akirby

I was only referring to the current Taurus, not a new Taurus. Given that the new Fusion offers similar interior space and better fuel economy I think the current Taurus' appeal will be limited until the new one arrives. I wasn't implying that a new Taurus wasn't needed. Thank you Captain Obvious.

The CSR and cyberdman both get their info directly from the Ford system. If your dealer says otherwise then your dealer is mistaken, either on purpose or by accident. Unless the vins got mixed up somehow.

Maybe because it's called Owner to Owner, not Owner to Ford?

The adaptive part (swiveling for turns) is not new, just the LED bulbs.

have they published a specific list of every known bug in MFT? Of course not and they never will. But Ford has said repeatedly there were problems and they've tried to fix them. Some more successfully than others. But they certainly have admitted there were problems.

There appear to be a fair number of bad APIMs out there which are still not working right even after the latest software upgrade. By that I mean freezing, frequent rebooting - serious issues. Hard to say how many but I've heard of several on here and on the ford edge forum. So it's more than one or two. The problem is getting the dealer to recognize it's a bad APIM - they just write it off to the software too easily. The current MFT code was so thoroughly screwed up by Bsquare that it appears to be impossible to fix - based on the current list of bugs still present after many months of effort to fix them. I think there were too many bugs to begin with and the code is to the point now where they can't fix one thing without breaking 2 others. At a certain point you have to throw it away and start over and that's where I think Ford is right now. The good news is the new version should be backwards compatible (at least for the current MFT features) so yes, it can be fixed with software. I just don't have any faith that the current code can be fixed by either Bsquare or Microsoft in a timely fashion. Fortunately the majority of owners seem to have a stable system with only minor issues at this point.

How about the more powerful Fusion 2.0L ecoboost with more torque and much better fuel economy? Taurus 3.5L 288 hp/ 254 lb/ft 17/25 Fusion 2.0L EB 240 hp/ 270 lb/ft 22/33 Like I said, unless you want the SHO or just prefer the Taurus styling I think the Fusion wins out. Unless you just have to have a V6 regardless of performance.

http://www.autoobser...ford-touch.html http://www.ceoutlook.com/2011/02/16/ford-doles-out-75-for-each-myford-touch/ $75 per vehicle is more than enough to hire a MFT/sync specialist. If you're not seeing it and they didn't hire anybody then the dealer is pocketing the $75.

I don't think there is a "lighting sequence" - the headlamp bulbs are just LED instead of HID or Halogen.

If you remove Crown Vic and Ranger and add back in the lost Fusion sales due to supply it would have been a 8% - 10% increase in overall sales. That's not bad. Flex, Taurus and Expedition were down though. I wonder if the new Fusion will hurt Taurus sales. I can't see much reason to buy a Taurus other than the SHO compared to the Fusion right now.

Somewhere. Probably buried in the china cabinet.

Could be bad gas - try another tank from a different station if the CEL light doesn't come on. The other likely culprit is the throttle body.

I'm all for dropping the Buick name here but it is big in China. They could keep it if they eliminated the product overlap. The Buick sedans are really nice but then you don't need cheaper Chevy Impalas and Malibus at the same time. Just offer base versions of the Buicks like Ford is doing with the Fusion and Taurus and Edge. And yes - give the rest of that money to Cadillac.

IIRC - the offer was to allow the debt ceiling to be raised but with a guarantee of a balanced budget within 2 years or so. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Bingo - it's above the license plate. The 2013 MKZ owner's guide is now posted at motorcraftservice.com.

If I was the insurance company I would seriously consider non-payment for willful negligence if that's part of the policy - unless there was some circumstance that prevented them from being driven or transported inland away from the flooding. Hurricanes are one of the few natural disasters where we have weeks of warning. I could understand the taxis because they were in use up to the last minute.

We don't want GM to go away. That's just it - we're frustrated that they haven't changed the way they do business and this is going to hurt them in the future. This is what I want GM to do: Kill GMC. Make every GMC dealer a Chevy truck dealer. Same vehicles - different badge. Stop building rental fleet queens. Build the best vehicles you can build and if the rental companies want to buy them at reasonable prices in reasonable quantities - great. Cut production to match actual demand even if it means closing plants. Kill products that can't be produced profitably. Stop the high risk financing just to keep sales up. Cut back on the Caddilac investment and stop trying to be BMW. Get a wider array of good products on shared platforms out the door first as opposed to going after 1 or 2 halo expensive halo products. That also applies to hybrids and BEVs.

Not if they OVERPRODUCE THEM. Like they've done for decades. Like Ford used to do but wised up. It doesn't matter how good the vehicle is - if you build more than people want to buy you have to put big cash on the hood to get rid of them. They're still chasing sales volume without regard to profitability. It's that simple. And just because they have new products doesn't mean those products will be competitive, especially since they're purposely limiting Chevy to help Buick and Caddy as Gloria pointed out. If we have another economic downturn, Ford can scale back production and still maintain a profit margin (or at least minimal losses) to weather the storm. GM can't. They have way too much overhead and their current profit margin is too slim. Please show me the formula that calculates the stock price based on the company's financial reports. There must be one if there is a correlation between the 2 like you said. He doesn't understand what correlate means.

You mean electricity isn't free? Next you'll be telling me that plants that produce that electricity burn coal to do it. What a joker!

Neither party is willing to do what's best for the country long term and both parties seem to only be interested in winning the election. Both parties hate the other party with a passion. Both parties overlook the shortcomings of their own party members and villify the other party members on every subject. Their party can do no wrong and the other party can do no right. There is no moderation on either side and no working together for the good of the country. This 2 party system controlled by extremists on both sides is killing us. We need independents, 3rd parties and more moderation and cooperation from the 2 parties. The only way I can think of to try and bring this about is to vote all the incumbents out of office in every election until we get people willing to do what's necessary.

That was more of a rhetorical question in the case of the LS - it was tied to Jaguar and PAG and Mulally/Kuzak/Fields were not in charge then to push technology or common features across the brand. It's just a shame that Ford had such a head start on this technology and wasted it.

That's what I remembered - something like 1 hour per vehicle or so. There is half of the 2 hour geek squad right there.

As much as I'd like to agree, that's not what he said. He said the dealer cost was $37K. He did say the electrification cost about $11K so there is no way the rest of the car cost $13K. You have to factor in the cost of keeping the plant running, too and if it's underutilized then you can't just go by the number of hours to actually build each vehicle. It's like hiring one guy full time for $400/week and they only work one hour per week and you say that person only adds $100 to the cost because it's only one hour. Yet the company actually spends $400 for that work.

If the economy remains ok then GM will be OK. Not great, just ok. But if we have another economic downturn like 2008, GM won't survive but Ford will. Go look at those profit margins again. Look at the $9K rebates on trucks. Look at the Sonic financing for people with sub 500 credit scores. Look at all the money they're dumping on halo products while their bread and butter products flounder. That is not a healthy company and they're still doing too many of the crap they did before 2008. Ford learned a lesson and they're operating differently. GM did not. It's that simple.

I'm pretty sure Ford already compensates dealers for MFT training - to some extent.