On April 25th 2017 I located a used 2013 Ford F150 Raptor in a rare color at Ted Britt Ford of Chantilly. I received an emailed price quote for the vehicle plus dealer processing fees, and tax/title.
At 8:36AM on April 26th 2017 I placed a call to the service department and spoke to an advisor by the name of Christina. I explained which vehicle I was looking into purchasing from them and requested details about the Ted Britt 4 Life warranty and what service work would be required to maintain the coverage for the vehicle. She explained that all factory services would have to be performed at their dealership and the Ted Britt 4 Life warranty would cover all lubricated parts and stated some examples.
Shortly after 9am on the same day I placed a call for the sales department and set up an appointment to see the truck. I spoke with Peter Velasquez further about pricing and dealer processing fees and was told that the quoted price was about the best they would do and we further discussed processing fees and such.
Upon arriving at the dealership after my 1.5hr drive I was greeted immediately by a printed quote that was $1200 higher than originally quoted for a “vehicle reconditioning fee” that was never mentioned prior. This was by far the worst sales tactic that I have ever experienced in all of my dealings. They negotiated to “waive” it but refused to deal on the truck any further. During checking out the truck I had discovered that the tailgate step was broken and would not pull out which I mentioned. The salesman (Peter), used sales manager (Brian) and I went out to the truck to check this out. Nobody could get it to release, they called a tech over who also couldn’t get it to release and it was obvious they did not want to fix it.
There was another used Raptor on the lot which had the Ford accessory folding tonneau cover by REV so I asked if they would give me that instead of fixing the tailgate to which Brian argued that it was a $1800 part and would cost them $500 from the shop to have installed on the truck I wanted. I insisted that $1800 was very inflated as was $500 to install. I stated the tonneau cover was around $800 new and I pointed out the 6 clamps that mount it in the bed that use one bolt each and that it would take a tech no more than 30 minutes to swap it. They made a big deal about the drain tubes which were just fed through factory holes in the bed and pointing down and the best they would do was $400 for it removed from the other truck and I would have to reinstall.
*Side notes regarding the tonneau cover* I installed the cover myself with only a ratchet and 14mm socket in a little over 10 minutes including routing the drain tubes. They also did not include the gas struts that hold the tonneau cover when its folded, which were present when it was installed on the other truck. Full MSRP on the unit right from Fords website is $1069 and dealers sell it for a bit less. The website also had a price of $50 for a dealer to install it, 10% of what Brian stated his service department would charge.
We all went back inside and I explained that despite their unwillingness to make a better deal that I would go through with the purchase from them instead of the same truck that was available in another state due to the attractiveness of the Ted Britt 4 Life guarantee that came with the truck. At this point we began the purchase process to which I reminded them that I was short on time so we needed to wrap the deal up quickly and that I also had to drop my other vehicle off at another shop nearby for service.
Everything went fairly smooth until it was time for the finance office to sign papers. It took much longer than stated to get into the finance office. I requested to Brian for them to have a shuttle or lot porter meet me at the other shop so I could drop my other vehicle off while waiting for the finance office to get everything ready. He denied my request stating that I would lose my place in line to sign papers if I left and that they were almost ready. It took over an hour to get into the finance office after the finance guy came out to me and said that it would be “7-8 minutes”. Once I finally got in he started going over everything and trying to sell me extras despite saying up front that I would not buy anything else.
One of the last forms I signed (after the purchase agreement which locked me into the vehicle) was the Ted Britt 4 Life guarantee which is on a 3 page transfer paper form making the fine print on the back of the pages nearly impossible to read. I asked again about Ted Britt 4 Life and he gave me the details and stated that my vehicle is covered because it was under 100,000 miles. We finished up and I brought my other dealer to the other shop and got a ride back from the salesman (Peter).
We got back to the dealership and still waited and waited. I was told they were still working on the tonneau cover, then I was told it was in detail and so fourth. Finally I told them to bring it around now, I have to leave.
On the ride home once got to the highway and started driving over 60mph I noticed that the new tires that the dealership had just installed were severely out of balance to which I called Peter immediately. I was told to drive it and that it would probably smooth out… You know, because tires balance themselves… It proceeded to get worse. It took days and over a dozen phone calls to get them to set up an appointment.
On May 1st 2017 Christina (a different Christina from the first phone call) called me as requested by Brian to set up an appointment. During the call (which I recorded and they did as well) I asked questions about what tech did it to which I was told it was a senior SVT certified tech. I also asked if they used the factory Motorcraft recommended oil or a generic oil. I requested Christina to be my service advisor for all of my visits and again exactly what the requirement was to maintain the Ted Britt 4 Life guarantee and what it covered to which her answer mirrored what I had been told by the first advisor prior to the sale. An appointment was set up for me on the 3rd to go in to have the tires checked.
About 30 minutes after I got off the phone with Christina, Brian called and stated that when he went back to Christina about calling me to setup an appointment that she had informed him that my vehicle was not covered by Ted Britt 4 Life because it was a SVT vehicle and they’re excluded. I called him on this immediately because he claimed Christina mentioned this before calling me when we discussed the guarantee in depth and which services I would need to do. He then backpedaled explaining that she was just generalizing on the guarantee and not for my particular vehicle which was excluded. I explained that the first Christina had said that same thing to which he stated he would pull the recording from that call and review it.
Brian got back to me after listening to the call and admitted that my initial call to the service department did go in to detail about the guarantee but came up with every excuse he could to pass off the mistake of his fellow employee. He finally admitted that she did indeed imply this and that they needed to correct this. He stated that he would talk to his boss as well as Gardner Britt the next day to see what they could offer to resolve this matter, he stated that Gardner himself would probably be calling me but I would receive a call the next morning regardless with a resolution. I received no call from them and had to reach out to them the next afternoon. I left several messages for Brian which were not returned. Finally I called and Peter answered the phone to which I gave him an earful and that Brian needed to call me immediately and he did. Brian claimed he was “going to bat for me” and that this would be resolved.
The next day I received no call from Brian once again, but that evening Gardner Britt called. His only offer of resolution to denying his own warranty that he has full control of, that could potentially cover thousands in repairs was a free detail or oil change which was more of an insult than anything. He claimed to have no legal obligation due to having a signed paper by me that states in the fine print that SVT vehicles are not covered, despite his own employees misleading me when I went out of my way to verify this warranty. Shiesty is the only way to describe this behavior.
Now onto the tire balance problem…
Not wanting to let the incompetent clowns at Ted Britt touch my vehicle again and possibly make matters worse I set up an appointment for a different Ford Dealership that was much closer to me to do a full diagnosis and road force balance. After pulling the very first tire the advisor came to get me saying “we have a problem”. He explained that with the weights on them as had been balanced by Ted Britt Ford, that the tire was over 15oz out of balance and that they were getting ready to attempt the road force balance which matches the balance of the wheel to the tire so that the tire is more balanced before adding any weight. He also explained that the tire had extreme runout and there was nothing that could be done about it. The other three wheels and tires were no different, they all experienced extreme runout (snaking), and required extreme amounts of weight. One of the tires are so defective that despite road force balancing for the best case scenario, the machine still displayed a message that the tire was so bad that it could not physically balanced and a second message saying to replace the tire.
I contacted the Service Director of Ted Britt (Geoff Bennett) on the spot and explained what was going on. He gave information that the tires were purchased through the Ford parts program and were under warranty and would be covered. He also stated that if I send him a copy of the receipt via email that he would reimburse me for the cost to have the other dealer attempt to balance the tires. I gave him my email and he sent me an email to reply to with the receipt. I responded with the receipt as well as a request to purchase my own tires and have the defective tires returned and refunded. Geoff denied it all including reimbursing my visit to the other dealer which he had promised to do initially.
Below are the exact notes from the service advisor at the other dealership after doing the best they could to repair the tires:
“rt ft tire would not balance tire bad rim test ok / left rear tire was turned 180 degrees to balance still took 11oz to balance tires are snaking rims test ok”
Ted Britt has now placed responsibility for the tires onto me for not bring them back to them to repair. Why should I? Their senior tech improperly installed them and overlooked obvious defects from the start, they gave me the run around and wasted my time before finally authorizing an appointment to check them while giving me the run around on a lifetime guarantee that they stated I had. I’m confident that driving the 3hr round trip for the appointment, plus rush hour traffic on the way back, plus waiting for them to actually take the vehicle in, then working on it would have resulted in another 5-6hr of wasted time that I would never get back and still not have the problem resolved.
Everyone at Ted Britt Ford should be absolutely embarrassed by this. There’s so much wrong in just one transaction that it doesn’t even seem fathomable. Do yourself a favor and take your business elsewhere. For Ford sales and service I highly recommend Koons, Kip Killmons, Sheehy, Battlefield, and Shenandoah. Over the years I have done business with all of these dealers, most on numerous occasions and have had nothing but positive experiences.
Cliff notes of my unresolved problems with the dealerships:
At 8:36AM on April 26th 2017 I placed a call to the service department and spoke to an advisor by the name of Christina. I explained which vehicle I was looking into purchasing from them and requested details about the Ted Britt 4 Life warranty and what service work would be required to maintain the coverage for the vehicle. She explained that all factory services would have to be performed at their dealership and the Ted Britt 4 Life warranty would cover all lubricated parts and stated some examples.
Shortly after 9am on the same day I placed a call for the sales department and set up an appointment to see the truck. I spoke with Peter Velasquez further about pricing and dealer processing fees and was told that the quoted price was about the best they would do and we further discussed processing fees and such.
Upon arriving at the dealership after my 1.5hr drive I was greeted immediately by a printed quote that was $1200 higher than originally quoted for a “vehicle reconditioning fee” that was never mentioned prior. This was by far the worst sales tactic that I have ever experienced in all of my dealings. They negotiated to “waive” it but refused to deal on the truck any further. During checking out the truck I had discovered that the tailgate step was broken and would not pull out which I mentioned. The salesman (Peter), used sales manager (Brian) and I went out to the truck to check this out. Nobody could get it to release, they called a tech over who also couldn’t get it to release and it was obvious they did not want to fix it.
There was another used Raptor on the lot which had the Ford accessory folding tonneau cover by REV so I asked if they would give me that instead of fixing the tailgate to which Brian argued that it was a $1800 part and would cost them $500 from the shop to have installed on the truck I wanted. I insisted that $1800 was very inflated as was $500 to install. I stated the tonneau cover was around $800 new and I pointed out the 6 clamps that mount it in the bed that use one bolt each and that it would take a tech no more than 30 minutes to swap it. They made a big deal about the drain tubes which were just fed through factory holes in the bed and pointing down and the best they would do was $400 for it removed from the other truck and I would have to reinstall.
*Side notes regarding the tonneau cover* I installed the cover myself with only a ratchet and 14mm socket in a little over 10 minutes including routing the drain tubes. They also did not include the gas struts that hold the tonneau cover when its folded, which were present when it was installed on the other truck. Full MSRP on the unit right from Fords website is $1069 and dealers sell it for a bit less. The website also had a price of $50 for a dealer to install it, 10% of what Brian stated his service department would charge.
We all went back inside and I explained that despite their unwillingness to make a better deal that I would go through with the purchase from them instead of the same truck that was available in another state due to the attractiveness of the Ted Britt 4 Life guarantee that came with the truck. At this point we began the purchase process to which I reminded them that I was short on time so we needed to wrap the deal up quickly and that I also had to drop my other vehicle off at another shop nearby for service.
Everything went fairly smooth until it was time for the finance office to sign papers. It took much longer than stated to get into the finance office. I requested to Brian for them to have a shuttle or lot porter meet me at the other shop so I could drop my other vehicle off while waiting for the finance office to get everything ready. He denied my request stating that I would lose my place in line to sign papers if I left and that they were almost ready. It took over an hour to get into the finance office after the finance guy came out to me and said that it would be “7-8 minutes”. Once I finally got in he started going over everything and trying to sell me extras despite saying up front that I would not buy anything else.
One of the last forms I signed (after the purchase agreement which locked me into the vehicle) was the Ted Britt 4 Life guarantee which is on a 3 page transfer paper form making the fine print on the back of the pages nearly impossible to read. I asked again about Ted Britt 4 Life and he gave me the details and stated that my vehicle is covered because it was under 100,000 miles. We finished up and I brought my other dealer to the other shop and got a ride back from the salesman (Peter).
We got back to the dealership and still waited and waited. I was told they were still working on the tonneau cover, then I was told it was in detail and so fourth. Finally I told them to bring it around now, I have to leave.
On the ride home once got to the highway and started driving over 60mph I noticed that the new tires that the dealership had just installed were severely out of balance to which I called Peter immediately. I was told to drive it and that it would probably smooth out… You know, because tires balance themselves… It proceeded to get worse. It took days and over a dozen phone calls to get them to set up an appointment.
On May 1st 2017 Christina (a different Christina from the first phone call) called me as requested by Brian to set up an appointment. During the call (which I recorded and they did as well) I asked questions about what tech did it to which I was told it was a senior SVT certified tech. I also asked if they used the factory Motorcraft recommended oil or a generic oil. I requested Christina to be my service advisor for all of my visits and again exactly what the requirement was to maintain the Ted Britt 4 Life guarantee and what it covered to which her answer mirrored what I had been told by the first advisor prior to the sale. An appointment was set up for me on the 3rd to go in to have the tires checked.
About 30 minutes after I got off the phone with Christina, Brian called and stated that when he went back to Christina about calling me to setup an appointment that she had informed him that my vehicle was not covered by Ted Britt 4 Life because it was a SVT vehicle and they’re excluded. I called him on this immediately because he claimed Christina mentioned this before calling me when we discussed the guarantee in depth and which services I would need to do. He then backpedaled explaining that she was just generalizing on the guarantee and not for my particular vehicle which was excluded. I explained that the first Christina had said that same thing to which he stated he would pull the recording from that call and review it.
Brian got back to me after listening to the call and admitted that my initial call to the service department did go in to detail about the guarantee but came up with every excuse he could to pass off the mistake of his fellow employee. He finally admitted that she did indeed imply this and that they needed to correct this. He stated that he would talk to his boss as well as Gardner Britt the next day to see what they could offer to resolve this matter, he stated that Gardner himself would probably be calling me but I would receive a call the next morning regardless with a resolution. I received no call from them and had to reach out to them the next afternoon. I left several messages for Brian which were not returned. Finally I called and Peter answered the phone to which I gave him an earful and that Brian needed to call me immediately and he did. Brian claimed he was “going to bat for me” and that this would be resolved.
The next day I received no call from Brian once again, but that evening Gardner Britt called. His only offer of resolution to denying his own warranty that he has full control of, that could potentially cover thousands in repairs was a free detail or oil change which was more of an insult than anything. He claimed to have no legal obligation due to having a signed paper by me that states in the fine print that SVT vehicles are not covered, despite his own employees misleading me when I went out of my way to verify this warranty. Shiesty is the only way to describe this behavior.
Now onto the tire balance problem…
Not wanting to let the incompetent clowns at Ted Britt touch my vehicle again and possibly make matters worse I set up an appointment for a different Ford Dealership that was much closer to me to do a full diagnosis and road force balance. After pulling the very first tire the advisor came to get me saying “we have a problem”. He explained that with the weights on them as had been balanced by Ted Britt Ford, that the tire was over 15oz out of balance and that they were getting ready to attempt the road force balance which matches the balance of the wheel to the tire so that the tire is more balanced before adding any weight. He also explained that the tire had extreme runout and there was nothing that could be done about it. The other three wheels and tires were no different, they all experienced extreme runout (snaking), and required extreme amounts of weight. One of the tires are so defective that despite road force balancing for the best case scenario, the machine still displayed a message that the tire was so bad that it could not physically balanced and a second message saying to replace the tire.
I contacted the Service Director of Ted Britt (Geoff Bennett) on the spot and explained what was going on. He gave information that the tires were purchased through the Ford parts program and were under warranty and would be covered. He also stated that if I send him a copy of the receipt via email that he would reimburse me for the cost to have the other dealer attempt to balance the tires. I gave him my email and he sent me an email to reply to with the receipt. I responded with the receipt as well as a request to purchase my own tires and have the defective tires returned and refunded. Geoff denied it all including reimbursing my visit to the other dealer which he had promised to do initially.
Below are the exact notes from the service advisor at the other dealership after doing the best they could to repair the tires:
“rt ft tire would not balance tire bad rim test ok / left rear tire was turned 180 degrees to balance still took 11oz to balance tires are snaking rims test ok”
Ted Britt has now placed responsibility for the tires onto me for not bring them back to them to repair. Why should I? Their senior tech improperly installed them and overlooked obvious defects from the start, they gave me the run around and wasted my time before finally authorizing an appointment to check them while giving me the run around on a lifetime guarantee that they stated I had. I’m confident that driving the 3hr round trip for the appointment, plus rush hour traffic on the way back, plus waiting for them to actually take the vehicle in, then working on it would have resulted in another 5-6hr of wasted time that I would never get back and still not have the problem resolved.
Everyone at Ted Britt Ford should be absolutely embarrassed by this. There’s so much wrong in just one transaction that it doesn’t even seem fathomable. Do yourself a favor and take your business elsewhere. For Ford sales and service I highly recommend Koons, Kip Killmons, Sheehy, Battlefield, and Shenandoah. Over the years I have done business with all of these dealers, most on numerous occasions and have had nothing but positive experiences.
Cliff notes of my unresolved problems with the dealerships:
- The Ted Britt 4 Life guarantee, which I went out of my way to look into and was given either wrong or false information. I was told many times they would make it right and have not.
- The tonneau cover missing parts which were present on the other vehicle and were supposed to have been included.
- Original OEM BF Goodrich replacement tires which were purchase from the Ford parts program and installed by that dealer and are blatantly defective.
- Agreement by the service director to reimburse my cost to have the tires checked by a second Ford dealer due to my lack of confidence in their abilities.
