akirby

Correct. If they can't produce the vehicle you ordered then cancel the order and they must give you back your money. If they don't sue them.

I think when Michigander says customer delivery he's talking about dealers. Dealers submit orders with a priority. It's up to the dealer what priority to assign to which order. If they assign a 10 to a stock vehicle and 20 to a customer order the stock vehicle should be built first if there are no material holds. Retail Order Verification circumvents that but is only used on certain specific vehicles.

So it's just like the Raptor but without the looks or the performance. Got it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPDYj3IMkRI

Theoretically you could swap out an Ecoboost drivetrain and reflash the PCM but it will probably cost way more than $15K. Stick with cold air intake, cat back exhaust and a SCT tuner.

That was definitely the most watched by my daughter. It was pretty funny........ At least we don't have to listen to "Charlie bit me" any more.......

It's not sync that's missing, just sync services. If the ads are targeted to Canada then I agree and the dealers should certainly know better.

Totally agree. But not much can be done as long as the dealers are protected by state franchise laws.

You should really be upset at your dealer, not Ford. Here's why: Ford only builds what the dealers order based on dealer allocation, material availability and order priority. If the dealer had allocation, put your order in at priority 10 (the best) and there were no material holds on what you ordered then your vehicle would have been scheduled and built. If there was a material hold then your dealer should have told you about it and kept you up to date on status. If the dealer had no remaining allocation or chose to give your order a higher (worse) priority then that is also the dealer's fault. The exception to the dealer allocation problem is Retail Order Verification where they build pre-sold trucks at highest priority without it counting towards a dealer's allocation. But they only do that on select vehicles. I think it should be standard but I'm sure some dealers would abuse it to get around their allocation caps. Best advise at this point is to raise hell with the dealer (go to the sales mgr not a sales person) and get the truth. Ask them what the priority is (better be 10) and whether they have allocation or not (they may not be honest about this but at least let them know that you know what it is) and if there are any material holds. Worst case go place the order with another dealer. They may be able to explain the situation to the local Ford rep who can get the order priority increased even further as a special case. Or try to find one in stock that's close to what you want. The dealer can check inventory at other dealers in several states. Don't give up - in the long run you'll be disappointed. And remember - your husband is right (about everything).......

Of course the dealer is aware. Or I should say the sales mgr is aware - whether they tell the salespeople or not I'm not sure. But the reason is simple - if they told customers that then they'd probably lose that sale and possibly future sales (don't go to that dealer - they can't get any vehicles). If they blame it on Ford then it makes them look better.

MKX is the X5 competitor (no 3rd row). BMW doesn't really have a large crossover yet. I had the same thought about the MKT - make it the luxo-barge and make the Aviator the performance model. Similar to Flex/Explorer.

Absolutely - allocation is allocation whether it's presold or not. So if they can sell every one they're allocated at MSRP then it wouldn't matter if you were ordering one. The exception is called Retail Order Verification where presold orders do not count against the dealer's allocation. They did that with the 2010 Fusion hybrid IIRC and a few others but it's not common. I think it should be though. It sucks to order a vehicle and wait for it only to find out it hasn't been built yet because the dealer doesn't have allocation available. If a dealer has plenty of allocation but not many on the lot they might give you a price break to order one. Just depends.

It's because Sync lacks a security chip that Apple is requiring before allowing iphone apps to connect to sync. Ford will add the chip next year. It's not an apple/microsoft thing it's just an apple thing.

The release is about the factory and it's capabilities. Just because it's capable of building B cars doesn't mean it will right now or in the near future.

Amp? Volt? Sonic?

POTW!

I don't get that. Why is he a tool?

I agree, which is why we need leaders who can make the hard decisions even if it goes against what the lobbyists or constituents want. My point is that career politicians who need to get re-elected to continue their career will not make those tough decisions and will always cave to lobbyists to ensure future campaign funding and cave to their constituents so they get re-elected.

My stepmother-in-law is a tea party organizer and they have backed Democrats against Republicans where the Democrat supported less gov't spending and the Republican did not. Just because SOME tea party supporters may be partisan to Republicans doesn't mean they all are. The point about not raising taxes is that we must first cut spending. If I make $400/month but spend $500/month then I can either make more money to support my $500/month spending OR I can cut my spending to $300/month. I believe anyone who is serious about our financial situation would go for a TEMPORARY small tax increase if it was done equitably BUT ONLY AFTER spending had been cut as much as possible. Why is the answer always more taxes? Put the government back on a budget and stick to it. It's not that hard.

No way no how. What platform would it use? There really isn't another choice other than sharing the F150 platform and lots of other parts. There isn't enough volume to have a one-off dedicated platform any more.

You have to put this in terms that Americans understand. This is like the Heisman Trophy voting. I could go for it I think. No runoffs is a big plus.

PRECISELY my point. There is no room in either party for moderates. It's become a football game - us against them. Win at all costs and to hell with the consequences. And the problem is there isn't any room for another player as long as they allow the two party system to continue with primaries. A moderate has no hope of getting his/her party's nomination and an independent/other party candidate has no chance of winning. I say do away with primaries and let everyone run together on one ballot. If 15 republicans want to run, fine. Same with dems or libertarians or whomever. Take the top 3 vote getters and have a run off if nobody gets 50% on the first try. Then go to 2 if nobody gets 50% in the runoff. If the final 3 are all Dems or all Repubs or all Independents - who cares? And if the parties want to VOLUNTARILY get together and pick one candidate and the candidates go along with it then more power to them.

What happens in California bears no resemblance to what happens in the rest of the country so it's a terrible analogy. The incentive for career politicians is to do whatever is necessary to ensure re-election because if you don't get re-elected you're out of a job. This means taking huge campaign contributions and catering to the party line even if you don't agree with it and voting for things you know aren't in the best interest of the country. It means giving in to short term demands because they satisfy the voting public rather than taking a stance and making a decision that's in the best interest of the nation long term. A prime example is Ford cutting back on incentives and inventory levels. This can't be terribly popular with the dealers since they could sell more vehicles with higher incentives, especially since it doesn't cost them anything extra. But Ford knows it's not in the best long term interest of the company or the dealers to do that. Or corporations that go for short term gains to satisfy the wall street day traders instead of looking at the long term picture. That's why you need someone who doesn't have to worry about being re-elected to go out and do the right thing even if it's unpopular with the average voter. It's like being stranded on a deserted island with nothing to eat except one chicken. You can eat the chicken and die from starvation in a couple of weeks or you can keep the chicken and eat the eggs for months or years. A lot of people - if they were really hungry - would just eat the chicken if you allowed them to. We need political leaders that will stand up to the chicken eaters and force them to eat the eggs for their own good. That simply won't happen with a career politician.

That's all. Enjoy!

Where did I say it was left vs. right? I said both parties were to blame. They don't want to fix the problem - they want to get reelected and they can't do that if they raise taxes or cut spending on things that affect their constituents. The only difference between the right and the left is who they want to tax and where they want to spend the money. I don't think either side will do what's necessary unless we either get term limits so they don't have to worry about getting reelected so they'll actually make the unpopular decisions or the tea party starts to gain public support for bipartisan candidates who support spending cuts. Right now we're the 800 lb person refusing to stop eating pizza and cheeseburgers.