My husband and I had purchased a 1995 Ford Mustang Gt after leasing
it for 2 years. With the purchase we were offered an after market
warranty which we bought on Ford's recommendation. Only six
months after buying the car, we noticed a leak coming from the
radiator. We took the car into a Ford dealer in Salinas,
California where they kept the car for over a week. The car was
returned to us with a list of transmission leaks and other problems
they had fixed. When I asked about the radiator leak, they said
the radiator had been pulled and flushed and no leak was found, so
it must have been a loose hose or overflow bottle. One month
later, we were driving home late at night from a weekend at my in-
laws 3 hours away. The car overheated, stranding us on the side of
the freeway for hours. The next day we took the car into a Ford
dealer in Hollister, CA and told them the situation. They looked
at the radiator and said it had never been pulled out of the car
since the original factory marks were still present. When they
took off 4 simple bolts they could look into the radiator and
immediatly saw a hole in the bottom... The radiator was replaced
and the expenses were covered by our warranty.
One month later, I was 7 months pregnant and driving the car to the
grocery store when the thermostat suddenly jumped up to the red
area, causing the engine to seize up. I was in the middle of a
seedy neighborhood, it was 100 degrees outside (at least) and I
couldn't push the car out of the middle of the street. The guy
behind me was honking to get out of the way. I waited a couple of
minutes until the car would start then moved it to the side of the
road. I checked the coolant level in the radiator, as I had seen
my husband do before, but it was full. Luckly the Ford dealer who
had replaced the radiator was 2 blocks away. I waited for the car
to cool down and drove it there.
They took the car for a test drive to see what the problem was, of
course it overheated on them also. They said the thermostat was
probably bad, that was why the temperature didn't gradually
increase, and that the heads were probably cracked from the first
time it overheated. Our warranty wouldn't cover "overheating" so
we're stuck with a $30,000 car that needs a new engine which will
cost about $5,000 according to Ford. We called Ford Motor Company
to ask for recourse and were told there was nothing they could do,
so we sued Salinas Valley Ford for not fixing the problem,
initially. Unfortunatly, the judge was biased and we lost the
case. So now the car sits in the driveway, with no engine waiting
for us to save enough money to replace the motor. This caused us
to have to buy another car, while we are still making payments on
the Mustang. Money has become very tight with the new baby also.
Boo Ford!
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