Waiting For Word On My Ford FreeStar Transmission - Recall??

[Henry]

Was coming back from Colchester yesterday and stopped at the intersection of 104A and 104 - When I started up something started squealing, so drove slowly over to Dale Bellows Farm and parked in his driveway - Tried calling several people and reached Mary Kay - We stopped at Rainville's and dropped off the key so he could bring it down to Paquins - I have a recall on it that takes about 6 hours to do, something to do with the Torque Converter - From what I read on the Internet, my car may be one of those with the problem - Hope so anyhow - Waiting to hear what Paquin's has to say -

[Henry]

Well, they didn't get a chance to check on it today, but he said they should tomorrow morning - Sure hope it is caused by the recall problem on the torque converter

[Henry]

Well, supposedly it is not the Torque Converter according to their tests and I need to get a new transmission.  Burt Paquin Ford has called the Ford Motor Company and they will pay for replacing the Torque Converter, which they were going to do on a recall anyhow, so in reality they have done nothing.  The Parts department at Paquin's has called The Ford Motor Company, but no results.  I personally have sent them 3 e-mails with no satisfaction.

My problem is they refuse to fess up to the fact that they have a problem with the transmission.  Another car was flatbedded in while mine was being worked on with the same problem.  A check of the Internet at:

http://www.carcomplaints.com/Ford/Freestar/2004/transmission/transmission_failure.shtml

shows 27 cases of similar situations that I was unaware of - I have no problem with the service department or Paquin Ford, my beef is with The Ford Motor Company - They definitely have a problem and won't admit it.

[fletchtb]

Have you called their (Ford's) customer service line?

I had a great experience calling GM one time for my 2003 Silverado. The 03's had a known issue where the stepper motors in the instrument cluster would fail. I had reported shortly after my warranty expired that my gas guage stopped working and they didn't want to cover it. It wasn't a big deal to me then since the I could use the trip odometer to have a sense of when the tank was getting empty (plus the low fuel light would still come on when I was really low). When I had about 80K miles on the truck I got a letter from GM saying they would replace the instrument panel for trucks with the problem up to 70K miles or so. Annoying, that GM wouldn't cover mine at the time, but I was able to live with it still. Then the speedometer went. I began using a Garmin GPS to determine my speed. Then the oil pressure guage went. All of this was fine with me as I didn't use the truck as much any more, and I had workarounds for all the non-functioning guages. Then my truck wouldn't pass its annual inspection last year (the mechanic finally noticed the speedometer wasn't working and wouldn't pass the truck).

I brought the truck to the dealer across the street from my job in South Burlington and they couldn't do anything for me, but they offered I could call the main customer service line. I called them up and explained my frustration with how I couldn't get a known problem resolved because I drove the truck too much (missed the warranty and then the extended warranty on the part). They were able to work with the regional manager and Handys in St. Albans where I bought the truck and they agreed to give me a new instrument cluster for free if I paid 1 hour of labor to have it installed, which seemed more than fair to me.

So Henry, maybe getting someone on the phone from Ford Motor Company and explaining your long history with the company and Paquins could help greese the wheels a bit in your favor? I hope you are able to come up with a workable solution for you.

Thanks,
Todd