bilge

Will make it simple. If there are 100,000 fewer new fords on the road in 2007 as compared to 2006, ford has decreased their warranty exposure by 100,000 potential claims. There is no paradox, simple math. What does the 2% less market share equal in terms of numbers of sales. 100,000 is just a guess. May be more or less.

I read the link, maybe it has changed, but I can't find any mention of $400m saved in warranty costs. However it does mention market share for the same time period last year was 17.2% and this year it is 15.1% plus sales are down 13%. I would say ford better have lower warranty costs if they lost 2% of the market compared to last year and selling 13% fewer vehicles than last year...

Are these trucks even tested before a release?? How can ya not catch flames shooting out of the tialpipe?? Every dang person involved in the QC should be fired. These trucks are the bulk of the oilfield at the moment, but two years from now I see a whole different truck landscape appearing. Can't wait to see what happens in a pasture full of grass and oil wells, can Ford afford to pay for a few dozen oilwells that cost anywhere from 1-3 million each to drill and install production equipment?? Just on a well location, there are several different sources of ignition to burn the well down, now lets add 2 foot flames shooting out of the exhaust on Ford trucks. This is lame to say the least. And customers will flock away from the truck now if they really work out of them and travel in a pasture or other combustible location.

Could be the new EXP

Too worried about staying on the gravy train or how to hop off the train to think about a lowly customer. Just got home but was at the dealer a few minutes ago. So I am sitting in the local small town, rural, itty bitty Ford dealership waiting for a ride home, waiting on a little service work. I can hear the dealer on the phone. He is talking to someone from Ford. Conversation went something like this. Dlr: Please tell me someone can apply common sense to this problem. F: ? Dlr: My tech did call a hotline for help, he was told to put a valve body on the t/m. Now you are saying that the hotline never said that, shifts are normal. I need to get a recorder I guess. F: ? Dlr: This customer buys 5-10 new trks a year and has a fleet of about 20 Fords running all the time, and this is his daughter's car. Are you guys saying you are willing to blow the sales of anywhere between $150k and $400k per year, not to mention service work and not take care of this Mustang with 16,000 miles on it, still under warranty, and yall are saying a hard shift is now ok and normal, but a couple days ago we needed to put a valve body on it. F: ? Dlr: Guess it is going to cost me 3 grand to put a t/m in so I can keep this customer. If you guys are not going to stand behind the product and treat the customer right I will have to. I can understand if the car had 50k miles on it that you would not help out, but this car has not been out there but 18 months and is still low on miles. F: ? Dlr: Well I am glad you are getting a package, hope ya take care of your next customers same as these and you will be looking for another job after running all your next customers off. Yeah right,,, Ford stands behind their product, this dealer stands behind something he did not even build or imply any type warranty,, and is willing to take a beating on a repair to keep a customer. That is why I buy my vehicles from him. I think Ford stands behind the product so they won't get run over if the parking brake fails.

O yea,, forgot,, that $500 washing machine that ya buy at sears cost the sears store $200.

^^^^^Most accurate statement on this whole message board. ^^^^^^ Dealer sells 250 vehicles/mo and gross is $1000/veh = $250,000 and still has to train, buy those expensive red boxes full of tools from Ford, plus whatever is the diagnostic computer flavor of the year that costs $5k-$50k each and every year, plus work at an hourly shop rate set by Ford and paid warranty time set at different amounts at every different dealer, (plus pay the employees that do not produce income just as any other business so that is probably just a cost of doing business so not gonna count that in too much), plus pay floor plan interest of 2% over prime on unsold inventory. Ford sells dealer 250 vehicles and gross average is $5000, (guessing at this number because Ford will never consent to give the actual amt) , that equals $1,250,000. Who is more efficient and who is wasting the gross profit that is made on a sale?

Have a couple old pieces of chrome laying around, aside from weighing about 2 pounds each, one says "FAIRLANE 500" and the other "GALAXIE 500".

Have always been able to use a F150, IMO tho, the new body style '04 is not as strong as older models. Front end drags on low spots in the road and bends the crossmember, pulling wheels out of alignment, never to be aligned again. WIll be replacing with a F250 in the next year or so, little more ground clearance and still like the old style front end suspension. Hope rear axles hold up a little better too. Absolute, positive, sure that I will not look at toyota.

Have several buddies that are self employed contractors each in a different business... would not even look at a Ford this year. One new dodge, two new yotas, one nissan later,, Ford lost four repeat sales. Not only were lost sales, but these folks drove Fords for the last 15-20 years. The dodge beat out the 6.uh oh, no way would he buy another Ford diesel again right now, maybe next time. The others did not want to drive a f150 homo or be associated with that image. Like it or not, this is the way these former ford customers feel. If ford wants to keep pushing and spending on the gay agenda,, that is ok,, just be prepared for a smaller customer base. Losing em one at a time, all the time.

Order guides are out for the '08 Escape??????? Thought '08 Escape was just announced. Is the order bank open for these and pricing available already too???

Didn't Ford buy a bunch of dealerships back in the late 90's, seems like around Denver or maybe KC? Then proved that they could not run dealerships at that time and had to sell em all back to private ownership. Would think that would teach Ford to listen to the dealer because Ford doesn't know much about the dealerships customer satisfaction, except to send em a questionaire that asks about the 'sales experience'? instead of sending a questionaire that asks about the customer view of the product and what could be done to make the product more appealing.

Have seen this statement several times, couple in this thread and other threads. If Ford sells the vehicles to the dealer, then in my pea brain, the dealer is Fords customer. And the end buyer is the dealers customer. If the dealer does not have to buy the vehicle and pay interest, the dealer lot is just a holding tank for the product and the dealer employees should work for FoMoCo, not XYZ dealership. Think Ford might want to ask the dealer, which is Fords customer, what they would like to purchase from Ford based on what the dealer has learned from their customer... just mumbling. Thinking this theory is only good for high dollar products. A real estate agent usually does not own the homes they are trying to sell. But Best Buy or grocery store probably does have to purchase all the products it sells before the retail market buys the product, but the markup for Best Buy or grocery store is more than the markup on homes or cars.

Heck, if I waited till the u-joints came off backorder, it would still be in the shop. Think b/o date was july 31. Then Ford would have to ship to the dealer. It would be a week or more into august until the WORK truck i need to make a living with was repaired for a simple 2 hour job. Went with the driveshaft w/joints which was cheaper than 2 joints. ??? And the new driveshaft can use clip in joints. Thinkin the Ford engineer was not using a clip w/his joint, prolly burned his fingers.

Just fixed today, 24 days later,, out of a truck over three weeks for a dang u-joint. Unreal. Simply unreal. Been thinkin about this for same amount of time. You know, there are alot of animal species that have become extinct, some of the more recent would include a sabre tooth tiger or wooly mammoth within the last 10-12k years. There are even some tribes of people like Aztec or Mayans that are no longer a distinct power or much noticed, but were once a very powerful presence on earth. These examples are just a couple, but one thing I can think of that is a common thread is that these species did not die all at once. The more current species died one or two at a time because they could not adapt to their environment quick enough to repopulate. Ford is accomplishing the same result with it's customer base, killing them off one or two at a time, due to incompetence from management to dealer. But it does begin with the company that engineers the vehicle and builds it with the intention that it will sell to somebody, somewhere, no matter how bad the engineering. Sooner or later, there will not be enough customer base available that wants to be associated or buy a product from a company that cannot produce a product that is dependable. There will come a time when it will be too late to repopulate the customer base when the company finally realizes they are going extinct.