Take your business elsewhere, or risk wasting time, money and endangering your life

Take your business elsewhere if you can, or risk compromising your safety, and wasting much time and money. From the point of advertising the demo vehicle (as a gift for my father) in January 2020 CMH Kempster Ford Umgeni displayed their incredulous ineptitude at every possible juncture: false advertising, selling vehicles with visible and serious concealed defects, being unable to carry out basic administrative requirements related to a sale, substandard workshop operations including poor repair quality, and little willingness to offer quality and effective after-sales service. • False advertising: advertising a vehicle at approx. 5000km on the odometer, vs. it actually having done close to 14 000km • Visible, fixable defects: The vehicle had bodywork damages on collection, that the dealership refused to attend to • Inability to carry out basic administrative requirements: despite paying all required fees, and following all instructions, the vehicle’s registration was never done. • Concealed defects with consequential catastrophic mechanical consequences: not even 2 days of driving the vehicle, the temperature gauge was found to be inoperable. Ford was informed immediately- this happened to be on a Friday. My father was instructed to drive the vehicle to Ford for assessment on the upcoming Monday. During the course of that weekend, a stray cat somehow made its way into the engine compartment, and the consequent damage resulted in coolant loss, and engine overheating. This first became apparent when the vehicle completely stalled, after which my father immediately contacted Ford and had the vehicle towed for assessment. • Substandard workshop operations: The workshop felt that the entire engine required replacing, and didn’t think any portion fell within the warranty. The initial repair estimate was close to R120k. After much delay on the insurance’s side, they ruled my father was responsible for causing the damage to the vehicle because he allegedly stated he continued driving it after the engine temperature-warning lamp went on (this was subsequently disproven). • On requesting the workshop manager’s assistance to get information to assist with the insurance case we got no assistance. This same workshop manager subsequently was fired or resigned without warning, and afterwards this became an excuse for being further unable to assist us because of “new management”. The workshop subsequently disposed of all supposed parts that were removed without consulting us first- making it impossible to validate certain pre-existing issues or that they were actually replaced. • Shockingly poor quality repairs: Whilst taking on the insurer through the Ombudsman, I elected to pay for the repair in cash. We finally collected the vehicle in October when I used it drive my father’s belongings as we were relocating him to live with us in Cape Town. Less than a day on the road, I broke down in a deserted road in rural Eastern Cape. Several hours later, at the nearest Ford workshop, it turns out that a small clip was missing from the fuel pipe, causing a full tank of diesel to spray out. The formal assessment of that independent Ford workshop was that this could only have happened due to negligence of CMH Kempster Ford Umgeni. Negligence which could have potentially cost me my life, but- no thanks to Kempster Ford- in the end only resulted in me losing precious hours and needing to pay for the repair and fuel out of my pocket • Questionable vehicle service standards: we requested the vehicle to get its 15 000 km service whilst in the workshop. On receiving the vehicle, there was no record of this on the service book. Thereafter, their only remedy was to send something on email anyone could doctor…still no stamp in the service book. • Poor after-sales service: I would say that whilst it wouldn’t have solved the major problems, better service from their staff might have made a small difference. Nonetheless, they are inefficient, unresponsive and surly. The person installed to facilitate this was the salesperson we initially dealt with, even after we questioned why a salesperson should manage the repair and other subsequent issues. On actually pressing this person for accountability and answers, I was basically told it wasn’t his job. The Dealer Principal first claimed ignorance on the issues, then promised to return with feedback several times with no further word. On pursuing this through the Customer Relations Manager, we get cursory feedback on some issues, no engagement on the more serious ones, and then are completely ignored. In the end Kempster Ford eventually ensured the vehicle registration was completed (itself not a seamless endeavor), and finally got reimbursed for the cost of the fuel pipe repair and lost fuel, as well as the traffic fine…they have demonstrated all they are willing to do is the less than the bare minimum. I’m sure they might have some satisfied clients, but I would contend this is more coincidence than as a result of running a quality operation.