Long Lewis Ford Lincoln of Hoover

It makes me very sad to rate this dealership badly. We bought our first car from them in 1984, have owned nothing but Fords since then, and all came from Long Lewis, first in Bessemer and now in Hoover. H bought our first car from them in 1984, have owned nothing but Fords since then, and all came from Long Lewis, first in Bessemer and now in Hoover. However, it appears things have changed. Our 2005 F250 had serious mechanical problems involving the EGR cooler. Of course, these problems are not Long Lewis's fault--breakdowns happen, even in hitherto great trucks with only 105 thousand miles. But the repair runaround was frustrating. First, the woman scheduling the appointment told me it would be a week and one day before the shop could look at my truck. My son, who was visiting from out of town, took the truck in and picked up a rental car. Since it was supposedly cheaper for a week, he signed up for that duration. He also signed up for unnecessary insurance coverage, having full coverage himself, but caveat emptor on that. He will know better next time. We changed travel plans and made arrangements to do without the truck for at least a week. We took the truck in on Thursday and on Friday we received a call that the truck would be ready Saturday afternoon or Tuesday (Monday was Memorial Day) and that the charges were around $3600.00. The service writer explained the problem, crediting the government regulations for these emission controls as one contributing factor. That made me mad, since it seems more like Ford’s problem with engineering a truck that doesn’t pollute. However, we ok'ed that work. Two hours later we get a call about additional trouble that would require replacing part of the turbo system for about an additional $1000. When I asked about a service bulletin or a number for a zone manager, none was forthcoming, but we did get a call about two hours later saying the turbo system was fine after all. At some point, the service writer said the truck might begin to use oil and smoke, but that may have been before the repairs to the turbo were found unnecessary. The service manager said that should not be a problem. To their credit, the service department did give us a break because of a core charge and some other items that apparently weren't needed, so the final bill was around $3200. There is a great deal of chatter on internet about this problem with the F250’s, but I don’t know that I can rely on strangers and blogs. I do know that we are getting rid of the truck. It is far too new to be having catastrophic failures. When we returned the rental car, we discovered the cost for 7 days was $291.00, not bad for a week if we had needed it. However, if we had known how quickly the repairs would be made, we could have done without the rental car and stuck more closely to our original plans. Maybe I am being unreasonable. It just seems as if Long Lewis was not the dealership it once was. More