jasonj80

ABS is Std. on the Milan, still opt on the Fusion for '07. (I think it is std. on AWD versions)

So I was up at our local dealer last night and noticed that they had no Fusions on the lot, went online and looked at the next closest dealer and they too were out of Fusions? How can Ford sell cars and make money when they don't have anything to sell a person. Is this because of the change over from 2006-2007, is it just isolated in one area because of transportation issues?

Welcome to public school teachers in Michigan -- Around Detroit ten year, a masters and you can be knocking down 80K+ per year have bennies that make these UAW ones look like crap, work 9months out of the year and 0 overtime -- oh and no accountability. Adjusted for cost of living our teachers are the highest paid in the nation, and we spend more on school districts, but the kids here rank 37th overall -- just proves throwing money at a problem just makes some people rich -- btw at least around here school staff parking lots are Toyota's and Honda's. The Fat contracts that the UAW got trickled down to Teacher and public service and now just like the UAW they are in for a wakeup call -- you think the UAW has a great pension look at what a Teacher Fire Fighter or Cop makes on retirement -- sometimes its more than they made when they were working full time. Many cities around Detroit have pensions in excess of 100K/year plus they get their medical paid for.

MTP and all plants should be more worried what happens in the next ~50 days, rather than what is happing in '07.

Ford needs to take Jaguar and only sell 55K+ vehicles and advertise it that way "you don't have to worry about your intern driving the same car as you" Use the tag line "Arrive" Talk about how a true luxury car brand is something you have to achieve to own, that you have made it in life and that you are successful. Say we don't sell 130,000 pseudo luxury cars. In 30 months jaguar could be back and profitable --you'd have the XJ(70-90K), XK(where it is currently), and S-type(~55K), as well as the F-type coupe(55K) and conv(60K) as well as make a vehicle above the XJ (Daimler?) that would go for 90-130K) you could do it all on one platform and sell 300K a year -- and that is it! Keep the brand Exclusive! Take Lincoln and Volvo and move them so that their top the of the line vehicles are at about 60K. Make it a brand people aspire to own. My personal feeling is that this is more to look for alliances than it is to sell off parts of the company.

Well there are 200 million plus people in the other markets if you can only do 45 state cars; plus DCX, and VW will have 50 state cars early next year -- one can hope Ford will as well.

Automotive news today has an article that Cummins is getting ready two new diesel for use in Dodge Trucks, the one is a 4.2L V-6. Ford has a year to get this right -- they will be a leader if they do and just like everyone else if they don't. I'm glad to see that they pushed the B car(s) off a bit. They need profit cars not just market share cars. What they also need to be looking at very quickly is how to get diesel in cars a well -- the 2.7L diesel would be an excellent fit into the 500/montego/freestyle -- if you make that engine available you wouldn't be able to keep the car in stock -- a full size car with 40-45 mpg on the highway the Freestyle would get 35-40mpg, Work on diesel first in the Focus and Five hundered -- the Fusion could be your hybrid model. A diesel Focus would be good for 50+mpg on the highway. The F-150/Expedition/Explorer(inc. ST)/ranger should all be available with a diesel option, if you can only do 45 states with any of it so be it.

Agree 100% so you sell 40,000 a year and 10,000 come from mustang sales, your still 30,000 ahead. (assuming your profitable) This car would have a bigger backseat than a Mustang. Think Accord/Solara, I think with gas prices at 3.00+ a gallon you might see the coupe market come back somewhat -- people want something sporty and cool that gets good gas mileage.

Yes, Mazda, PAG, and SAAB are under the foreign brands -- as should Dodge/Chrysler/JEEP. DCX is a GERMAN COMPANY plain and simple!!! It is not an American Headquartered company. Honestly though WTF does any of this matter? Who cares.... Fix Ford and make it profitable -- I don't care if they have a 10% of the market if they are making 5 billion a year! Profit over marketshare!!!! (I think current management gets this concept finally)

Its not just in Mazda's, Toyota uses it too :-) -- part of that whole patent swap a few years ago over ford protecting itself by going to Toyota for systems that were similar in hybrids for the way the vehicle went from electric to gas power. Ford could use those patents and Ford gave Toyota some for DSI which are used in the new Lexus models.

Ford faired well overall -- http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060724/20060724005400.html?.v=1 Truck Demand Finally Doused by High Fuel Prices While "fuel anxiety" has seriously hurt demand for bigger SUVs for well over a year on Autobytel sites, Q2 was the first quarter where trucks -- generally the most popular vehicles in the U.S. -- suffered a similar fate. Requests plummeted 43% for the outgoing Toyota Tundra vs. a year ago, despite incentives, with equally abrupt nosedives for the Chevy Silverado (also down 43%), Dodge Ram (down 50%), Honda Ridgeline (down 38%) and Nissan Titan (down a titanic 52%). Even the venerable Ford F-150, the perennial top-selling vehicle in America, suffered a 34% drop in requests. Ford will do better than most in this area, They don't have the driveway consumer market -- those are the people that will walk away from the full size truck market because of high gas prices, those 2 trips a year to Home Depot don't justify the cost the other 363 days a year. Toyota has to be nervous about this shift while they may never lead on to it, spending 2billion on a new plant only to see the market implode is not a good thing.

What it comes down too is that exactly; the unions are facing extinction -- I think the UAW sees that they have to change or they will die as well, they look at other unions that have gone to tee for jobs/benefits/raises and only seen the plant closed. There is no more union solidarity workers don't stick together for the betterment of the union, why did so many union brothers fly non-union airlines for their trip to Vegas? It is the same thing why should they support you and buy a union made product when you don't support them. Public Education systems are a joke in this county (K-12) we are ranked LOWER than third world counties. One major reason that it is, is because of the teachers union, why don't we have school of choice in this country, the best schools succeed the bad schools fail, just like the rest of the world. The TEACHERS UNION go all out to defeat it if it is ever on the ballot, and they use your kids as their propaganda. And so once again they are union shouldn't they stick together and buy union made products I mean after all they are giving your kids an education that is 18th in the world. The UAW is a business, that is it, they don't care about the worker, they care about the 2hr of pay that worker pays them. Management cares more about the worker than the UAW does. The UAW and unions in this county today are basically Hezbollah they try to stir up problems between the company and the workers so that they can have a cause and prove that their existence is worthwhile while really doing nothing but damaging the company employee relationship. Were they necessary -- absolutely; but they have out lived this usefulness by about 20 years.

The UAW has created such problems for it self by "protecting" its workers. There are people that I have talked to that WON'T buy a car if its UAW produced. (More so than I know that will buy a car that is only UAW produced) If you want to see why the Michigan Economy is in the dumps, why any company won't step foot near Flint or Saginaw you can thank the UAW and other unions in this state.

Well according to one of the reports on this the Ford Family was in talked very recently with Renault-Nissan, Kerkorian found out and went to the the GM board and is basically is out muscling Ford on the issue. (Remember back in '99 when Nissan was almost toast a lot of people though Ford would be the ones to bail them out -- and had Nissan allowed a 100% take over, its most likely what would have happened) Ghosn will be giving an interview at 4pm today on CNBC.

It adds another Gyro that monitors the Z plane, vs. just the XY plane that a std. stability control system monitors. It can allow the system to cut in sooner as it feels the vehicle is starting to have excess body roll, there by keeping the vehicle more stable.

When they don't change -- what else can you do? Just buy something else....... and looking at the past 5 years, that is what a lot of people have been doing. If something happened to my vehicle now and I had to get something -- I would find it difficult to buy another FoMoCo product. Things that are important to me as a consumer are not available on the vehicles they make.

They shouldn't add it for '07 they should have added it in '05, The '07 is the first year its std on the Expedition and the Explorer got it std in '05, it had been opt on the Explorer from 2002.5 if you got the v8, and you couldn't get it with the 6 until '04. The Expedition had it opt from '03 if you got the 5.4L. Its been Std. on the 4runner from '01, and all Toyota's and most Honda (minus the element) from '05 Mazda wanted it on the revised trib/escape (from docs that were posed on the old BON) but Ford vetoed it for "cost saving" So once again rather than leading ford is bringing up the rear when it comes to safety. I'm also amazed that ABS isn't std on the Fusion, at least on the V6 versions and the higher trim lines.

For 2007 both the Santa Fe and Equinox add it as Std equipment, I'm not sure on the X-trail as we don't get that Nissan model in the US (which in itself is kinda weird) but I looked and it is optional so they may make it std as market conditions have gone that way. Pacifica has it std for '07, and as above Nissan hasn't put out what specs will be for '07, the rendezvous won't have it as it is being replaced next year, But as you can see Ford is trailing the competition yet again, and they wonder why they are losing market share.

For 2007 that is true but the Escape still doesn't have it when basically every other SUV on the market (and it is optional on Fleet Expeditions WTF?) will have it as std equipment for '07 model year vehicles. And its still not available on the Freestyle, while its now std on the '07 Pacifica, and pretty much every other vehicle in that crossover segment. I hope the Freestyle is also getting the Std side airbags for '07. Also when are the '08 Escapes and D3 cars Launching? I'm heard everything from the '08 Escape will be out on Jan 1 2007 all the way too a Nov 2007 lunch. And the same thing for the D3's, well those have been put everywhere from a March/April Launch though Sept. I'm sure it will make it way to std equipment on the redesigned '08 Escape and well as the '08 Freestyle, but at what cost in terms of lost sales.

That is 100% false, Stability control is needed with AWD and can do things that even AWD can't -- its a common misconception that if you have AWD you don't need Stability control. With the latest IISH study ESC reduces the risk of all single-vehicle crashes by more than 40 percent —fatal ones by 56 percent. Stability control is the best active safety system you can have. Also Stability control only costs $200-$600 vs. the $1000+ for even a basic AWD system.

It is a mistake to not have offered the 3.5L in the Fusion and Milan for '07, I'm not talking a regular model but a top of the line model 3.5L every option std. except nav and AWD, your only going to sell 5,000 make them cost 26-30K. (Limited model) You will have an engine that can match everything in its class then, and while its not going to burn up the sales charts you won't get slaughtered int he car mags and media who make a 5,000 price difference on a midsize car sound like its nothing. That engine will get people to look at the car, and while they only may end up with the 4 or small 6 its still a sale. (I also have a feeling the 3.5L will get better mileage than the current 3.0L) (30-31mpg on the highway) I also wonder where Stability Control is on the Fusion and Five-hundred, its optional/std on basically every other car in the same class, what is shocking is that its not even offered on the MKZ even more so for the '07 model year, I mean with Fly by wire, an ABS system in place, (well a 4 channel one) all you need is the Gyro, bigger brake booster, and a steering wheel sensor and you've got it (maybe $300 in parts and that is pushing it). Oh and one other thing the CHMSL should be LED's on the Milan and MKZ so you don't have the delay with the regular bulb in the CHMSL like you have now.

Chrysler starts summer with employee-discount program DETROIT -- The Chrysler group has fired the first shot of the summer selling season with an employee-discount program for consumers beginning July 1. The company's Employee Pricing Plus discount plan was announced to dealers in sales meetings Wednesday, say dealer and industry sources. The program, essentially the same as the one the automaker ran last summer, allows all customers to buy Chrysler group vehicles at the same heavily discounted prices available to Chrysler group employees. Last summer, General Motors started the employee-pricing war in June, and Ford and the Chrysler group followed in July. The bloody discounting war between the Detroit 3 carried on through September. Last week, Chrysler group CEO Tom LaSorda said the company needed to do something to make room for new vehicles arriving in dealerships this fall. Chrysler dealers have complained they are carrying excessive inventories, particularly of big trucks and SUVs. Jonathan Steinmetz, an analyst for Morgan Stanley, predicted last week that the Chrysler group would be the first to launch such a program this summer. In a research note to investors, Steinmetz wrote that a move by Chrysler could test GM’s pricing discipline. "Such a move suggests other OEMs continue to view GM's new-found price discipline as a chance to grab market share rather than lift prices," he wrote. A Chrysler spokesman declined to confirm or deny the plan. You may e-mail Bradford Wernle at bwernle@crain.com

Why can I get heated seats and mirrors on a Focus for under $200 with a cloth interior but not on anything else! It seems to be a very popular option in northern areas on the focus. They should be available on every vehicle you sell you missing an big opportunity to make some extra money. If these options were available on every one of your vehicles and you sold ~500,000 units with the option on it and made a profit of $40 you'd make between 10-20 million dollars in profit. Most vehicles are already provisioned for the option if you get leather seats, so why not make them available with cloth? Some people think the $1000 for leather heated seats is too much and some just plain hate leather. It is an easy way to profit an extra 10-20 million a year and set yourself away from featured offered by the competition.

It all has to with currency fluctuation -- a few years ago you could save a lot of money buying a car in Canada.

Ford needs to start buying shares back if they want to get the price higher -- the problem is that there is way too many shares on the open market. With the Stock price under $8 and 20Billion+ in cash it would be an excellent time to do so. The problem is that the family doesn't want that, and that’s Ford problem – sometimes the decisions made for them, not the betterment of the share price or the company. What they did a few years ago when they F#@^$% the share holders basically gave the Ford family more voting right and they can own less stock. If they cared about the shareholders value they need to buy back between 1 and 2 billion dollars of stock. It would look very good, they would same money on dividends paid out, plus the spin you could put on it would excellent -- it is a win, win, win to buy back some shares. Ford share price goes up -- and as a result pension fund is more funded. There are so many reasons they need to do this to help the company but the family won't have it, less power for them.