CMH Kempster Ford Hatfield

Dear Future CMH Kempster Ford Hatfield Clients

I have never received great service from Ford Hatfield but due to convenience I often chosen this dealership as my preferred dealership for my annual services. However, my most recent experience no longer warrants servicing my car at this dealership or within the entire CMH Group (which happens to dominate the Pretoria area), and second I will never buy a Ford vehicle again because the after service is really destroying the brand.

To cut a long and tedious story short, I serviced my car for its 10th annual service, which included a cambelt replacement. I was promised that my car would be completed within the same day, after which the car was delayed for two days. When I did go into collect my car my job card could not be found and I was left with no option to pay for the service and promised to be sent the invoice via email the next day (this never happened). After collecting my car I drove it home and the engine had no power and was making terrible noises - I took the car back the next day and it took Ford Hatfield a week to come back to me to tell me that they had not set the timing belt correctly (hence no power and strange noises).

In addition, it took Ford the full week to also provide me a quote on new engine mountings (which I was instructed needed replacing )and I was quoted to replace my boot latch (which was giving me problems) and another minor issue the quote amounted to R22,000. After receiving multiple quotes and calls on my car's progress from various service advisers with different stories - I raised the matter to the Service Manager and Dealer Principal who took no accountability for the actions of their staff but instead defended them. However, the real concern was that after raising the quote with them, they notified me that my engine mountings are in perfect condition and only one gearbox mounting would require replacing (costs R860) and my boot latch was working well as they simply needed to clean the sensors.

My car then took another few days to have the single mounting replaced and when collecting the car I was charged for labour on a part that was not replaced and needed this to be removed off my invoice. I also did not receive any apology for the manner in which things panned out and was instead made to feel as if I was a difficult customer with unreasonable expectations to have my car returned in the same working order that it went into the dealership.

If the Dealer Principal washes his hands clean then it talks a lot about the current management in the CMH Group and about the dealers selling Ford vehicles in South Africa.