Seriously? All This Just To Service The Car?

Dealers Will Have To Go Through Hell To Service The New Ford GT

Servicing the new Ford GT seems like a total nightmare based on an article from All Ford Mustangs, which claims to have a Ford internal memo detailing what dealers have to go through to do even basic work on the sexy GT. The hurdles include requiring a special clean room, transporting the cars to and from clients on $30,000 trailers, and flying in “doctors” from Canada for major repairs. Clearly, this car is kind of a big deal.

All Ford Mustangs says only a select few certified dealerships will be able to service the GT, and only Master Ford technicians with training from Multimatic—the Canada-based company that assembles the GT—will be able to turn a wrench on the hypercars.

Though All Ford Mustangs says that “in unique circumstances the certified technician may be required to perform repairs at the clients home,” most of the time, the cars will need to be serviced at dealerships. And to get the cars there, dealers will have to drop $30,000 on specialized enclosed trailers, which they’ll use to pick up the cars from clients’ homes or workplaces.

Once the car is at the dealership, it must be covered and kept in a special “clean room work area,” which will be off-limits to anyone but the Ford GT-certified Ford master techs and “Ford GT Designated member of service management”—who also happen to be the only two people allowed to drive the car while it’s in the shop.

But even once the car is in the clean room, those certified master techs can only conduct basic repairs. As soon as a GT needs major work, a Multimatic “fly-in doctor” will have to swoop in to the dealership and save the day.
Then there are the really serious repair jobs, like body work, major powertrain rebuilds, and fixes that require “splitting the back half of the car from the main vehicle tub assembly.” Those jobs, called “Group 3" repairs, will require the car to be transported to a Multimatic repair facility.
Clearly, fixing these things isn’t exactly straightforward.

But that’s not all. In addition to the approximately $30,000 that they’ll have to spend on a trailer, All Ford Mustangs says certified dealerships also need to spend approximately $1,500 on four GoJak 4520 wheel lift dollies (to lift the carbon-fiber monocoque) and about $700 on a transmission jack adapter.

On top of all of the money they have to spend and all of the provisions they need to make in their shops in order to service the GT, Ford dealers will also have to have someone on their management team who is “directly reachable at all times should they be required to receive the car after hours and store it inside the building for the sake of safety.”

So, not only are dealerships going to have to spend lots of money, pick up and drop off cars, train their technicians, and fly in specialists from Canada, but they’re also going to lose sleep. That’s rough.

(Jalopnik.com)