Weird dealership experience

Hey y'all,

I have a quick question. I had a dealership do my timing belt and clutch/flywheel in one shot. They wound up having to replace the clutch slave 3 times because of leaks. They eventually ordered and installed a whole new clutch kit because they thought something might be wrong with the first clutch kit? So, they went thru 1 clutch kit initially, then 2 slaves, then installed a whole new clutch kit with slave.

Side story but they wound up taking 8 days to do a 14 hour job, lol. They were pretty horrible to deal with and failed to update me many times about my car, so I think the dealership is pretty shady and is doing shady shit here. They also have a very bad reputation for stuff like this, so..yeah. My bad going there.

When i got in the car to drive it away, the clutch feels...bad? 90% or more of the pedal is soft. When I say soft I mean empty, like there isn't much pressure or the clutch springs are very soft. the only usable portion of the throw is maybe a half inch or so near the top. This clutch feels significantly different. It works, to be clear, it just doesn't engage until the very top and it's very fast with little entry/exit. It just grabs. I've driven a lot of manuals, big and smalls, and this feels very, very weak. The clutch itself does grip well and I can get solid tire chirp.

All parts previously and what are on there now are OEM. Flywheel, clutch, slave, were OEM and should be OEM. So they should feel similar.

I had another mechanic drive it and his thought was "It works, but it feels like a honda fit clutch, or another economy car. Not what I'd expect on an ST." Did they install the wrong clutch? Can they even do that? Like is it possible they installed a non-st fiesta clutch on it?

What do you all think happened here? I've never been in the clutch/flywheel of these cars so I'm not familiar enough here. I'm having another mechanic do a work check on it next week. Could they maybe not have broken it in very well? I don't think break in would change pedal pressure. It looks like these slaves are crap. Is it possible they killed 3 slaves or is this just some weird fiesta st issue? The whole thing seems real weird to me.

I chose to use ('have installed by shop") a single mass flywheel and corresponding clutch set up, when replacing my trans. It completely changed the pedal feel, but overall, its strong as a horse 25-30K miles later (143K on the clock). Hill starts can be exciting... If you can find out about the components that were used, beyond 'oem', it may be useful. I have never asked what the difference in the 2 set ups* is - Dual Mass vs Single Mass, but this would seem to be it.

sounds like the didnt bleed it properly.

Something like that. My idea is they kept blowing them out while bleeding them, then on the final one they barely bled it or did anything in the hopes it would work long enough to get me off the lot.

Agree, bleed the clutch and see how it feels

I trust my local dealership 100%. They have never let me down or screwed with me. I went to them because the previous dealership screwed us over when we bought my wife's SE! Detroit were not in the least bit interested in complaints about them!

Alright I'll figure out bleeding it, or have a shop do it real quick.

Just curious, if a dealership agreed to have work done wed to fri, didn't start work until thursday, then had repeated parts failures without updating you, blowing past the deadline by 6 days. Would you expect some form of a discount? Or at least something to say they were sorry and acknowledge some form of responsibility? My issue is that on thursday, 16 business hours left in the week to do a 14 hour job, they took my car apart without calling me to ask me if I needed it over the weekend. From the beginning I made it very clear I needed my car back on friday. At one point the shop manager said he would never call a customer for this because he trusts his tech to get the job done. They did give me a "free rental" but I can't use it for what I needed over the weekend, so it did affect me quite a lot, plus several other people(volunteers). The only "apology" I got from them was the shop manager saying, "I'm sorry you're upset that we gave you a free rental", which....yeah. I spent $4500 on maintenance(timing belt, clutch/flywheel). They also "as a courtesy" repaired a leaky seal without authorization from me. All throughout this process I had to text/call to get updates about my car as their deadlines kept passing. I've been a technician before, I understand that stuff goes awry. I made it very clear to them my issue is the lack of communication and courtesy to update me. Is a discount really that big of a deal here? They had my car for 9 days on a 14 hour job and I wound up with a weak clutch. I also now have to waste quite a lot of time to have another shop check their work because it's 2 hours of driving to get to the next dealership, plus $220, because I can't really trust them at this point. I really don't feel like some kind of discount here is out of the question, but maybe I'm being a bit ridiculous? I don't know.

Should they? Yes.

Will they? In short, no. Many of them have zero shame in this regard, as they dont really know what is going on in their shop. Example - I caught my local dealership red handed, paid for work (they didnt actually do) then at the next service urgently calling me about this issue that needed resolved ASAP. Thing got interesting when I showed up with the receipt for having paid for it at the prior service.... Then found they had done stuff on 2 of my other cars wrong/didnt do it that week either. I was even promised a discount and a credit, which magically was forgotten about 2 days later.

One option is to take it up with Ford help line, see if they can pressure the dealership. I would push for a longer warranty period on the work and materials, as it seems whoever worked on your car didnt have the first idea what they were doing.

Find somewhere else is the only real answer for the long term.

If it's a Ford dealership you will get a survey to rate their service department. If you don't give them perfect scores you will get a call trying to convince you to change your rating, but if you explain what happened and what your gripe is, that is where you can get some recompense. When our FiST was still under warranty I was having the dealer do the oil changes. Once, I had just mounted my snow tires and so I asked them not to rotate the tires, which is part of the oil change service. When I came to pick it up it was clear that the tires had been rotated. I went home and rotated them back. When I got the survey I graded them down. When they called and I explained why they gave me a year of free oil changes.

Not worth it. I wouldn't trust them to do anything correctly.

I would call and ask to speak to the service manager and politely explain the situation. If he’s anything less than appalled and apologetic, they don’t touch my car again. In your shoes, I would spend $100 on a motive pressure bleeder and bleed the clutch yourself opposed to $220 and hours of driving. It’s really simple and you can do the brakes too in the future. PM me if you want my cell number and I’ll gladly walk you through it on the phone or FaceTime.

I already spoke to the service manager. At one point I asked him to acknowledge that they could have communicated better and that a rental car is not sufficient. He replied, "Here's your apology. I'm sorry that you're upset we gave you a free rental car." He also acknowledged that they have a bad reputation, but he said he "Likes to think those days are gone since he started". While I was talking to the service manager he was sitting there with his arms crossed, smirking at me, which is body language for "get out of here".

It was funny though. When I was picking up my rental car the gal who was helping me out said, "What'd they do to you?" with a smile, which tells me they do this pretty often.

So, i seriously doubt anyone at that dealership will do anything to make this better. They're really digging their heels in. I'm already doing a partial chargeback(i had them charge parts and labor separate) and have spoken with a local attorney. This dealership has a history of settling out of court once someone lawyers up, but they make people sign NDAs. Doesn't stop folks from talking though. All I was asking for was an acknowledgement and a small discount to show that they understand that this was a very sub-par experience.

Also no, I can't bleed this myself. I need documentation on all of this. I'm sending them invoices on the mechanic checking their work, the cylinder bleeding, etc because I'm pretty sure I'll need it. If I do it myself they can just say I'm lying.

Years ago, when I had my first Focus, not long after they came out, I was working as a courier/messenger. I believe I had a recall for the rear wheel bearings, so took the car in to get it fixed. One day, I had a pick up in Santa Barbara to be delivered in San Diego. Just after making the delivery, I heard a noise from the rear end. I ended up calling a tow truck to get it to a local Ford dealer. They told me that the rear wheel bearing were shot. I informed them that they had been replaced. They disagreed. I then had to rent a car to return to LA. I picked up my car a few days later. I then wrote a 'nice' letter to the original Ford dealer outlining my expenses for their screw up and LIES! I later got a cheque for $712. I think they were happy to pay up rather than see me in Court! Needless to say, the dealership went out of business, can't think why!