NATDA Magazine July/Aug 2018 NM_July2018_printFINAL | Page 84

IMAGINE selling a new trailer, but, upon the customer getting ready to drive it off the lot, you discover there is a problem with the interior lights. After the truck is turned off, the lights no longer work at all. You take the trailer back to your service technicians to have them investigate it. Now, imagine they determine the problem is not your trailer, but you can’t demonstrate otherwise. Adam Myers found himself in this exact situation earlier this year when he couldn’t get a customer’s trailer interior lights to operate with the brand-new unit they bought. “We literally studied the Owner’s Manual and troubleshot the problem for three hours,” Myers says. “We went to pulling every fuse in the truck and verifying none were broken. Then, we pulled every fuse in a second truck, just hoping to find something we overlooked.” After more than five hours of going above and beyond to try and help the customer, Myers drove the vehicle to a Ford dealer 40 minutes away. He left the truck with Ford’s technicians, who proceeded to do exactly what Myers did. When they reached the same, infuriating results, they contacted Ford’s Engineering Department. “I couldn’t believe what the technician told us,” Myers admits. “He said that Ford designed the ’17 and ’18 trucks this way.” Specifically, from 2016 on, the aluminum-body Super Duty has been the issue. Refusing to be beat, Myers called another one of his trusted Ford 84 dealers to get a second opinion. This dealer, unable to come up with a solution, also contacted Ford. His assistance request was as follows: IS THERE A WAY FOR THIS CUSTOMER TO OPERATE THE CARGO LIGHTS OF HIS ENCLOSED TRAILER FROM THE FACTORY-INSTALLED 7-WAY TRAILER PLUG? CUSTOMER WAS ABLE TO OPERATE THE LIGHTS ON ALL OF HIS OTHER TRUCKS. PLEASE ADVISE IF THERE IS ANYTHING FORD HAS TO HELP THIS CUSTOMER continued on page 56 NATDA Magazine www.natda.org