Ford Vietnam is being sued by a series of customers for dangerous car defects

Mr. Vo Quoc Binh, address at 57 Nguyen Du, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, representing 76 customers using Focus, Fiesta and EcoSport models, filed a lawsuit with the People's Court of Hai Duong City (Hai Duong Province) on May 28, 2018.

According to the lawsuit, these 76 customers purchased Ford Focus, Fiesta and EcoSport cars of Ford Vietnam Company Limited, manufactured from 2011 to 2017 in the Vietnamese market. The above cars all used Powershift gearboxes, during operation, errors occurred such as: shaking, delayed gears, slipping clutch, not catching gears, and unable to control speed during operation.

These errors are also clearly displayed on the clock, specifically: "Transmission hot, wait 5 minutes", "Transmission overheating stops safely", “Transmission malfunction service now”.

According to the lawsuit, the car owners claim that Ford Vietnam falsely advertised the quality of the gearbox, causing confusion for them when participating in traffic.

Although Ford Vietnam has announced repairs and extended warranty for the gearbox for vehicles with errors, when bringing the vehicle to the dealership, in one way or another, the consultants find a way to blame the customer and force the customer to pay.

Therefore, 76 car owners filed a lawsuit, requesting the Hai Duong City Court to issue a decision, forcing Ford Vietnam to recall or repair and replace free of charge the Powershift gearboxes on all EcoSport, Fiesta and Focus models in Vietnam; to make a clear commitment to quality assurance and in accordance with standards and regulations of the law; to compensate car owners for damages during the use of Ford cars with dangerous errors from the PowerShift gearbox; to publicly apologize to all customers; and to force Ford to refund the costs collected from customers.

The list of 76 customers who filed the lawsuit was attached to the petition and the person who signed the lawsuit sent to the court was Mr. Binh. Along with that, Mr. Binh also sent a complaint and petition with the same content to the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Transport, and the Vietnam Register.

Previously, in early March 2018, Mr. Vo Quoc Binh also filed a lawsuit against Ford Vietnam Company to the People's Court of Hai Duong City, where Ford Vietnam is headquartered, and the People's Court of Thu Duc District, regarding the Focus car he bought having a faulty gearbox and frequent warning messages "Transmission Hot", "Transmission overheating stops safely"This Focus has a phenomenon of the transmission vibrating when shifting gears, the engine speed sometimes rises abnormally high to 6,000 rpm when running at 30 km/h.

After notifying Ford Vietnam, Mr. Binh was instructed to take the car to the dealer for repair. But when he brought the car to the Ford dealer, the consultants tried to blame the customer and forced the customer to pay.

Responding to this issue, a representative of Ford Vietnam said that over the past few months, the company has been working hard to resolve Mr. Vo Quoc Binh's complaints.

“However, Mr. Binh repeatedly refused our invitation to bring his authorized Ford vehicle to Ford dealerships for inspection and repair. Ford Vietnam carefully considered Mr. Binh’s requests, but found that there was no basis to accept them, as the requests were unrealistic, with the amount being more than 10 times the value of the vehicle,” according to a representative of Ford Vietnam.

Meanwhile, speaking with PV.VietNamNet, Mr. Binh said that he had brought his car to Ford dealerships several times, but then did not trust them and wanted to keep the car as evidence, and sue Ford in court.

Mr. Binh also admitted that he had written in the lawsuit, asking Ford Vietnam to compensate him with an amount 10 times the value of the car. However, according to Mr. Binh, that was only his request if he won the lawsuit. How the case was handled was up to the court and depended on the negotiation between the two parties.

Mr. Binh also added that he had just met with a representative of Ford Vietnam and this person had committed to contacting 76 car owners using the faulty Powershift gearbox, making a plan to fix it, until customers were satisfied.

According to Mr. Binh, if Ford fulfills this commitment, they will consider withdrawing the lawsuit and sit down at the negotiating table.