@db4690 That’s entirely your right. But when you tell me to “suck it up and deal with it,” I’m going to argue with you. Fair notice. 
I’ve been thinking about the OP’S situation. If these Ford Escape Hybrids are used in police and taxi fleets, perhaps there is a mechanic for a fleet that uses these vehicles that might know how to obtain the needed part more reasonably. I would think that this same problem would have happened in a fleet of vehicles.
The university where I taught had the Ford Escape Hybrids in its fleet. I was impressed when I used one for a long trip to a conference. I also have a friend that has a first generation Ford Escape Hybrid and has had no provlems in at least 100,000 miles. II was sorry to see Ford dealer s continue the Escape Hybrid and replace it with the Ecoboost system.
I know the price is steep at the Ford dealership. Perhaps some negotiation with Ford might get a better price.
the bus rarely if ever reached 20mph. By the time it reached 20…it’s braking for the next bus-stop.
That’s unlike any school bus ride I’ve ever seen. The speed limit on most thoroughfares around here is 35, and buses do their best to keep up. Personally, my daily school bus rides from 7th grade until I started driving all involved some freeway driving as well.
But all the buses had those thick padded seats even then.
I remember when the school buses were required to have flashing stop signals. The first school bus I rode only had an unlit stop sign that swung out from the left side of the bus. By the next year, the state required a high mounted flashing stop light on both the front and rear of the bus. However, turning signals weren’t required. Three years later, turning signals were required and were retrofitted to the buses. Even without the high mounted stoplight and turning signals, I think we were safer on the school buses back then than most people are in cars today. I think the better lights, illuminated stop arms. the top mounted strobe lights for bad weather conditions and electric as opposed to vacuum wipers contribute to the safety of the bus. I do think that the driver should wear a seat belt. We had a driver who crashed a school bus because he hit a bump and was bounced out of the seat. The bus was one of the snub nosed buses where the driver sits over the front axle. While the driver should wear a belt, I,agree that it isn’t necessary for the passengers as long as they stay in their seats. However, I don’t. think these newer snub nosed buses are as safe as the older style with the bodies on a truck chassis.
Last time I rode a school bus was for a field trip on the interstate 45 mikes to Chicago in the 70’s. A nice chrome rail around the seat in front. Hope there is padding now there at least. Still wrestling with the irony a guy on a motorcycle can give me a ticket for not wearing a seat belt.
This is hypothetical . . .
What are you going to do?
Wage war on the company that you feel is doing you wrong?
Take out a page in the local paper, letting people know how you feel?
Tell all your neighbors how that company, manufacturer, etc. did the wrong thing?
What if you determine that there’s absolutely no other way, except paying them their money to fix the car, with new components?
I suppose you could try to haggle for a discounted rate, or throw yourselves at their mercy, and hope they either eat the parts, labor, or both. But the company would have to somehow think it’s worth it for them to do so. They’d have to think you’re going to keep going there for repairs, might buy your next car there, tell your friends to buy cars there, etc.
Or you could try the opposite approach. Tell them if they don’t do what you think is fair, then they’re going to regret it in some way. Meaning, you’ll talk smack about them every chance you get, to anybody and everybody
I’ve seen the second method work, but rarely
I’ve seen the first method work, about 1 out of 3 times. If it works, the outcome is usually a discounted repair cost.
In my opinion, there are some situations, where a person just has to say “Okay, this situation sucks, and it’s going to cost me some serious money. I’ll just pay the required amount, get it handled, and move on with my life.”
Come to think of it, that’s exactly what I said earlier 
There have been many such situations in my life, and there probably will be many more.
Does that make me a pushover?
Not by my standards
But by somebody else’s standards, perhaps :neutral:
Personally, if I ran into a situation where I needed to buy a brand new module, and I had done all my research, and determined there was absolutely no alternative, I don’t think I would consider calling the company criminal or wrong. I might inquire if module master or somebody like that would be willing to attempt a repair. And if that didn’t pan out, I’d see if I could somehow get the repair discounted. That would probably involve talking to the dealer’s service manager/director. Those guys have a lot of power to cut red tape, push things through and get things done.
I’ve seen some rather unsavory customers . . . in my opinion, anyways . . . get some very expensive repairs comped. And it was the service manager who pushed it through. Perhaps he felt they would spread the good word. But I personally doubt they did any such thing 
I had a customer who was very unhappy with the diesel Oldsmobile he had recently bought that had all the usual problems and the dealership shop seemed unable to correct any of them. He went to the dealership on a particularly nice spring morning when the show room was full and began unloading a mouthful of profanities that would make GySgt Ermey blush and left with a great deal on a new car. I feel sure that if I had done the same I would have left in the back seat of a car wearing bracelets.
That's unlike any school bus ride I've ever seen. The speed limit on most thoroughfares around here is 35, and buses do their best to keep up. Personally, my daily school bus rides from 7th grade until I started driving all involved some freeway driving as well.
True…but the discussion is statistics about if seat-belts are safe. I think you’ll find that the VAST MAJORITY of school buses are in cities. NYC alone has over 7000 buses. Those buses will rarely get above 20. The city school buses really skew the stats to make it look like wearing seat-belts is LESS safe then wearing them…because school buses don’t have seat-belts…or if so they are rarely worn. Oldtimer was trying to make the argument that seat-belts were less safe…siting the example of school buses. That argument is totally absurd.
I was not arguing that seat belts are less safe, I was arguing that school buses were extremely safe even without the children wearing the seatbelts. I was also arguing that seatbelts on BUSES are not a good Idea even though required by NY law. And are not a good idea until they can come up with a better belt system. The belts would also have to be capable of being properly adjusted and fastened by the children, unless you are going to hire aids to put on all the buses and spend more time on every run costing taxpayers more money for what is by far the safest form of transportation on the road.
One simple thing that would make school buses safer would be to turn the seats around and have the passengers ride facing the rear of the bus. On sudden stops, the passenger would be pressed against the seat. I think aa kid would get used to riding backward.
For the most part school buses have become safer since my days of riding school buses in the late,l940s through the 1950s. The modern buses have air brakes, where the buses I rode didn’t even have a vacuum assist on the hydraulic brakes. Our school district had buses that were condemned by the state department right after WW II. However, new,buses were hard to come by. The first bus I rode was a condemned bus. The body was on a 1939 GMC chassis. It wasn’t until 1951 that the owned/operators were able to get new buses. The owner/operators were farmers in the district. Many of them,after purchasing a new,bus would take the body off the chassis, obtain a used truck cab and install a grain bed, thus making a grain hauler. The chasses, after all, were truck chasses. The body would be stripped of its seats and become a chicken coop or tool shed. I still think that the condemned bus I first rode was safer than these snub nosed rear engine buses that are common today and offer no front collision protection. Besides, when these snub nosed buses are taken out of service as school buses, they can’t be converted to grain trucks.
True…but the discussion is statistics about if seat-belts are safe. I think you’ll find that the VAST MAJORITY of school buses are in cities. NYC alone has over 7000 buses. Those buses will rarely get above 20. The city school buses really skew the stats to make it look like wearing seat-belts is LESS safe then wearing them…because school buses don’t have seat-belts…or if so they are rarely worn. Oldtimer was trying to make the argument that seat-belts were less safe…siting the example of school buses. That argument is totally absurd.
My experience growing up was in the city, at the time the Los Angeles Unified School District was the largest school district in the country (or so I was told). And not a single school bus I ever rode went less than than the 35-40mph common on city streets, and it was 55+ on the freeway when traffic allowed. We didn’t have seat belts, but we had the thick padded seats to protect ut.
I think it’s important to remember inertia. If your Honda gets rear-ended at 35mph there’s going to be some whiplash. A 90 passenger bus will hardly feel it.
I agree with @asemaster and the inertia argument
Seems like every hybrid has some seriously expensive components hiding. Prius generally just the battery with price falling. Toyota Highlander bad generators that cost nearly $7k and this escape with other stuff lurking.
Hybrid vehicles are not worth a lot well used around imho founded fears of expensive repairs.
A 2005 crv would still be trouble free and current ones are still low tech.
Seems like every hybrid has some seriously expensive components hiding. Prius generally just the battery with price falling.If you have the right commute...a Prius is one of thee lest expensive vehicles you can own.
I was not arguing that seat belts are less safe, I was arguing that school buses were extremely safe even without the children wearing the seatbelts.
And again…that’s a false analogy. There are far too many other factors - like the speed a vast number of them drive to consider. You can’t make any conclusions on seat-belt safety on buses or off of buses based on the information you’ve given.
And not a single school bus I ever rode went less than than the 35-40mph common on city streets, and it was 55+ on the freeway when traffic allowed.
I have cousins in NYC…and never have any school bus they rode on ever went on the highway…strictly city streets. I’m sure there are some buses that are on the highway…
So as a valid stat to consider…how is kids safety who’s buses drive the highway different from those who wear seat-belts and those who don’t. Take the city school buses out of the mix. Let’s see that statistic.
In rural areas of the country { of which there are many } children ride school buses for miles & miles at highway speeds . Are they safer with or without seat belts ?
Are they safer with or without seat belts ?
That’s the question. You can’t make any judgements when you start limping ALL school buses in the mix. City school buses really skews the data.
@db4690 I’m not personally going to do anything right now because none of the cars I own have (to my knowledge, anyway) these vin-bricked parts.
What I will do is, the next time I need to buy a new car, I will very carefully research and try to find a car that does not have vin-bricked parts that meets my needs.
If I owned a vin-bricked car, then I would pay for the repair, but I would also make a hell of a lot of noise everywhere I could think of. Companies have changed policies based on social media outcry, and there’s nothing wrong with using that to our advantage when a company is found to be engaging in egregious anti-consumer behavior.
If I was gouged enough, I’d also be looking around to see if any sort of class action lawsuit was in the works, or if there was interest to get one started. No, that would not reimburse me because class action suits make lawyers rich and give peanuts to the victims. However, it would punish the company, hopefully enough to make the company stop ripping its customers off, at least in this way, in the future.
The new features in cars can be good and bad. I would say that overall seatbelts and airbags have saved lives. I am not so sure about ABS as I have run into issues with that. I was always told to hold the brakes down and net let up with ABS. I only regained braking after letting up. Yes, it was a GM vehicle as mentioned above. I guess some of the earlier systems were not so good.
One of my friends has a 2 year old Ford Focus. He bought the car new and got the loaded one, figuring he would be keeping for for 10 years or longer. Well it has been nothing but issues and most are electronics problems. It seems to be in the shop more than he is driving it. The myTouch system has been nothing but trouble since day one. After about 1 month of owning the car he said he would have been happy if a bolt of lightning came down from the heavens and burned it to a crisp. He says that in most states his problems would be a valid lemon law claim but the lemon law is only good here when it involves safety. None of his problems are really safety related. He is currently driving it pending more repairs. He says that as soon as the repairs are completed and the car seems to be working properly, he plans to sell it. Ford is looking at trading him for a different model of Focus with similar miles but says if that deal doesn’t work out, he will sell it and take a loss on a 2 year old car.
I also wonder about all these electronic key fobs. Will the car even start if the battery dies in the key? It seems to be a radio signal and not a mechanical switch telling the car to start. How about all these other systems that seem to be more complicated than needed?
If you want a simple car with hybrid mileage, the Geo Metro is the way to go. Is it safe? Not really but you can do just about anything and the only computer control is the ECM and the transmission but only if you have the automatic. This has to be about the simplest car made since the VW bug.