Jones Ford

Be careful if you take your vehicle here for service. I am Canadian, spending my first winter in Shallotte with my 36-foot travel trailer. I am heading home soon, and wanted to have an oil change, fluid levels and tire check before I go. My vehicle is a 2014 F150, and I am the original owner. It has been meticulously maintained by the Ford dealership where I bought it. Its last head-to-toe service and inspection was 2100 miles ago and everything was perfect. My appointment at Jones Ford was Friday, March 30th (yesterday). After the routine maintenance at Jones Ford was complete, my service tech reviewed my vehicle's report card with me and said my battery had only put out 125 cold cranking amps when tested, when it should have put out 750 amps. Everything else was perfect. He said I needed a new battery for $195 installed. When I said how shocked I was to hear this and told him why - he said it could also be the alternator brushes not maintaining full contact and therefore not charging the battery properly, so maybe a new alternator for about $550+ might be needed also. I should mention that I am a gauge junkie and watch mine carefully. They have not ever shown abnormal ratings or warning lights. I thanked the tech, paid my oil change bill, and left knowing I would get a second opinion before having any major work done. On Saturday afternoon (today), I went to O'Reilly Auto Parts on the advice of Robert at Southern Coast Collision ( a wonderful person who did a fantastic job fixing my truck after a texting driver rear ended me in December) to have the truck's battery and alternator tested. At low level testing the battery put out 750 amps (100% performance) and the alternator also tested at 100% performance. Nothing wrong with either of them. Maybe the testing equipment at Jones Ford is defective, maybe the tech did not test correctly, or maybe the tech thought he would make an easy battery (and possibly alternator) sale to a woman (because what do women know about trucks, right?) At any rate, if I had taken his advice, I would have wasted between $195 and $750. I will definitely not take my vehicle back here, nor would I recommend their Service Department.