Tadd Jenkins Ford — Local services in Blackfoot

I came in for a check engine light and a spark plug repair while in the middle of a trip and on a Friday night. I waited till mon to get the car diagnosed and they did get a loaner car for me. The first possibilty they offered, after explaining my cars symptoms, was a possibile engine failure, averaging $15,000 and HOURS of labor, plus time to get all the parts there! I told them thats not even realistic and lets focus on my symptoms and what i could realistically possibly expect in servicing needs.... possibly a $6,000-8,000 expense! Which I had to assume was transmission related!!! I was then asked by a salesman, who accompanied the service rep, if I would be interested in going to the car lot and looking into new car options to consider, as days waiting, plus a potential engine failure diagnosis, might put me in a place to want to sell my car to them anyway(of course at the repaired and in good working order value) and get into a different vehicle. To say i was flabbergasted was an understatement....I reassured them that if it was acceptable for this level of mechanical failure to happen to a 4 year old, under 100,000miles Ford, that I most definitely wont be interested in getting into ANOTHER Ford!! Which failure of course is not even realistic! Without even looking at my vehicles mechanical history, in the Ford system, the second thing they proposed was a transmission repair possibility, which I had 98% rebuilt 10 months prior, through a Ford dealer, and even IF it was legitimately needing repair, that would ALSO fall under my warrenty and not cost me thousands!! Also, the catastrophic engine failure would be 100% covered under my warrenty, which would also not cost me upwards of $15,000!! This fear tactic was NOT appreciated, nor did it land. It DID however cause me to not hold trust in their recommendations that would follow nor their ability to properly service my vehicle, and made me feel the need to question every single item. I left specifying that I did NOT authorize them to do ANY work past diagnostic on my vehicle, then call me with their recommendation. They did that, while again recommending other unnecessary and extremely ahead of it being needed, service be done while the spark plugs were being replaced. They did complete the service my car actually needed in a decent timeframe. But they continued to recommend ASININE services, which totaled $1,500, 2/3 of the items related to my transmission, which was JUST fully re-built, which do not apply to my vehicle! Can they not refer to my vin # to check what a vehicle may actually need, based on mileage AND service records AND signs from the actual vehicle? This felt like the epitome of the 'sleezy car salesman' stereotype, but the service department rep was the one I most interacted with, not really the car salesman. I was not impressed nor reassured that my vehicle was in good hands. Even after pushback, with also referring back to facts about the symptoms AND my knowledge of what causes those symptoms, the recommendations completely missed the mark and felt like they were absolutely trying to take advantage of me! The fixed spark plugs were NEVER discussed as even a possibility before the mechanic called me after his diagnosis tests, but which I did know were the culprit of my cars symptoms. I will not be back to this location, and will recommend that others choose a different Ford location as well. I did give direct, respectful and specific feedback, of the above mentioned nature, to the service employee that I delt with when I picked...

Amazing service and the extension of small town values give my wife and I the best support and assistance to an insane experience.

TLDR: Broken truck, now have new truck thanks to everything that these guys did for us! They can and will help anyway they can. :-)

The Story: Only miles down the road from buying our first RV travel trailer my Dodge Durango burst its water pump and stranded my wife and I feet from the slow lane on the busy I-15 just outside of Blackfoot Idaho. We had just passed another roadside emergency and once our AAA service driver, Lane Hudson of A-1 Road Runner Towing, was finished with that call, he came right down the road to help us. He was a god send! Super respectful, and wise right off the bat. As noted we were towing a trailer, its 27 feet and about 6000 lbs. Lane knew that we would need a place for us to store our new trailer and broken truck over night. That place happened to be Tadd Jenkins dealership and service, they were more than willing to put us on their lot for the night with power for the trailer! This saved us a hotel stay and we were able to get the truck looked at in the morning. Once morning came we had even more wonderful people to help us. John Crumback, a service tech, was at the shop bright and early, my wife and I were walking to get breakfast and wait until the shop opened and John asked what we needed. We explained that the head gasket was most likely blown and he told us that if it still ran to drive it up and he would get looking at it right then. We were stunned. He was just barely in the door and an hour early before open and he was looking at our broken pile of bolts! John can to find that the water pump blew and started writing up an estimate for us. In the mean time my wife and I just bought our trailer and didn't have anyway to really pay for the repairs and let alone anything the vehicle needed to make it safe to tow our trailer the remaining 600+ miles home. So I asked John to look into everything that the truck would need to be safe while I looked at the idea of buying a truck from the dealership. John set us up with Ky Zundel in sales and right from the start Ky was respectful and worked with what we had in mind with out over stepping with trucks that we didn't want. After looking over options and test driving one, Ky remembered a Dodge 2500 that came in only a few days ago. He found it and so we took it for a drive as well. It was perfect. A good price for a used diesel with 127,000 miles and ALL the towing capacity we could ever want or need. The estimate for repairs on the Durango came back and the answer was clear, new truck time. Tears were shed and it was time. Our credit was ran and we were given a very helpful financing with Gap insurance, and an extended warranty (100,000 drive-train) and out the door with a new to us truck! John and Ky made sure that the truck was aligned, that my new break controller from the Durango was taken out and my new hitch was set for the new truck. Both were so easy to work with and respectful of our situation and only wanted to see that we were happy at the end of the day and able to drive home, no matter if that was a repaired Durango or a new truck entirely. They went above and beyond to help us get home and we hope that this adventure of ours shows that all the folks at Tadd Jenkins of Blackfoot Idaho are there to help you no matter the need.

Thank you again guys and...

It sounds to me like Tadd Jenkins doesn't like to work on manufacturer recalls. They will nickel and dime you to get more out of what needs fixed for no reason. On Dec 9th I went in to Tadd Jenkins Ford in Blackfoot and spoke to Sky. I had her run my VIN to see what recalls were currently active. She told me 3 recalls would be fixed free of charge and to have it pulled in front of their service door on Dec 16th and they will fix them at no cost. The morning of Dec 16th Sky left me a voicemail stating that my car didn't have any recalls and they were confused why it was there. She said she pulled it up in their system and there wasn't any recalls. After waiting for multiple call backs from Sky about the status of my vehicle, they informed me that something wasn't plugged in all the way and that should be the fix for the vehicle. This was at the point I had to physically go into the dealership to find out the status of my vehicle. She then informed me that one of the coolant lines was broke and they wouldn't be able to touch my vehicle to diagnose my recalls until they charged me $300 to fix that. (I fixed it at AutoZone across the street for $4) Sky said after the coolant line was fixed the car should run fine. I finally pulled my vehicle from their shop after the hassle we've been through dealing with this even though 3 people seen her pull up the recalls on Dec 9th on her computer in the office. The car wouldn't start as I was leaving the dealership and they had emptied all of my coolant out of my car without telling me. I can see 3 recalls currently on my vehicle through an AutoCheck and my scan device of what the problem is. They didn't touch my car to look at the warranties. They just wanted to charge me $300 to fix a line that was fixed in a parking lot of an auto parts store. This wasn't even the reasoning of why my car was there in the first place. I'm very unhappy that now I have to take my vehicle out of town to get this done. I was hoping to use a hometown dealership to get this fixed. I'll now take it to a dealership that won't give me the headache I have dealt with for 2 days with Tadd Jenkins Ford in Blackfoot.

Update I contacted another Ford dealership out of town, and pulled the codes on my vehicle showing the issue WAS with the customer satisfaction program that is covered under the extended coverage. I originally told Tadd Jenkins this because I have an extensive code scanner. My vehicle was experiencing the issues stated in the extended coverage. Sky told us this also, that is why the appointment was made to fix it. I am thoroughly convinced that Tadd Jenkins didn't even run the code on my vehicle to show this. They were more worried about the coolant line, that we fixed at AutoZone for $4, rather than paying $300. PLEASE don't state that another dealership will not take care of this, because we have had the best service with this other dealership after we told them what Tadd Jenkins put us through. They already have the parts ordered and waiting for us to deliver the car to them so they can fix it and I quote " as soon as we can get it there." This is why you also let us leave the dealership without paying the diagnostic charge you were going to charge us, because it was never diagnosed or driven to see what the...