Birchwood Ford, Eastbourne

Sent my ranger in to replace one tyre pressure monitor. Left Birchwood with 3 not working including the one they replaced. Dealt with service manager and dealer principle. Rude and unhelpful and blankly stated it’s not their problem. Cost me £270 elsewhere to resolve what was initially a £70 issue. I would not recommend this company to anyone and never use them again. Disgusting that they get away with treating customers like this, damaging parts on your vehicle and not even trying to rectify the issue caused by them.

O.k so please anyone who considers this garage for a service or repairs please turn back now.

My experience was upsetting.

The cost was excessively ridiculous. O.k so I can accept that.

However one thing I won't accept was the time it took carrying out the service and repairs and how frustrating and unhelpful the staff were.

Misleading Invoices and very confusing. The repair team made it difficult to understand the repairs required.

Why should you have to make immediate payments to have your vehicle returned? Where was the offer fir a courtesy car as was never given a time span of works.

I rely on transport on getting to work and it took 2 weeks.

Just to add insult to the equation. After receiving my car back I had to call out the AA because the incompetent work carried out by the engineers put my 7 yr old boy and me at a serious risk.

They forgot to clamp my hose to the air coolant and my engine was over- heating. It's lucky I responded immediately.

I have proof of this and I'm going to take further action.....

Birchwood Ford Eastbourne supplied a faulty reconditioned gearbox to the gearbox specialist who were fixing my car. Cost over £3000. They had to replace it with another but insisted on fixing it themselves. This gearbox didn't even last 8000 miles. The gearbox failed about 1 week over the year that I got my car returned, but Birchwood Ford claim that the warranty ran out the day they first supplied the first faulty gearbox so would not honour replacing the gearbox.

They have no morals.

As an NHS worker my car was very important to me so I didn't have to use public transport, as they were closed during this initial period they wont honour ANYTHING.

Just out for your money with no morals.

Brought ford ranger 3 years old, 22,000 miles on the clock just out of warranty and just had it’s first not, car has oil leak already. This is a big job probably over £800 to fix. Car has been serviced regularly but not by ford main dealer. Ford will not contribute anything to the cost to get this leak fixed. Do not buy a Ford from them all their after is your money no aftersales care at all, customer service very poor. Will never buy from them again. If there was a minus rating would have given them that instead.

I purchased a Ford ranger wildtrak from Birchwood ford in Eastbourne in 2014

it was my 3rd commercial purchase from them in 3 yrs.

It was not long before the problems started trailer plug came loose not so much of a problem ecu got water into it so went into limp mode, ok these things happen again trailer socket came loose, and coolant hose split AA had to repair when into Birchwood for a week to be done(waiting for the part to arrive)

head gasket went back in another week and a half, trailer socket loose again

all this and less that 20k on the clock.

diff starting to make a troublesome noise back in and told its the tires !

seat cover splits they replace and break the clips and do a bodge job

replaced coolant hose splits again goes into Birchwood Ford Eastbourne 2 weeks waiting for parts ! part arrives egr cooler 1 wk to fit test drive water has gone into cylinders now requires new engine wk 5 new engine turns up wk 6 engine is fitted wk 7 waiting for them to test drive, ask if i get a warrenty on the new engine told if i want a warranty i will have to pay for it !!!

spoke to the Manager and said i would take legal action as they are required to provide a warranty for the work, his response was to laugh and inform me no one beats fords legal department so good luck with that.

Oh yes missed out that before the coolant hose split again i had taken the truck to have new brake pads fitted at Skinners in Rye (good guys) and they put the truck on there state of the art rolling road and informed me that the diff was noisy, still waiting for Birchwood to investigate this so they could have my truck for even longer.

moral of this story DONT BUY FROM BIRCHWOOD FORD THERE SERVICE IS SHOCKING !

Our experience of Ford today was absolutely terrible.We phoned up to enquire about returning our mobility vehicle which has been stressful anyway and We actually spoke to the Director.He said you don't need an appointment just bring it over. We brought it over today Sunday and the Mobility sales person was with a non disability client.There were 3 other salesman just sitting around not doing anything.We asked if the disability salesman could just spare us ten minutes to allow us to hand our car back but she refused.We then waited one and a half hours while she proceeded to do a test drive and a deal with non disability clients. Money is obviously more important than being a mobility sales person. At one point another senior sales person joined in with the deal so there was two of them doing this deal. I then asked now there is two of you can you spare us 10 mins to do our hand over and they said no. The service at Ford is really terrible and I would never go near them again. The care more about deals than compassion.

We went here to have two headlight lamps fitted and they tried to charge us nearly £60 (after ignoring our request to let us know the price in advance). When we questioned the price they reduced it by £14 (again, without explanation). They also kept us waiting for an hour and it turned out that they'd taken our car on a 'test drive' during that time - something they did without our permission or even knowledge. They then presented us with a long list of minor jobs they said needed doing which they wanted to charge us £650 for.

This garage appears to be rife with bad practice and intent only on ripping off anyone who goes there.

Having purchased a new Transit from this company I have entrusted (use that word vaguely) them to service it too...

Annual service booked, gave them a list of 3 warranty items to attend too.

Service carried out and given a very unhelpful response regarding non rectification of warranty items i.e. Their computer crashed ...cannot find a fault sir .. blah blah blah

Finally I ask service dept to confirm that they had defiantly stamped service book (the all important service book that is so important to have when a vehicle is serviced as they always say) only to be told that it had been stamped sir !! .. guess what just got home as I don't trust them as far as I could throw them thought I would check and yes you've guessed it .. no service stamp !!

To round up my visit to this Ford Main agent the car cleaner was extremely rude - great service Birchwood !! Hope you don't look after all of your customers in such an appalling manner !!

Would defiantly NOT recommend this outfit !!

I bought a 2008 Mondeo in the summer so I couldn't check if the heated windscreen was working. when winter and the frost came only two element lines was working, The blower on the dash only clear the middle of the screen and not in front of the driver. I took it back to ford and they said the length of time I have the car anything could happen and its my fault and they can't help. they sold the car like that, and they won't accept responsibility. if the element on the windscreen damage there is no other way to clear the screen because only one blower in the middle of the dash.

I have just had my car repaired with Birchwood Ford. The entire experience was dreadful. The initial diagnosis failed to spot the root cause of the problem, then they charged again to find out the real root cause of the problem. The total price increased twice from the initial quote.

Birchwood then got into a dispute with the insurance company over the total amount to be paid, and withheld my car in the meantime. It took six weeks and many difficult and unpleasant phone calls to get my car back. Finally when I received the car it had a scratch on (not really surprising since it was left stored outside in a packed car park). Ill deal with it myself rather than go back to them.

I will never be setting foot in any Birchwood Ford branch again.

After 20 years of driving Fords, I am so disillusioned with Ford I will be selling my ford and moving to Audi, who seem much friendlier and easy to deal with.