sad news...

[shady]

Tuesday my local Ford dealer announced that after 90 years in business they are no longer a Ford dealership. Ford is forcing all dealers to spend well over $200k on EV tools. For the last 2 years the poor guys couldn't get vehicles to sell, then throw in the strike and price increases on top of that. I know of two other small town long time Ford dealers that also threw in the towel. If I'd knew this 6 months ago, I'd a bought a new Honda instead of a Maverick ( which I love btw). I see another bailout in the future.

[Falcon67]

We lost our local Lincoln dealer - it was Lincoln/Mazda until recent. I took all my warranty work there because they are top notch.  The local Ford dealer - not so much.  Oil change probably OK, but the warranty work they did on our 2020 F-350 required two rollback trips to complete, and that's been kinda par for a long time.  The next two Ford dealers are 30+ miles. Lincoln wanted an exclusive location and a new mutil-million dollar build, the existing dealer said "no thank you".  If you want real Lincoln service here, it's 145 miles to the next dealer. 

[Lowrider]

Ford has made their dealers buy tool kits for new models for as long as I can remember. Most of the tools in the cases went untouched. The tools you really needed and used would always end up in some guys tool box and it would become "his" tool.
 

[Falcon67]

I've been race buds with the service manager at the Mazda place for many years - it does make his life a little easier since they had to keep separate kits of things for both Lincoln and Mazda, including separate $$$$ laptops and licensed software for troubleshooting.