[ZTWsquared]

(07-12-2011, 11:44 PM)smith21 Wrote: try talking to the owner and telling him you will go a step above him and get in touch with ford themselves...probably a longshot but it's worth a try...

Although this sounds nice in theory it is an absolute waste of time. The owner of the dealership pays people a lot of money to keep him/her out of the day to day turmoil of dealing with irate customers.

For the most part these are relatively wealthy people who spend their days worrying about the tens of millions of dollars they have wrapped up in inventory and other big-picture business affairs and the odds are they won't want to be involved. If you can get an audience with them there is a chance they will simply tell their employees to make the problem go away, but it doesn't sound like the people you are dealing with have the capability to do this in the first place, otherwise they would have.

And there is basically nobody at Ford of Canada who is "over" the dealer ... dealers are very much the equal of anyone at the vice-president level and there is certainly no one there who could intimidate a dealer even if they wanted to. They need to sell cars to the dealer (not the other way around) and so that's why 99 times out of a 100 Ford of Canada will simply refer you back to the dealership. The exception might be if there is a technical problem that stems from the factory - and even then, they will tell you that the proper way to deal with a problem is to let the dealer handle it.

Steve I think the solution lies within your insurance company and more specifically the insurance adjuster who is managing your claim ... and the technical solution probably exists at some old-school classic car trim shop and not at the dealership at all.