The 12 Hundred Dollar a Year Replacement Ford Windstar Transmission
This is another tale in a long line of horror tales of the Ford Windstar and it's many problems. This one is directed at the Ford dealerships, although the Ford Motor Company is the precipitator of the dealerships windfall service revenue that is generated by Ford's poor quality products and warranties.
The transmission on my 1996 Windstar failed at 72,000 miles. This is the transmission that was faulty at its conception in 1995. They have been trying to correct the original problem and the newly introduced problems because of the many fixes and apparently have not succeeded yet. I had the transmission/converter assembly replaced in February for the service fee of $2600.00 dollars and it failed two months later. Germain Ford in Columbus, Ohio replaced it no charge in April. They were reimbursed by the factory. It developed a severe front seal leak in July. The warranty on the replaced transmission was 24 months or 24000 miles.
It failed 27 months after it was installed. The irony of this is the warranty of replacement transmissions was extended to 36 months or 36000 miles in August. This is just 4 months after my transmission was replaced under the old warranty. The new warranty period would have covered it. Two different warranties for the same product. I fell through the crack. The dealership now wants an additional $900.00 dollars to replace the transmission. It would be very interesting to know how much revenue dealerships are realizing from missed extended warranties on known product problems ie. Blown engines, broken front springs and bad transmissions. I don't believe they have done anything about their thousands of bad speedometers. When and if they do it will be too late for many people. They will have fallen outside the warranty period. More revenue for the dealerships.
The point I am trying to make is the dealerships could easily rectify these kind of problems with all the profit that Ford has thrown their way but Julie the service manager at Germain's says no and I am forced to buy another car that was not planned. I don't expect to get much for a trade in because of the above named reasons. I don't know what make I will be purchasing but I know what it won't be.
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