Update - I went to the dealer today. The service writer looked at my cable. He looked up the service records for my vehicle and confirmed my vehicle had indeed been in their shop for 2 days to get get the blend door and actuator replaced which involved taking most of the dashboard apart. One of the service techs was also at the counter and he looked at the part and said the broken part would be located directly along the back of the steering column near the spot they took apart, so the likelyhood of it being broken during the service was very possible. The service writer said the tech who worked on my vehicle was out until Thursday and the service manager was not there right now. He said I must go to parts department and buy a new part. The part was not in stock and had to be ordered. The parts attendant said these parts are rarely in stock. I had to pay $ 75. for the part to be ordered. They will call me when it comes in, possibly tomorrow. At that point they will be open to discuss it further. The service writer explained they have a procedure so if a part gets broken during service work they fix it at no cost to the customer, so he didn't know why the technician would not have done that. My guess is the part was not in stock so he attempted to fix it and not mention anything, hoping it would hold together for awhile, and then I would have it towed in to them at a later date and pay them to fix it (not knowing what had really happened). So much for the "factory trained and certified blue oval quality is job 1". More later....

 

Update - I went to the dealer today. The service writer looked at my cable. He looked up the service records for my vehicle and confirmed my vehicle had indeed been in their shop for 2 days to get get the blend door and actuator replaced which involved taking most of the dashboard apart. One of the service techs was also at the counter and he looked at the part and said the broken part would be located directly along the back of the steering column near the spot they took apart, so the likelyhood of it being broken during the service was very possible. The service writer said the tech who worked on my vehicle was out until Thursday and the service manager was not there right now. He said I must go to parts department and buy a new part. The part was not in stock and had to be ordered. The parts attendant said these parts are rarely in stock. I had to pay $ 75. for the part to be ordered. They will call me when it comes in, possibly tomorrow. At that point they will be open to discuss it further. The service writer explained they have a procedure so if a part gets broken during service work they fix it at no cost to the customer, so he didn't know why the technician would not have done that. My guess is the part was not in stock so he attempted to fix it and not mention anything, hoping it would hold together for awhile, and then I would have it towed in to them at a later date and pay them to fix it (not knowing what had really happened). So much for the "factory trained and certified blue oval quality is job 1". More later....

 

The dealer did NOTHING. The service writer says someone else must have broken the cable and attempted to tape it back together to cover up the breakage, but they are the only place I took the vehicle for service. Funny thing, when I was there one of the service technicians looked at the broken cable and remarked that would have been exactly where they had the dashboard apart when they fixed my blend door. The service writer said they would have just fixed it on the spot if that happened, BUT since the part wasn't in stock I suspect they attempted the quick fix just so I could have my car back (they already had it 2 days). Anyway, so I paid $ 75 for the part and installed it myself in 20 minutes. Wasy fix, but I won't return to the dealer, so they basically lost a bunch of future business for service, plus I am considering buying a new car soon, but it won't be at that dealer now. Too bad, I actually liked the dealer until now. It's hard to find a garage you can trust anymore.