andym said:

I see the logic behind this. You want new users to be able to post in a forum where they can get "safe" advice from Ford certified techs. In a general forum, people are going to give a lot of random, unrelated, anecdotal, or just plain bad advice. I've seen enough of it on other sites. *ahem*

But that's just the nature of forums. If you want the official Ford answer, then ask your dealership or take one of their techs out to lunch. If you want an answer from an Internet forum, then you're going to have to weed out the bad information from the good. Even a novice user can start to tell if the advice they're getting is bad or misleading. If nothing else, people will jump in and say, "No, that's wrong, don't listen to that guy." Those types of users don't usually hang around long anyway. They get tired of being wrong, and either stop posting altogether or start trying to become more knowledgeable.

Secondly, there are TONS of backyard mechanics that know a lot about Ford trucks. Between three or four users here I could name off the top of my head, they could easily disassemble an entire truck down to the nuts and put it back together and have it running in a week. And none of them have ever been inside a dealership service bay.

Not to say that the techs here don't know what they're doing; they obviously do. But even that novice user can quickly figure out who those people are. In fact, I think many have "Ford certified tech" in their signature to make it even more obvious.

Lastly, I'd hate to think that a new user didn't get enough of the right advice in time and walked away disappointed in the site as a result because no one allowed to answer the question saw it. Or even worse, none of the responses hit on the correct answer. How many times have you read a new thread that starts: "I took it to the dealership and they were stumped... please help me". Again, not knocking the techs that post here at all.

There is a post right now about a ranger consuming oil and the poster doesn't know where it's going. I had the exact same problem and could not offer my advice on the subject. If none of the Ford techs post what I could add, then the user might or might not find his answer as quickly.

Bottom line - this is a *forum* - by definition, it's made up of the contributions of all users, smart and not-so-smart.

And that's all I have to say about *that*.

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Skandocious said:

To be honest Andy, we debated about it the admin/mod panel... Okay 'debate' is the wrong word Everyone was in favor of giving the techs exclusive privilege to post there and I believe I was the only one that said something similar to what you said above (though more concise). We debated back and forth and they convinced me that it'd be a good idea. I think what we need to do is make some sort of disclaimer in the Tech Only forum that says "ONLY CERTIFIED TECHS WILL SEE THIS THREAD, IF YOU WANT HELP FROM OTHER MEMBERS -- REPOST IN A PUBLIC SECTION" ---- Or something to that effect.


FTF has hundreds of certified techs that work together behind the scenes (in some sections that even MODS AND ADMINS can't touch. So the tech only area is where they can go to provide help to backyard mechanics without having to argue with you and me about what's right and wrong.

I will definitely talk to the admins about remedying this. I do not think it's clear enough to the thread creator that their thread will ONLY get cert'd tech attention.

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FTF/PARTS-GUY said:

I'm am MASTER CERTIFIED PARTS MANAGER and I can't post there?

hmmmm?

I think I am way qualified to give the wrong answer after being in the business over 25 years. or maybe try and give the right answer oh I dont know now.

Ed

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Skandocious said:

Yeah Andy they changed the permissions so only Tech's can post there, that was the original idea behind that section. Obviously mods and admins still can but even we're not supposed to offer tech advice, so don't feel left out

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eco said:

Let me gets this straight...anyone can start threads, but only certified Ford techs/parts people can respond to threads.

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TheRoadVirus said:

If only certified ford tech's are supposed to answer, how come you (Chris) replied to F350's question about burping his cooling system? Only seems right to let the ford tech's do the talking..

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