Have any of you seen this one???

[jettle]

It’s a thread I found last year when I had my Mustang. In this thread a Ford mechanic post about test driving a new Supercharged Mustang Cobra that already has an owner. If you read through it eventually the owner of the car see's the thread and well...check it out...It’s a great read.

I have never felt good about leaving my car with ANYONE after reading it.

http://forums.mustangworks.com/showthread.php?threadid=29134h ttp://forums.mustangworks.com/showthread.php?threadid=29134

Jeff

[MarauderMark]

And he as proud to advertise what he did too..amazing!! gald i dont own a cobra lol..

[MAD-3R]

I remember the insedant, and I was wondering what happened. Thanks.

[jgc61sr2002]

He says he is an ex Ford tech. Guess he got caught.
:up: A good reason for not going to the dealer for service unless necessary.

[woaface]

You can always check the miles first, or be like me.
Have a car they'd rather not touch in the first place:D

[greyghost]

He says he is an ex Ford tech. Guess he got caught.
:up: A good reason for not going to the dealer for service unless necessary.
Or, better to know who is working on your car at the dealership. I don't have any problem taking it to Team Ford in Marietta and having Scott Levines and his crew work on my car. They are very responsible and I trust them with my pride and joy. I can't say that about a lot of other dealerships but, Team Ford is an SVT dealership and has a lot of hi performance customers. They also have a very active SVTOA club that had over 40 members at the last meeting and have an assigned rep on site for dealing with hi performance problems. I was pleasantly surprised when I went there. TAF had been telling me about the great bunch of guys down there but, I was skeptical after being to a bunch of bum dealerships over the last couple of decades. Its the best dealership I have ever been to.

:banana2: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :banana2:

[CRUZTAKER]

I trust no one, no matter how good they are, and no matter how good they look in a valet uniform.

Solution=Rienharts dual program. Program 2=Car doesn't go over 35 mph.

Works everytime, and it's a riot to see the persons blank expression when they return the vehicle after their little test drive.

EDIT: Phew, that was the longest thread I ever read. Crazy, just plain crazy.

[woaface]

That is really, really cool! How do you set it to go between 1 and 2...different keys?

[woaface]

The guy was fired. Last page.



At the request of Tracy (RaceRat), who owns the 2003 Mustang Cobra Convertible this whole controversy started over, I am posting a statement she sent me via Email. In addition, at her request, I am now also closing this thread.

On a personal note, I am truly glad that the forum MustangWorks.com provides to all its members and readers was able to play a pivotal role in helping one of our fellow enthusiast's not only find out she had been wronged, but give her the power to right that wrong and bring the power of public pressure to bare. Hopefully this will bring about a positive change within the automotive service industry. As, what played out here was the fear of almost every automotive enthusiast and what we all know is an all to common occurrence. Hopefully the next time someone's pride and joy is entrusted to the care of an automotive professional, and the business he/she works for, there will be extra thought paid to how that enthusiast's vehicle and trust is treated.


quote: <HR>
I'm at a loss on how to start this reply. I never expected the response this topic has generated. Folks from all over the world put aside their differences and stood together as one to demand respect. I don't think this really had anything to do with cars or dealerships... but instead trust and fair treatment.

Stangman96, I sincerely hope this opened your eyes. Treat others the way you wish to be treated. The world would be a much better place if everyone did this.

I'm sure you all want to know the outcome of this fiasco. Stangman96 and the technician who was with him were terminated. Stangman96 was not the SVT/Mustang specialist he stated he was. He was not supposed to be driving the car and the work-order for my car stated as such. This is the reason he was fired.

It can't be proved or disproved he took the car to the speeds he claimed and for the record, the abandoned airstrip he claimed to have done this on doesn't exist. Thank God no one was hurt or killed by his possible reckless driving on public roadways.

Northside Ford and I have come to an agreement and the issue is resolved. Though they are not admitting any liability, they have taken appropriate measures to satisfy all of my concerns regarding this incident.

I will be taking my car to them for warranty service in the future as I honestly believe nothing like this will happen again. It may be the safest place in the country to take your car now. :-)

Thank you to all who posted their support. You have been heard worldwide and believe me, the dealerships are listening. Also, I have no desire to seek revenge against, or physically harm to, the original poster... but thanks for all the offers. ;-)

Mustangworks.com and SVTPerformance.com... thank you for the awesome boards! I know the onslaught of traffic caused you some major headaches.

To my Mustang friends in San Antonio and elsewhere... you guys are GREAT! Johnny at TEAM EXTREME RACING in San Antonio, thank you for everything... good guys do finish first!

--
Tracy (RaceRat)
2003 Sonic Blue Cobra Convertible
<HR>

From the entire Mustang Works Staff, you are welcome Tracy. We are glad we could provide you help and support just by keeping the site functional during this fiasco. For the record, and the curious, the original post was made on Friday, September 20th.

However, it really caught fire and was widely noticed on Wednesday, September 25th. By 11 PM that night word of this thread and links to it had spread to several hundred message boards. Wednesday night at that time our main server was taking 1300 requests per second, which literally brought it to a halt. This is when I personally became aware of the thread, what was happening regarding it, and the serious server load situation on our main 1.53 GHz Athlon server.

On Thursday evening, just to keep the site functioning, we acquired a Dual 1+ GHz Intel server box with 1 GB of RAM and spent until 6 AM Friday morning just getting it configured, up and running, and moving the forums over to it. As such, you may have notice at that time the forums were then being forwarded the IP address of the new server. This kept the forums alive, and the load off the rest of the site, but it was still getting so hammered that even the new box being completely dedicated to the forums couldn't fully keep up.

Additionally, we were told on Thursday, September 26th, news about this controversy and MustangWorks.com was discussed on Deminski & Doyle's Detroit's 97.1 FM radio (http://971fm.com/). Then, we also heard that on Friday September 27th, news about the thread and MustangWorks.com was discussed during Detroit's famous WRIF 101 FM's (http://www.wrif.com/) Drew & Mike's morning radio show (guys... can you send MustangWorks.com out a "BIIITTTTCHHHH" please? http://forums.mustangworks.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif ). Furthermore, Tracy has indicated that it was also on local TV in San Antonio, and that she was also contacted by several print magazines regarding this story.

Finally, for several days our servers were transferring over 25 GB's of data each day and receiving over 2 million page views each day. Mustang Works servers are connected to the Internet via the equivilent of a fractional T3 connection (a 2.5 MBit pipe). For almost five days straight the data transfer was at a 1.5+ MBit average with bursts to our 2.5 MBit maximum, and that is with GZip compression being utilized on our servers too. Fortunately, our connection handled it however... Also, our Database server, supporting MS SQL Server 2000 and Win32 MySQL never even flintched through it all (It's a 1.53 GHz Athlon server with 1 GB DDR Ram and an ultra wide 160 SCSI raid array)... Furthermore, our simultaneous user count on the forums hit almost 1000 on October 2nd.

Well, things have died back down a bit, but all we can say here is WOW! http://forums.mustangworks.com/images/smilies/eek.gif NO ONE should doubt the power of the Web.

[jettle]

Yeah I believe he was terminated rather quickly after the dealer found out about it.

[RoyLPita]

Those 2 "ex" Ford technicians remind me of the 2 valets with the Ferrari in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".

[Silver_04]

Just another reason for me to distrust dealerships even more. :shake: That's amazing, drive your car hard and Ford will try to void your warranty but have a tech do it and you can't pin liability on the dealer. With respect to proving whether the tech did it, he claims a run to 140 and doesn't the computer store that data? :mad2: x infinity!

[lgetz]

Well the tech certainly got what he deserved. It was very stupid and irresponsible to do that to a customer's vehicle. However, it was assonine to post it on a public forum. BTW I'm not suprised the dealer basically getting off the matter free and clear. Shoot they didn't have any liability whatsoever.:fire: Sorry I don't buy it.:bs: You're in business to serve the customer so you've got to everything to make them happy. The customer had every right to pursue legal action and yes even get another vehicle from this irresponsible dealership. Now it makes me wonder about having anyone service any of my vehicles.:shake:

[sailsmen]

I encouraged my SM to take my MM for a test run but he refuses. He said, "too much power for me, I will only get myself in trouble".

As far as suing the dealer that is always a right. In order to get an award it is my understanding the plaintiff has the burden of proving damages.

I didn't read the whole thread, but what I read does not indicate the car owner suffered any damages.

When I bring my car in for service I do expect the tech to push the car on the test drive to the extent he deems necessary to complete the test drive with out violating any traffic laws. If he needs to floor it from a dead stop or hit the brakes hard from 70 on the Interstate then so be it.

Had a tech driven my car up to 140 MPH I would have been very upset!

[EbonyMarauder03]

:fire: I work for a Ford dealer and I probably would have dropped a quarter on him. Gaining a customer's trust is hard to do in the automotive field for starters. Look at the scary stories from Jiffy Lubes that don't put the oil back in to the horror stories from Pep Boys or the old Penske Centers in K-Mart. My only consolation is I know the guy working on my car since I work with him. We aren't an SVT dealer and besides my Marauder, my brother-in-law's 97 Cobra we only see one other SVT car. The only guys with the certifications this clown bragged about are in their 50's or better and have no desire to go fast anymore. Also, being in Philadelphia there are no places to go 140mph much less a road smooth enough to go 55. We do get customers saying the have a vibration or shimmy at 90 mph and we won't entertain them. The state's speed limit on certain roads is 65 and the customer shouldn't be going over that in the first place. I'm glad the perps got what they deserved, and the dealer will probably get what they deserve from Ford. They probably will lose their SVT status and probably lose their "Blue Oval" status too. They'll probably get audited for their warranty claims, too. The automotive industry is hurting from the economy and this clown just made things harder for that dealership.

[EbonyMarauder03]

:lol: :stupid: Just another thought...as far reaching as this thread is I think this guy could lock up the Darwin Award for 2004. :up:

[EbonyMarauder03]

:depress: Not to add any more insult to their injury. Ford probably has gotten wind of this whole situation and if this dealership was in line to get an allocated GT car they can now kiss that dream good bye. I'm sure they had some people already to buy one or more from them too. I'm sure the owner(s) and upper management are hot to trot now. :bounce: