Used Cars for Sale at Santa Maria Ford in Santa Maria, CA

CPSYS

Jan 28, 2014

I have to say, I'm really dissapointed. The chipped-key to our 2008 F450 seems to have gone bad, so we had it towed into the Santa Maria Ford dealership. We are being charged $150 for a "diagnostic", and then a reprogram fee of $150 on top of that - even though we knew what we wanted to have done. We were told the reason the bill was so high was that the starter was also bad, and they had to take it out to "bench test" it (something any fair mechanic would have checked quickly in place). They said that they could install a new starter for $920... keep in mind, a generic starter from an auto-parts store is less than $150, and an OEM is less than $350 (and installing it takes less than an hour). We told this to your rep, and he later told my associate that "if we do the work today, they'll do it for $750"... what a deal ! When I asked to have the service manager call me about it, they seemed surprised that we were local (plates are out of state)... I infer they thought they had us over a barrel. I called two days in a row to discuss - still no call back. I remember going online to see what the potential issues might be for the original problem, and the online Ford tech who was paid for advice said that at most the key could be reprogrammed, along with a new spare, for less than a billable hour - and the most expensive dealer he heard of was at $120 hour. Well, he obviously hasn't run across Santa Maria Ford yet. We are getting ready to buy another truck (we have five Fords), but it definitely won't be from Santa Maria Ford, and certainly we'll never voluntarily have any of our trucks serviced there.