akirby

I believe Kansas is in between Mexico and Detroit. It's probably in a holding area waiting for room to free up in Flat Rock.

I actually do research with data to back up my well thought out statements. You should try it sometime. As the article states - there were other areas with the same geographic advantages as Detroit but they didn't turn into automotive meccas. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/02/why_are_all_the_big_american_car_companies_based_in_michigan_.html

Or was confiscated by the government for crash testing.......... Retail (sold) orders are required to be 10-19. 20+ is for dealer stock only. They probably converted a dealer stock order to a retail order and didn't change the priority yet. It happened to someone else earlier.

Ok, Ok. I give up.

Behind the rear view mirror most likely. The controls are all explained in the owner's manual.

Did you miss the part where back in September they had to truck the dies that stamp the body sides to Arizona, then rented a Hercules transport plane to fly them to Detroit and back for repair and then trucked back to Hermosillo? They have 30K Fusions that have to be repaired before they can be shipped and they're shipping them to Flat Rock to be repaired there. Not clear whether this is for headlamps and/or other things. But this is clearly way more than just a headlamp problem. Vehicles that were built in October may not be shipped to the dealer until December or even January. This is a much bigger problem logistically than the Escape problem which only affected a few thousand vehicles.

Detroit became the motor city simply because the people who pioneered the automotive industry happened to be from Detroit. Any other reasoning is wishful thinking.

The DVD player wasn't added because it wasn't necessary. It's no longer needed to read map data and most people don't want one unless they have kids in which case you need screens in the back seat. It's also much cheaper to buy a portable player and plug it in than to build one into the vehicle.

This is the difference in how Ford and GM do product development. GM still seems to work in silos on individual projects. Here is a neat car - let's see if we can make a business case for it. So you have all these individual business cases that by themselves may actually be positive done by individual groups or brands. Platform sharing is an afterthought or at least optional. This is how Ford of Europe operated for years and why we had 2 different Focii. Ford makes decisions at the aggregate corporate level. They don't look at an individual business case - they look at the bigger picture. I've worked in both types of management so it's pretty easy to see the differences. Here's an example. GM has 3 different but similar sized vehicles based on 3 different platforms. Each one has a business case that says it can be built separately and each one can yield $1m profit over 5 years. GM would look at these individually and greenlight them and they make $3M over 5 years with a huge capital investment. Ford would look at it and say "how can we build these 3 vehicles in the most efficient way to yield the most profit". The answer is they should all share a new platform and drivetrains. Ford creates a new global platform and then each vehicle tweaks it. Each vehicle yields $3M profit over 5 years or a total of $9M profit on half the capital investment. This was the tough nut that Mulally had to crack when he came to Ford - to get managers to stop thinking parochially and to think like one business. In one of my old jobs we had one group who wanted an enhancement made to a system that would save each of their workers 20 seconds per phone call. The problem was the phone call was coming from other employees and that feature would actually cost the other employees about 30 seconds extra time per call, so the net to the company as a whole would be a 10 second loss. We said no and our management backed it. That's how Mulally manages Ford and that's how GM does not manage GM.

Provided the net result is an overall increase in sales and profits. You don't want to take a 50K vehicle and replace it with 3 vehicles that only sell 55K units.

What makes you think there is only ONE rail car at a time? Really? Every day Ford builds 1000 vehicles that probably get shipped to all 4 corners of the continental U.S. and maybe Alaska and Hawaii too. If a rail car holds 10 vehicles that's 100 rail cars EVERY DAY. Get the picture now? Of course they know which facility and probably which lot the vehicle is parked in. Do you think they park in numbered spaces? Do you think they would waste time scanning each VIN and noting exactly where it's parked in each lot? The name of the game is get them in and out as quickly as possible, not to placate one customer who has to know where his vehicle is with GPS coordinates 24x7.

Looks like it. I'm hoping this was the result of a mad rush to get new products out the door the last 2 years and that the shortcuts that were being taken were known and will now be corrected along with other process improvements. Lots of moving parts with new vehicles going into new factories and new drivetrains, features, etc. I won't start worrying unless they're continuing to have these problems a year from now.

There is a difference between not knowing and knowing but not saying for competitive reasons.

Nobody in Georgia owns a snowblower unless they brought it with them when they moved here. Case closed.

Fords have typically been within 1-2 mpg of actual (at least on older models). Anybody done an actual comparison?

The government of course.

I assume they're including pre-production models just to be safe.

Last in first out at the factory may be different than last in first out at Flat Rock.

I'm reasonably sure this is for the 2013 model. There were rumors of headlight problems with the 2013 launch.

The question after "will the dealership care" is "will Ford care if they audit the sale?" Dealers who don't follow the rules can get in trouble and your x plan privileges might also be revoked. If it was me I'd call the Ford plan number and ask just to be safe, unless you just want to roll the dice. I would think they want you to have the membership for at least 60 days but the wording is ambiguous and they may not care.

You got that right. Coming back home Friday afternoon we got passed by several cars on I-285 doing close to 90 and weaving in and out - in traffic. If you go anywhere close to the speed limit you'll get run over.

Yes. Cost has typically been $200 for a map update. I'd expect a similar cost going forward.

Should be a number between 10 and 19. 10 is the best.

I'm sure Ford could have done some things better, but in this case your dealer should have at least offered to reorder another vehicle for you and Ford would have probably given it a priority < 10 if the dealer asked. The dealers are just being lazy and blaming Ford when they could be doing more.

This is the part I don't understand. If the car was $75 more to begin with they wouldn't care. It's a $30K vehicle! That's basically one full tank of gas. It's a stupid reason and I think that's what BrewfanGRB was upset about, just like the other examples I posted about being penny wise and pound foolish. As for sitting on their hands waiting for the dealer to call back and coddle them - that's also ridiculous. If you don't like the dealer or the service then cross them off the list and find another one. Or just pick up the phone and call them to see what happened. Maybe the salesperson fell ill and hasn't been working. Maybe they got fired. Maybe they had the wrong phone number. Just ASK and then decide if you want to continue doing business with them. But don't just sit there and do nothing and fret about an extra $75. Decide which vehicle you want and go get quotes from several dealers and if you need to order it then order it and be done with it. If you don't like any of the Ford dealers then go buy a Lexus. Just do something!