Undertow

Ford forced the sale of a Dealership in Canfield, because the dealership had been proven guilty of tampering with odometers. If you would really like to FIX this dealership, take your problem throught the legal channels. Then Ford will handle it.

Its not even the paychecks. Blowfish is dead-ON. Those who are left will pick up the pieces, because that is the only way it has ever gotten done. Responsibility at Ford is like hot potato. The last person to touch something... with the ultimate responsibility WILL DELIVER. We have all seen this and lived it, Line worker, skilled trades, Fork drivers, & management. Most of us will deliver come hell or high water.

John, I agree with most of what you said, but I thought by the end of the 2nd paragraph this was a UAW influenced writing, by the end of the 6th I was sure. That said, you make some good points: My first point of disagreement, line 4, is that we need to close some plants and eliminate the jobs that go with them to align with market share, it is a sick & cruel world. You are 100% right when you say we need to fight to get market share back, the fact that we have no plan to do this has me terrified. If any of our manufacturing facilities ran with this loser attitude, it would be long gone - there is no intensity to get in the market share game... we can always just shrink our way out of existance. I also had 1 point of disagreement with line 6. You hit one of my 2 biggest morale issues on the head: We don't have the balls to take on the competition, plain and simple. Our stock would go up $2 a share over night if Bill Ford would just announce plans to go after the market share to put the plants he is not closing at capacity. Until this happens, we are all wearing concrete shoes. Where I disagree, is on the salary cutbacks: this was a major morale problem, but mostly in the manner it was handled: again, we did not have the balls to cut the worst performers out of the salary ranks. Salary personnel are not bargained for, and have no business using seniority as the sole factor in our cutbacks. This saves a lot of lawsuits, but doesn't do much for the future of a company. This has the most telented motivated people I know sending out resumes.

Glad to see our dealers have spent a month dragging another potentially loyal customer through a knot-hole backwards. Can someone explain to me at what point the 5W-20 or 5W-30 oil mentioned in the oil changes would ever contact or affect a throwout bearing?

I believe the number 1 reason Ford is losing market share is Quality. This is not a news flash to anyone. Specifically, we are behind our competitors in quality for 2 destinct reasons: Every part on our vehicles is designed new, evidently we feel it would be cheating to take a part that has a proven quality track record, and make it fit a different vehicle. The customer could care less that a door latch, door handle, dome light, radio, turn signal switch, is common between their 1999 Taurus, their 2002 Mustang, and their 2006 Fusion... as long as the sheet metal and interior are different. Does a 5.4 Liter engine for an F150 really need to be different from an F250? Vehicle part & package complexity. We could manufacture snowflakes and have a better chance of making 2 alike. I could not order an F-250 Pick-Up, who in their right mind wants to go down that list of ala carte options. Make XL, XLT, LARIET, and Extra Special Super Duper Lariet , and make the options fit the trim level. It is pretty easy to buy one of these off the lot that is pretty much what you are looking for. Why, why, why would someone want Reverse Sensing, Power Heated Seats, and Manual Mirrors?