Ford agrees to buy new tires on a brand new 03 Cobra with only 4 miles

[2003 Cobra]

My friend at work just got his Cobra this morning and I drove him down to get it. 2 hours off of work and it was fun. Oh well, who cares he is not only my friend, he is also my boss.

On the way to the dealership we talk about the car and what to look out for; bad cats, any vibrations, steering issues, etc. I lastly tell him to look at the back tires in comparison to the front tires. I told him that I would bet the fronts have nubs and the rears would be missing the nubs. He said that if he finds the car like that he will have a shit fit. Well guess what? We get to the dealer and the first thing we do is check out the tires. The rear tires have no nubs and the front tires have them. My friend starts yelling at the sales guy immediately gets his manager to look at the tires. The manager says that nobody drove the car and that it only has 4 miles on it. My friend didn't want the car driven and instructed them not to fill up the gas tank or PDI the car until he arrived. After about 5 minutes of chaos, the general manager of the dealership comes out and tells us that he will do whatever he can to make my friend happy. My friend goes outside with me and cools down after another 10 minutes and we rationalize the situation. It's obvious that somebody did some burnouts but who it was is unknown. We think it was the loaders and it probably happened in transit. Anyways we try to get the general manager to knock some money off the price of the car but he refused to. We then asked for new rear tires and he agreed to that.

Check your rear tires when your car is delivered and if the nubs are missing make Ford buy you new tires. If Ford buys enough new rear tires, they will permanently stop the pre-delivery abuse of the new Cobras.

 

[RingTheory]

Sorry to hear about your experience, the two tires should cost the dealership about $620

When I picked up mine, the tires were my first inspection. Perfect with nubs still there. The only thing that caught my attention was that skunk smell, I thought they may have hit a skunk during PDI...but it was just the newness of the belt...no more smell after 1K miles.

My salesman and the dealership made the buying experience first-class. It was actually better than when I bought a BMW, and those guys were absolutely great! I ordered the Cobra in Feb, and they kept me up-to-date on anything they learned about its status. No markup and it was built during the first 3 days of production (May 8, 9, or 10).

I guess you're always going to have the good, the bad and the ugly.

 

[tommylightning]

Originally posted by 2003 Cobra
My friend at work just got his Cobra this morning and I drove him down to get it. 2 hours off of work and it was fun. Oh well, who cares he is not only my friend, he is also my boss.

On the way to the dealership we talk about the car and what to look out for; bad cats, any vibrations, steering issues, etc. I lastly tell him to look at the back tires in comparison to the front tires. I told him that I would bet the fronts have nubs and the rears would be missing the nubs. He said that if he finds the car like that he will have a shit fit. Well guess what? We get to the dealer and the first thing we do is check out the tires. The rear tires have no nubs and the front tires have them. My friend starts yelling at the sales guy immediately gets his manager to look at the tires. The manager says that nobody drove the car and that it only has 4 miles on it. My friend didn't want the car driven and instructed them not to fill up the gas tank or PDI the car until he arrived. After about 5 minutes of chaos, the general manager of the dealership comes out and tells us that he will do whatever he can to make my friend happy. My friend goes outside with me and cools down after another 10 minutes and we rationalize the situation. It's obvious that somebody did some burnouts but who it was is unknown. We think it was the loaders and it probably happened in transit. Anyways we try to get the general manager to knock some money off the price of the car but he refused to. We then asked for new rear tires and he agreed to that.

Check your rear tires when your car is delivered and if the nubs are missing make Ford buy you new tires. If Ford buys enough new rear tires, they will permanently stop the pre-delivery abuse of the new Cobras.

Sounds to me like they did the RIGHT thing!:thumbsup:

 

[CobraEd]

Hmm

I view it not so much as shortening the treadlife on the rear tires by .00000001% as much as them beating on the car with only 1 -2 miles on it.

Ed

 

[C_Record]

Re: Hmm

Originally posted by CobraEd
I view it not so much as shortening the treadlife on the rear tires by .00000001% as much as them beating on the car with only 1 -2 miles on it.

Ed

I agree. I turned down two black coupes because neither had the rear nubs. I don't care about the tires. It's the number of 6500rpm 20ft. burnouts which took them off that concerns me. Got another one on order, will be my last try.

 

[ZXnVS]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with your premise. But how, exactly, do you think Ford can prevent idiots and *$$holes from doing burnouts in Cobras between the time they leave the factory and get to the consumer?

 

[mosconiac]

ZXnVS: True, you can not prevent ALL cases of abuse, but Ford's current system is ridiculous. From my vantage point, there is NO penalty paid by the offenders, therefore, Ford is condoning their behavior. Ford is just accepting this behavior with a shrug of the shoulders and a "whaddya gonna do?"

Surely a corporation as big as Ford could "muscle up" a better system. The level of abuse and damage sustained by our vehicles (limited edition, SVT or otherwise) is pathetic.

Disallowing Owners from picking up their car at the factory is inexcusable. My pessimistic mind says it is because the dealers lobbied that they would be losing the PDI money, which is also why my dealer practically BEGGED me to allow them to wash my '03.

p.s. My '03 also came with the "lot boy abuse" option (no nubs on the rear tires).

 

[Petzuk]

"Check your rear tires when your car is delivered and if the nubs are missing make Ford buy you new tires. If Ford buys enough new rear tires, they will permanently stop the pre-delivery abuse of the new Cobras."


I wouldn't replace the tires because the nubs are gone.... Too much wheel damage can occur due to ripping off and putting on new tires. Plus they probably don't have the matching weights (fitting in the groove) for the wheels when balancing.

I'd be more concerned about drivetrain issues due to burnouts.


:burnout:

 

[C_Record]

Originally posted by ZXnVS
Don't get me wrong, I agree with your premise. But how, exactly, do you think Ford can prevent idiots and *$$holes from doing burnouts in Cobras between the time they leave the factory and get to the consumer?

Personally, I thought the appropriate people would have caught wind of the issue as they did with complaints about the other problems, i.e., clogged cats, vibrations, pulling, etc.(caught wind of it either through this board or direct communication from buyers). I mean, there are people who are refusing to buy the cars that they've ordered if the tires have been smoked(I'm one, as some of you may know). It's obvious that it's not looked upon as something as serious as the known mechanical problems, but who's to say that the abuse some of the cars have gone through before they've arrived at the dealer hasn't attributed to some of the current problems? Is this not something to consider? Though I do know that one reason the appropriate people are turning a blind eye to it is because guys shrug off the fact that the tires have been smoked and buy the cars anyway. I happened to be at a dealership looking at a couple of cars and heard the new owner of a silver coupe say "the tires look fine to me" (there were no nubs) and never gave it a second thought. Oh well, just something to think about.

 

[mosconiac]

BTW, as far as how to stop the majority of this behavior...the dealers should take a pro-active role and report these OBVIOUS signs of abuse to Ford. With this evidense, Ford can take action with the carrier/rail yard/lot boy/etc.

To identify which link in the chain is weak (causing the abuse), Ford could set up random QC points along the path (at the rail yard, off-loading areas, transporter yards).

Costly??...could be, but isn't replacing tires, repainting panels, replacing damaged spoilers, ...etc equally expensive??

Once the offenders have been dealt with, the QC points could be relaxed (assuming damage/abuse has dropped off). The whole ordeal would begin again once dealers start reporting unnacceptable levels of abuse again.

Seems obvious, simple and everyone benefits (well, except for the punk lot-boy that gets his jollies beating the he11 out of my BRAND NEW car!).

 

[shoguy]

i agree ford should pervent idiots from doing burnouts between the time they leave the factory and get to the consumer

 

[slow lane]

Are you possibly overreacting?

When I picked up my car, with 8 miles on it, there were no nubs on the rear tires. There were also no nubs on the front tires. There was also absolutely no rubber inside the rear wheelwells.

Everytime I've actually smoked the tires, I've left a pretty significant residue of rubber inside the wheelwells. It's a rather tedious process trying to clean it all out, and I have given up on scraping it all off before taking the car in for service.

Based on my experience, it probably require any real abuse to wear the nubs off the rears in 4 miles, given that the 8 miles pre-delivery were enough to wear the nubs off of my fronts.

 

[venemous]

Those bastards...How dare they?

 

[TruBlu03]

I'm concerned about pre-delivey abuse as well. Unfortunately I don't see any way to stop it, although the FORD QC checks mentioned above at various shipping points sounds like a great idea. Would be too late for me, building next week delivery sometime early Oct.

What also concerns me is others driving the car in the future, dealer service, valet etc. This IMO is worth getting something like the Flip Chip from JDM and have the second setting for valet mode, can''t exceed 2000 or 2500 RPMS. That should solve that problem! Hmm, if I'm gonna get the chip might as well get a shorter pulley too!

Wonder is limiting RPM's pre-delivery is something FORD could do via chip or PCM programming?? It could the be disabled once the owner takes delivery!

Just an idea...

 

[Elliotness]

Originally posted by LLCoolStang
I'm concerned about pre-delivey abuse as well. Unfortunately I don't see any way to stop it, although the FORD QC checks mentioned above at various shipping points sounds like a great idea. Would be too late for me, building next week delivery sometime early Oct.

Wonder is limiting RPM's pre-delivery is something FORD could do via chip or PCM programming?? It could the be disabled once the owner takes delivery!

Just an idea...

That is a very good idea. How much would it cost Ford/us to do this.:coolman:

 

[NXCobra]

Odds are they will just swap them out with another Cobra if it has not been thrashed on, and hope that buyer does not notice.

 

[TruBlu03]

Originally posted by Elliotness


That is a very good idea. How much would it cost Ford/us to do this.:coolman:

Couldn't be that much and personally I'd be willing to pay extra for it.

 

[GTFORDIFIED]

"Lot-Boys"

I work for the rail-road.I used to work @ the Intermodel ramp(Trailer-Trains)They had the "ramp" where they loaded/unloaded new cars next to where I worked.(I now work as a Conductor)I knew a few of the guys"Over-there" and was told of a few guys who where "Fired" for "Abuzing" new cars(iearking lot burn-out,speeding while loading/unloading etc...)