Any Ranger owners here?

[Antg]

I had my PJ (2008) Ranger serviced today (20,000km at a cost of $602.80) and on the service report and in the log book it says that valve clearances are checked. When I got home I popped the bonnet to check the oil as I always do and noticed the engine cover had no signs of it being removed. I got a ratchet and socket and removed the cover to see the hoses and clamps which have to be removed to get the valve cover off still have unbroken yellow paint across them. I rang the Ford dealer and asked how they'd check valve clearances without removing the engine or valve cover only to be told they no longer do this item as its not necessary. I've contacted Ford Australia to try and clear this up, if it does need to be done I'll asking for a full refund and asking why they chose not to do it.

So what I want to know is have you have this service done and do you know for sure if the valve clearances were done?

 

[TS-50]

too right,



One local dealer used to have a tactic where as soon as cars were out of warrenty they'd suddenly have a blown head gasket at their next service.

Almost mirroring what you said, there was no evidence of anything being removed, not the tappet cover or the head, but yet i was charged $800 (many years ago, ED I think ) lucky I paid by cheque, and after i looked under the hood i took it to a mate of mine who has a mechanic's shop and he agreed there was no way the work was done, so i cancelled the cheque , went back and told them , they insisted they'd done the work and would have the police come visit me, but in the end they relented and told me it must have been another car the same colour they fixed and asked if I wanted to re book mine to have it done, . . . .uh . . .no.


A mob I was working for had a fleet of almost 20 cars and every one of them had the same problem (lease deal over 4 years / warrenty only over 2 years) and they got rid of the lot and changed over to Holdens.

 

[Antg]

If it was a company car or I wasn't footing the over inflated service cost I probably wouldn't care too much but as its my first brand new car and not a company vehicle I want it to last. New cars cost too much to knock around and treat like crap. To say I'm bitterly disappointed is a massive understatement. I love my Fords but the servicing costs on the Rangers is an absolute joke.

 

[Snappa]

I have a PK ranger which recently had it's 20 k service. the price was similar but fortunately I knew the service manager and know that he is extremely anal over doing things correctly. He is one of my brother in laws best mates and has an immaculate John Goss special. if you want me to I could give him a call next week and see what he has to say about it.
Snappa

 

[Antg]

That would be good if you could do that for me Snappa. In the log book it says inspect valve clearances, which to me means actually removing the engine and valve covers to actually measure clearances with feeler guages or whatever they use, not just listen to see if its excessively noisy like I was told. I will be ringing Ford Australia customer care next week to see what they have to say. On the report I was given when I picked the car up it even says "inspect engine valve clearance" it also says rotate wheels which they didn't do either. Which makes me wonder if they even repacked the wheel bearings like they were supposed to. If you are in Brisbane let me know via PM what dealership your mate works at and I'll start taking it to him for servicing.

 

[Car61]

Might be a bit of a commute antg, [drive] IIRC Snappa's in W.A. [crackup]

 

[Snappa]

Yep thats right car 61 My friends dealership is in Northam WA. Good luck dealing with ford customer relations Had an absolute shit of a time with them over my old XR8 ute. It had a problem in the wiring and the bluetooth phone connection just wouldnt work. It got to the point where I gave up in frustration because ford refused to do anything about it. From what my mate said apparently there is an intermittant fault with the FG's where both the bluetooth phone connection and the Ipod connection just wont work. At the time there were three in Aus that they couldnt get to work. Ford didnt seem to care after a while. Felt sorry for my mate they spent approx 50 to 60 hours trying to chase the fault and all that ford could or would say is change the interior command centre. Needless to say that when I traded it recently for the ranger it still wasnt working. Any how good luck with trying to get someone at ford to listen to you. I know I didnt.
Snappa

 

[Snappa]

Oh and car 61 I used to commute 600 kilometeres to get him to service my BA ute when I had that so whats a few thousand extra K's [crackup]

 

[Bigcol]

I've got a BT50 with 70000km's on it now and it just started to get a bit rattly in the top end at certain speeds and it definitely sounds like a bit of tappet noise.
I know that Oldmac Mazda at Cleveland checked and adjusted the valve clearance at the 20k service so it probably needs it again.

Mate ring for a price on your services beforehand..
I always do this and it's amazing how much cheaper it is.
If it's over the top tell to them stick it and ring another dealer or a Mazda dealer.

Dealing with Mazda is way nicer and they do fix things rather than those ****s at Metro Ford who refused nearly everything that went wrong with the XR6 we had and we had to take it to another dealer to get it fixed and then the clunky driveline was within Fords specifications so it never got done. It should be Ford no customer service

 

[Antg]

I've got a BT50 with 70000km's on it now and it just started to get a bit rattly in the top end at certain speeds and it definitely sounds like a bit of tappet noise.
I know that Oldmac Mazda at Cleveland checked and adjusted the valve clearance at the 20k service so it probably needs it again.

Mate ring for a price on your services beforehand..
I always do this and it's amazing how much cheaper it is.
If it's over the top tell to them stick it and ring another dealer or a Mazda dealer.

Dealing with Mazda is way nicer and they do fix things rather than those ****s at Metro Ford who refused nearly everything that went wrong with the XR6 we had and we had to take it to another dealer to get it fixed and then the clunky driveline was within Fords specifications so it never got done. It should be Ford no customer service

I found Metro Ford to be a bunch of clowns as well Bigcol my ute went there for the 10k service as I was working at Newstead. I phoned them for a quote for the 20k service and they were $820 so I decided to take it to a local Ford dealer, you'd know which one I'm talking about. If the BT50's get the clearances checked the Ranger will be exactly the same, looks like I might be going to crack some skulls on Monday [rt]

 

[Snappa]

By the way antg another thing he told me was to watch out for gearbox problems on the PJ . Apparently they had a bit of a habit to jump out of top gear when running. After a while of doing this apparently the gearbox will die. Apparently it was a selector problem which was fixed with the PK and was supposed to be retrofitted to any PJ's that had the problem .
Just something to keep an eye on.

 

[Antg]

By the way antg another thing he told me was to watch out for gearbox problems on the PJ . Apparently they had a bit of a habit to jump out of top gear when running. After a while of doing this apparently the gearbox will die. Apparently it was a selector problem which was fixed with the PK and was supposed to be retrofitted to any PJ's that had the problem .
Just something to keep an eye on.

Thanks Snappa, I only bought mine as a run out model June last year so hopefully its been done. I do know they have had problems with the clutches because of the dual mass flywheels.

 

[Antg]

Rang Ford Customer Service today, you guys were right it should be called Ford Lack of Service, I was on hold for 15mins. When my call was eventually answered the woman I spoke to had no idea what I was talking about and advised me to take it up with the dealer. I also rang Mazda, and I was told they no longer do the valve clearance check either. I then rang the Ford dealer and double checked and was told again they don't do it anymore. I'm still far from happy with the over the top price of $600 to repack some wheel bearings, change the fuel filter and engine oil and filter. I also told the Adviser that that item needs to be taken off of their invoice to avoid confusion, even a letter from Ford outlining the change of service items at 20,000 would have been nice.

 

[Rob]

not a ford ranger but a nissan xtrail

with some wizz bang cvt transmission which doesn't change gears,
my problem is when dad bought it a 2008 model the salesman told him they had trouble with the 2007 models having a faulty transmission but it was fixed in 2008
have heard of a fair few of these vehicles being returned to the dealers for faulty transmissions that started in 2007 till the end of 2008.
with only 20,000klms on the clock i think we are sitting on a time bomb so why are these salesmen just telling lies and ripping people off all the time surely they must feel guilty sometimes

 

[Snappa]

not a ford ranger but a nissan xtrail

with some wizz bang cvt transmission which doesn't change gears,
my problem is when dad bought it a 2008 model the salesman told him they had trouble with the 2007 models having a faulty transmission but it was fixed in 2008
have heard of a fair few of these vehicles being returned to the dealers for faulty transmissions that started in 2007 till the end of 2008.
with only 20,000klms on the clock i think we are sitting on a time bomb so why are these salesmen just telling lies and ripping people off all the time surely they must feel guilty sometimes

when they get there commission at the end of each month it tends to skew the guilt of telling absolute B*&^#^t to the customer.

 

[Antg]

Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd add it to this one. Anyone know how to disable the beeping annoying beep when the key is in the ignition and the door is open? Its especially annoying when your cleaning the interior, heaven forbid, with the door open and the radio on. The bloody beep is driving me up the wall. I've read about removing the shroud over the steering column and unplugging some wires but is there another way such as removing a fuse?

 

[Snappa]

Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd add it to this one. Anyone know how to disable the beeping annoying beep when the key is in the ignition and the door is open?

could always do as I do and just not clean it

 

[Antg]

Thats a pretty drastic measure to avoid the beeping

Its deadset giving me the sh17s, I really don't understand the point of it, its useless. You know you've left the keys in the ignition when you can't press the button to lock the bloody thing!

 

[Car61]

Ahh.... but is it actually warning you that the key is in the ignition.......

or... that the door is open [sh]


[crackup] [crackup] [crackup]

 

[Antg]

Ahh, of course how could I have been so stupid I always leave the door open with the keys in the ignition when I leave the ute anywhere