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So far this Mustang Mach-E has been to the dealership for service to fix issues that the owners have found. Now the Ford dealer has told the owner that some of the problems are now “unfixable.” The owners are so mad they even made a video about their problems-which go well beyond the actual issues but get compounded by the car dealership. But they have a plan.

What are the Mustang Mach-E unfixable issues?

First off, the issues are the phone-as-a-key feature doesn’t work. Also, the Apple CarPlay needs to be updated according to Ford’s correspondence. And finally, the charge port door randomly opens for no reason. And overriding this is that these issues were thought to be fixed as over-the-air updates

We should also say that the owners appear to really like their Mustang Mach-E. They wax on about how it looks and rides. And they like many features and understand it is a first-generation Ford EV. But they have some excellent points about why the whole process and the issues should not have come down the way they did. 

Why is the Ford dealer handling these problems like this?

A bright orange 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E against a black background.
2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E | Ford

Obviously, the dealer’s service department confounds things. Making their appointment online and receiving confirmation and two reminders, once at the service department they are told they have no appointment. Next, the service dude says that it doesn’t matter whether they have an appointment or not because the dealer can’t fix the issues.

The other two times the Mach-E has been in, once the service department dug into the issues, the Mach-E was unable to move. It basically died while trying to fix the issues. So rather than have that happen again, the dealer flatly told the owners the issues couldn’t be fixed. Nice. 

Next, the dealer says it needs to contact Ford to figure out what to do. Because it is brought in on a Saturday, though, they can’t call Ford until the following Tuesday. So the owners need to leave the Mach-E at the dealer until they contact Ford to figure out what to do. And even then, there is the possibility the car may die while being updated. So that means it might have to remain at the dealer for an indefinite amount of time. 

Wasn’t the Mustang Mach-E supposed to have over the air fixes?

The Ford Motor Co. Mustang Mach-E First Edition electric vehicle | Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Apple CarPlay issue was based on Ford notifying the owners to bring their Mach-E into this specific dealer for an update. But the beauty of the Mach-E was that you wouldn’t have to go into dealers for software updates. The updates were supposed to be able to be performed over the air. Unfortunately, that is not the case in this instance.

The video would actually be a good tool for Ford to use. The couple that owns the Mustang are reasonable, intelligent people, who aren’t rude or asking for the Moon. They bring up reasonable questions and thoughtful discussions about how they expect the issues to be fixed and how to be treated. For Ford, it must get this right.

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