Service and Extended Warranties
Well, for warranty service, you haven't got much choice. Unfortunately, many dealer service operations seem to confuse the SHO with the more plebeian Tauruses; the power-trains are in fact very different. Most are competent, but you may need to read service manifests very carefully to ensure that all scheduled maintenance that is SHO specific (such as valve lash adjustment) is performed.
Should I buy the extended warranty?
An extended warranty is basically a several hundred dollar bet that your car will break pretty badly before 60K, 75K or however many miles. Some folks will tell you it is unnecessary, others wouldn't do without it. One thing to watch out for on the Ford extended warranty is that the annoying little things like water leaks, trim coming unglued, batteries, etc. (in short, most of what goes wrong with a Ford, especially the SHO) aren't covered. It did save my bank account when my air conditioner went south just shy of 60,000 miles though.
If you do decide to go for the extended warranty, Phil Bush suggests the following:
A strategy for the warranty is to wait for Ford to mail you their factory warranty offer (assuming you bought the car new). The dealer wanted $800 for the minimum 3 year, 36000 bumper-to-bumper, but I could have gotten it for about $285 direct from Ford. They offered it several times, and though nothing drastic went wrong that made me wish I'd gotten it, the dealers will often 'find' something wrong, and bill the repair to Ford. They replaced my 2-piece composite brakes with the one piece ones without even asking because I was under warranty.
Tom Pickett opines:
If you live in the SF bay area buy the warranty!!!!!!!!
I forgot to ask if this was a commentary on the driving conditions or the dealers there. :-)
