Bought my 08 end of May. In the last month I have gotten in the mail:

A Hybrid window sticker from Ford, thanking me, and explaining a little about the Hybrid/recycled lower carbon, blah blah...

A survey from JD Powers, mostly questions about the Dealer

Another Survey asking question about the vehicle

 

Be wary of "surveys" that you cannot confirm came from Ford. A lot of them are personal info fishing expeditions. Especially those that ask questions like about your income. Believe me, your income has nothing to do directly with the quality of your new Ford.

I checked about the ones I received (except for the one from JD Powers), and Ford confirmed that they were not from them, nor on their behalf.

 

There are several big survey outfits out there, including JD Power, TAI, Maritz, and others. You can call them, check their websites or post on a forum like this one to see if they are "for real" or if you doubt their legitimacy. They don't sell your info and typically include a strongly worded statement of confidentiality. The initial quality surveys are fairly lengthy, especially the JD Power one. IIRC it's ten pages long and took me about an hour.

Maritz sends several and they don't contact you again if you don't respond to the first one. If you do, they send a follow up, and they sometimes call you if you gave permission on the written form. If you fill the second survey out, they often send a third one to see how it's going. They also sent me a "vehicles avoided" survey, which is something I don't recall getting the last time I bought a new car.

If you factor in the Ford survey(s), you may get five or more in six months.

Respondents are sometimes contacted later and asked to participate in paid workshops about upcoming vehicles or features. I've done several over the last five years. They can take any where from 30 minutes to a few hours, but I personally find them very interesting and the $50 - $200 they pay you at the end is a nice bonus.

 

Gee, something to look forward to (or not! ). I'm just hoping that I still get the 10% off accessories coupon as I am ordering through the A plan. In 2001 I purchased a F150 Supercrew off the dealer lot using the A plan also. At that time Ford was sending a F150 "thank you" blanket. Ford told me that I don't get one because I ordered through the A plan. (Thanks to Ebay, I got a few cheap from someone that was liquidating them later that year!)

 

I think I got one of those too, but since not too many acc available yet, doesn't help me.

When I bought my Expedition I got an Eddie Bauer duffle bag

 

I don't doubt that those "quality survey" companies exist, have websites, and take a lot of time to create nicely worded confidentially statements.

What I doubt is their true purpose. And all I was doing was to offer a friendly advice to those here, to be very careful of ever replying to them.

The real truth is that no vehicle quality survey has any legitimate need to know about your income level, number of kids, etc. That is simply marketing info, and there is never, ever, any purpose for that info that is of any benefit to customers. None at all.

Except for JP Powers, I throw all the others away, and always recommends to other to do the same.

There is already too much personally info flowing around out there. The last thing, IMHO, that anyone needs to do, it to help them create or verify it.

Hay, if you really want to reply to these so called "quality surveys", there are also a lot places in Nigeria that would love for you to reply to their emails too.

 

I absolutely support that each person should be careful. However, I'm not sure that suggesting people systematically discard surveys from all companies other than JD Power is such great advice. Instead, maybe each person could be encouraged to do their own verifications and go ahead with a reply if they feel comfortable doing so. Or toss it if they don't.

As a worldwide company with about 3500 employees and revenues well in excess of $1 billion, Maritz is an example of a legitimate company who will probably send you a survey about your FEH. Ford is one of their clients. If they send you a survey, the data you provide is going to Ford.

Like JD Power, Maritz surveys owners. They compile detailed owner profile data for aggregation. Unlike JD Power, they do not sell the rights to say your company came out on top and, for my money, that makes them a better firm to deal with.

Marketing data like age, sex, race and income is included on all these surveys and is used to design marketing programs. Yes, some of the surveys look funny and are awfully long and detailed. I agree that anyone who does not feel comfortable being surveyed should toss them.

 

My dealer has been begging me to send them the surveys so they can fill them in rating the dealer as perfect. I declined politely, and recently someone broke into the mailboxes in our complex. Coincidence?

 

It was probably your dealer trying to steal your survey & fill it out for you!

 

At least this time they are not trying to steal those visa promotional cheques.
About a year ago they got the 'balance transfer cheques' and went shopping, all billed to my visa card.

Duncan