, you're not done, it's not hopless. This issue alone is still very high in the air, no final conclusions have been agreed on and "valve seals" could be as wrong a conclusion as declaring syntheic oil too thin, both in cause, or, solution. Take a breath?

Your post kinda says you bought a used car over the Internet, I hope you got a decent price. Nonetheless, we here have learned much about this special automobile, and we share 411 with each other on a routine basis. Seems like we know, exactly, how to rebuild this car from stem to stern, port to starboard. Like there hasn't been one screw, or, one bolt on the MM that hasn't been turned by someone here. Don't sweat the details, until we turn up the heat. What ever you will come to need, we can help fix...Take another breath?

What did you pay? What features did you get? How do you want to drive your MM? Just have a few dead presidents in your wallet and we'll get ya done, K?Yes, I do know what the common denominator is - I see him everyday in the mirror! I tend to over-react, and I've been getting better and better deals on cars as I've learned. I really got burned on my first "independent" (no help from dad) car purchases - new and used. But I've never been stranded or in physical danger from buying a real "clunker."

I found the car from an internet ad, but I did inspect and drive the car in person also.

Yes, it could be a lot worse and I guess the term "burned" means many different things to many different people. Did they sell me a car that was wrecked or even two cars welded together? Is the engine about to die and the tramsmission shot? No. The car looks good and runs good - and I enjoy it very much.

I mentioned that there was no way I could have found this problem before I bought it, but I must also add that there really was no way they could have known it either. A good used car check can't include letting the car set overnight and then starting it - that would be impractical. Heck, with the "roulette wheel" nature of valve seal problems, even if they did this it might not show up. The car will start one or two mornings in a row with no smoke and then will show the smoke every day for a week.

It could be something else altogether. I'll know more when they look at it.

I still have a lot of learning to do about this car, which I just love, despite the problem.

I'm really too embarassed to say what I paid for it. Maybe I got taken royally even it they fix this problem at no charge to me. Maybe I got a great deal even if I have to pay it completely out of my pocket.

I will say that the closest competitor car had 10K less miles, was in the exact same condition, and was 2 thousand and some change more money. That car was also out of warranty - so I don't think the 10K miles causes as much of a value loss from 54-44 as it would from 36-26K. Maybe I'm wrong.

I do appreciate all the information I've learned from this site, and I hope to be able to contribute something.

I apoligize again for such a long post, but I want to correct the impression I gave of this dealership - the problem was simple communication, they were not ignoring me and everyone I spoke with was very helpfull and courteous.

I

[Patrick]

Glad everything seems to working out.

[67435animal]

I'm glad everything worked out. When I was shopping, I made an offer on a used MM at Pugmire, but they were inflexible in their price. So, I bought elsewhere.

And, thanks to the Atlanta group on this board, I got hooked up with Team Ford and my MM has never been anywhere else.

Bob

[Wires]

It's been a long three weeks. The bottom line is my car will be fixed at an agreeable cost to me.

The service manager and general manager have really helped me - I have to say that I would buy from Pugmire again, given the way they have treated me in this case.

The Marauder has the dreaded "valve guide" problem that many here are all too familiar with. My research here helped me tremendously, I hope to be able to contribute something myself as I learn about this car.

The parts were on backorder, so I won't get my Marauder back for a few more days, but I'm looking forward to getting it back.

I thank everyone for their help.