Cost of maintenance at dealership

[nondescript42]

I just bought a ffe. I enjoy the car. Somehow I ended up with a maintenance plan for the car for three years for $1000. Based on calling a few other dealers and reading on this board, it seems like the maintenance cost should be much much less. I'm thinking that the dealership sold me a maintenance plan for a ice version of the vehicle. Can anyone give some feedback what the cost to maintain the vehicle at a dealership should be roughly? $333 a year seems high since that's almost what my old Mercedes used to cost!

 

[NightHawk]

The only maintenance that should be needed in the first 3 years is rotating the tires and inspections once a year.
The new car warranty is in effect for the first 3 years too.
An extended maintenance plan is not recommended for the FFE at all, its just extra profit for the dealer. Just save that money for the annual tire rotations.

 

[jmueller065]

I think it cost me all of $15 for the annual tire rotation and inspection.

 

[WattsUp]

ICE plan or not, I'm afraid the dealership ripped you off.

That said, it could been simply been due to incompetence. That is, perhaps whoever sold the plan to you didn't understand that EVs don't need much maintenance, and so they sold you a plan priced for one of those horribly unreliable and fragile internal combustion money-makers, I mean vehicles, they also sell. Then again, when it comes to taking your money, I believe dealerships do very little by accident.

EVs need virtually no maintenance (beyond the obvious wearables and consumables that will need replacing from time to time). There are no oil changes needed, no transmission fluid to change, no tune-ups to be performed. There is nothing that warrants $333 per year to "maintain" your FFE. The dealership will literally spend more time counting the money you gave them than doing any work on your car.

Check the manual... the only maintenance items truly required for the FFE are tires, wipers, washer fluid, HVAC filter (all of which are true of any car and, with the exception of tires, inexpensive) and, lastly, replacing the high-voltage battery coolant at 150,000 miles (and this is also not likely not to be a terribly expensive job).

 

[nondescript42]

Thanks for the replies.

I started to figure something was wrong when I couldn't find information on the manufacturer website for a Ford maintenance plan for the ffe. Maybe I forgot that I bought something. But I found the contract to the plan in my packet of papers and my signature isn't on the paper best I can tell.

Yeah dealer pretty much ripped me off.

 

[triangles]

Go get your money back if you just bought it!

 

[hybridbear]

Thanks for the replies.

I started to figure something was wrong when I couldn't find information on the manufacturer website for a Ford maintenance plan for the ffe. Maybe I forgot that I bought something. But I found the contract to the plan in my packet of papers and my signature isn't on the paper best I can tell.

Yeah dealer pretty much ripped me off.

If the plan is the official Ford maintenance plan then it should have a clause in there about cancelling and receiving a full refund minus a processing fee. Other plans may have a similar clause. When my parents bought their C-Max Energi I told them not to buy an ESP from the dealer because they're overpriced and they could buy one from Flood Ford for much less money if they so desired. But then the slippery salesman at the dealership conned them into buying a plan which was more than double what the identical plan would cost from Flood Ford. The dealership lied to them and said that there was no warranty on the hybrid components beyond 3/36 and thus tricked them into buying the warranty. When I found out I looked at the fine print and showed them how they could cancel. They got a full refund minus the $75 cancellation fee. The dealership credited the money directly to their loan with Ford Credit.

 

[epaminondas]

There is a lot of misinformation at the dealer level. I experienced a few gaffs:

1. They were going to charge me sales tax until I called them on it
2. They didn't know that the seats folded down or how they folded down.
3. They didn't know what the L setting on the transmission did.

Generally, as you may have read on this forum, the dealers are woefully uninformed about this great car.