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Our Fleet Test Drive: Ford S-max - 5th Report Update
Date: 26 November 2007 | Author: Tristan Young
There were a few things about the S-max's warranty we found surprising.
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Main Report
A summer's worth of holidays around Europe, including trips to French mountain resorts, has seen the S-max's mileage rocket to well over 17,000 miles now, but though it's been busy we made sure we squeezed in its first 12,000-mile service a little while back.
Things didn't begin well. We waited more than 48 hours for a response following an initial online enquiry using Ford's website, but after that the quality of service improved greatly.
We gave Dagenham Motors in Highbury our details and asked for the 'collect and deliver' service, saving us having to visit the dealer. The car disappeared at the allotted time and reappeared exactly when they said it would - and all for a reasonable £195. A few days later we also received a follow-up call checking our experience with the dealer was okay. Always a nice touch.
Unfortunately, Dagenham Motors then blotted its copy book by sending us junk mail a couple of weeks later after we'd specifically told the service department, when we initially gave our details, that we didn't want this to happen. A phone call to a senior executive at the dealer group mentioning the Data Protection Act prompted an apology and we've had no junk mail since.
The S-max then continued to pile on the miles on the Continent without incident. However, a few oddities have since come to light.
The third, high-level brake light [1] stopped working north of Watford the other day, but as soon as I headed back South it started working again. We'll keep an eye on it.
We also had cause to use our Ford to jump start another car - my father-in-law's motor was refusing to wake up - but discovered this was impossible as the S-max only allows access to the positive terminal of the battery [2]. Why? And is this common these days? We'll let you know when we find out.
The only other oddity is that while the DVD satnav is generally great and can navigate across continents to reach tiny French ski resorts, it doesn't know where Ford's own Essex HQ is.
