jpd80

Was better than keeping J/LR with fast approaching $8 billion bill for next product cycle vehicles. It was far less costly to let them go but recover by selling engines to them for the next ten years.. Volvo and Mazda were a terrible loss for Ford, those two brads added a lot of technical expertise in regards vehicle design and affordability. By the end, Mulally got his way and made sure that Ford sold them to simplify its business.

Yes unfortunately and that kit is the answer, it’s the same rotten thermostat they put in the RWD boxes. They came up with the bypass kit because the oil gets far hotter than intended before the thermo opens. Looks like the problem is repeated in all gearboxes on the list…..

This might be completely wrong but on the 6R and 10R transmissions, ther is a thermostat switch on the cooler outlet circuit, it stops oil flowing to the cooler until the temperature reached 95C which has been a point of overheat failure over the years. Might be worth finding out if the 6F and 8F gearboxes have the same sort of cooler thermostat….

Just my opinion but is why his thoughts on running the company need to be tempered by a good and knowledgeable CEO. The focus should be on the 50% of young American that want to own a vehicle, not the people who don’t want to. At one point in 2006, F series sales were about 30,000 in a particular month and Ford almost convinced itself that this was permanent die back of its primary profit earner and that the company should invest in fuel efficient cars. There again, certain positions were taken that stopped the company going bankrupt but robbed it of quicker recovery.

Well, Nasser was only fired because he stood up to the Firestone family and after he left with huge severance package, Bill Ford let everything drift and turn to poo..it may have done that anyway but his ineffective manage basically sped up the outcome. In recent years, Ford has blown loads of cash on ideas that didn’t pan out, all to do with ride share bicycles, BEV JV with Toyota, autonomous vehicle start up and investment in Rivian luckily they sold most of the AV business to to VW

Ford has a long history of imprecise future predictions, that’s why it keeps adjusting its plans. When you see predictions that far into the future, few if any will remember what’s said today. In 2001, Bill Ford made the prediction that by 2006, 25% of all Ford passenger vehicles would be hybrids. Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined Ford on the brink of bankruptcy because of his leadership. One example of where GM constantly outpaces Ford is the fact that it has three full sized truck plants and a dedicated large SUV plant….every single one of those vehicles adds to GM’s superior profits over Ford. Ford’s preoccupation with driving the minimum number of plants as hard as possible has actually cost it a lot of missed opportunities with perhaps a more profitable and quicker to develop Bronco on F150 platform but I digress. the point is that Done properly, all those large vehicles are Ford’s main profit generating enterprise but other things seem to distract in an effort to diversify profit earning to other vehicles. The truth is that competitors would give anything to swap what they have for Ford and GM’s large vehicles ile earnings..

I don’t have any opinion on this because I don’t think this type of investment moves the needle for Ford. Well, not like it did in days of old….

I’ll be interested to see what happened with Bronco sales in January and whether Ford managed to reduce inventory levels - a recent two week pause on production would have helped. The easiest thing for Ford to do is work with Ranger and Bronco production mix, get that right relative to customer demand for whatever trims are required and I think a lot of the inventory issues subside. Thers still a lot of opportunity to grow Ranger sales and I’d say that takes priority over any idea of introducing a new model like Everest. Where there’s probably no sales overlap with Everest, Ford would want to be very sure about that decision.

Again correct. I guess Chrisgb’s point was to maximise fuel efficiency by making the ICE as small as possible. The problem is that once there is not direct connection to the wheels at highway speeds where the ICE/Generator/Battery/ electric drive becomes less efficient compared to the traditional mechanical connection to the wheels. This is going to be an interesting conundrum for automakers to solve and I look forward to what they offer, knowing that the first few attempts may be hit and miss.

Correct, the advantages of regen braking help fuel efficiency when the vehicles are subject to variable speeds especially stop and go driving. When the vehicle is driven at highway speeds where there’s less variability, the electric side is less useful. The interesting part for me is the continued sales strength of gasoline engines in SD trucks and vans, less up front cost vs diesel and lower maintenance are always attractive to buyers especially when maximum loading or hauling is not required. Yes, those owners would be interested in a hybrid option but how many sales are we actually looking at?

Absolutely. The concern I have was with the way the question was framed, “would you be willing to give up owning a motor vehicle.” There’s a big difference between willing to do something and actually being able to do it.

I tend to agree, a hybrid Super Duty sounds like a good idea but does it really make sense to a fleet owners…that the big unknown here.

The survey included 937 Americans…….. Im always suspicious when the survey size is so small.

Before Christmas, Ford’s inventories appeared to have loads of high priced higher trims, so it looks like Ford maintained that build profile for too long going into a slowing market. Agree with your read, adjust build profile going forward to include more lower affordable trims that aren’t strippers but have nice features buyers want. While those filter through, offer strong incentives to higher series already on lots, either big cash incentives or killer lease deals.

Correct, I meant Explorer. Posting after a long day with tired brain. When Nasser became CEO, he was concerned that the Japanese would catch up to Ford and start taking profitable sales from Ford with a competitor to Explorer and maybe F150 (Tundra). Rather than double down protecting Explorer and F Series sales, response was to develop Premium Auto Group and we know how that ended…

Incorrect as CAFE also applies to vehicles built in Canada and Mexico if sold in the USA. There was actually two lists for CAFE, vehicles made in USA and vehicles made in Canada/Mexico. CAFE offset only applied to vehicles made in the same region. Thus Panthers built at Wixom could be offset by Escort/Focus made at Wayne and Saint Thomas Panthers were offset by cars like Escort built at Hermosillo and then Fiesta built at Cuautitlan. Thinking about it, the move away from cars probably save automakers like Ford and GM a ton of headaches meeting CAFE.

Not even close. The two main profit earners for Ford just before Nasser left was F Series and Bronco, everything else was either break even or small profit. Even with consolidating Panther production in Canada with cheaper Labor costs, the writing was on the wall. Ford could skip designing next Gen Panthers and RWD Explorer simply by rebranding the FWD/AWD D3s as Taurus and Explorer as their replacements.

In the article, I think the emphasis was more on producing base models Escapes but not sure that’s what customers want over say incentives on higher trim levels…..of course I understand Ford resisting that move. Going back pre-covid, I remember Ford pushing F150 XLTs with a luxury pack so I wonder, does that approximate Lariat or did Ford decide to push the latter as the basic Retail trim….. Buyers are feeling everything getting dearer and dearer, so here comes the push back, Im betting that Ford will try basic trims with some models but be forced to do strong cash incentives with vehicles like F Series simply because combined inventory is already ~250,000

Correct Whichever way they go, Ford could build the second plant as just extra 7.3s and rebalance existing plant production for 6.8 vs 7.3 to suit demand.

So their first thought was to introduce lower priced base models, not lower prices on existing trims…

D’OH, I’m missing the obvious, it just occurred to me that the extra Godzilla production would be all about more 7.3s, not the 6.8, buyers love the 7.3 and Ford can’t build enough of them.

Limited production of the 6.8 has been stopping its use in anything other than F Series, it has been anticipated for several years and the 7.3 base engine seems to be covering things nicely. I think the idea was to eventually offer a more fuel efficient versions but if gas prices stay low, it won’t make much difference.

I think too with comments to Mulally, the Ford exec was assuming mostly sales of base models to daily rentals has had been the case for decades. The Moment Ford started chasing more retails sales that changed Ford also closed Wixom in 2007 so Focus as a CAFE offset vehicle no longer applied as consolidating Panther production in Saint Thomas meant that the Mexican Fiesta was used to offset CAFE.

At the time, Ford was pushing 6.7 Powerstroke diesel sales in MD so the failure of the 6.2 in MD engine test was unfortunate but it was deemed cheaper to resurrect the 6.8 V10 for MD use than complete development of the 7.0 V8 Boss - remembering that it was already provisioned for in the 5.4 plant switchable equipment (roughly four hours to change over).

Also, 6.8 V8 was limited so only given to base model versions in F Series and E Series. Now it looks like 6.8/7.3 is added to Essex where the 5.0 is made - probably more room there and trying to increase Windsor plant. The 6.2 Boss was an enigma, so close yet so far. Ford had intended 5.8/6.2/7.0 versions of the Boss, imagine if they skipped 6.2 and had just built 5.8 and 7.0 versions. That would have allowed Ford to drop the 5.4 and 6.8 Mods years earlier. Canadian SD production may be a way of giving Canada and ROW markets trucks that are separate to US production exports. That may be less political for Canada, Mexico and South America……