MattInFLL

Land Rovers - despite their problems - are huge with the "it" crowd, and are highly profitable. Jag represents a huge investment which could pay off. Luxury brands do well... why would you sell them? Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and even Mercedes - prove you can make "everyday" cars and premium cars and make money - many times on the same platforms. But you don't see any of those brands selling rebadged versions of their main cars and trying to fool the public into thinking they are different cars... like Mercury... why not get rid of Mercury and put that money into making a more premium trim level on the Ford versions? Like Toyota, Honda and Nissan do... My family has owned lots of Jags, and ever since Ford bought them, they run fine... before Ford bought them, they were a nightmare. A very good friend had to be given a whole new 7 series a month after he bought it, and it just stopped dead.. the dealer wouldn't even say why they didn't try to fix it. They just gave him a new car. My Mercedes friends have lots of horror stories... not sure any highly technical car, other than Lexus, is rock solid.

If they wanted to stop bleeding red ink, maybe they should have done more with their product. It's a product driven market, and the fact they are no longer number 2 is a sign of the fact that they are not good at delivering product. Ford is a full-line car and truck company, not a boutique. That is its heritage, and to give that up gives up the soul of the company. They are abandoning large RWD cars, and they are late with crossovers that are not compelling. Escape and Focus have not kept up (and they could have). The 500 is a great car, but is not a compelling choice for consumers. The Ranger has been left to die. Do you see many Freestyles on the road? The Fusion is clearly a hit, but not a save the company hit. Same for Mustang. And what have we got coming? Oh yeah, the Edge. Oh and some freshened Expeditions no one wants. That's it. So just when is the company going to stabilize when they are selling mainly stale product that is not in line with what the consumer is buying - and there is really not that much in the immediate pipeline? Forget "bold" advertising, they need bold bet-the-company leadership... oh wait, didn't they just announce yet another revision to their "turnaround plan" ? Being on the retreat has not usually won battles. My first word as a baby was "mustang" and I have always been fiercely loyal to Ford, but that doesn't mean I won't criticize them when they are screwing up so bad.

It absolutely matters that Ford has lost #2.. it affects morale, it affects image, it affects a lot... it leads to apathy.. and that all affects the employees in a big way. Ford is making me so mad. Why doesn't the 500/Montego have a bigger engine already? Leaving the large RWD market to Chrysler is idiotic - the Town Car/Crown Vic could have generated money for years, but they neglected them too long. Explorer/Expedition sales have been dropping for a while now - it's like they just freakin realized it. The Focus should be on the Mazda 3 platform already. If Jag had revamped the S even once, and the X was a true G35/IS competitor, the plan would have worked. But as usual Ford comes up with a great idea, and doesn't follow through...or waits for some halo vehicle like the original Explorer to save the company. Well the Edge aint it. It's ugly. Look at the Mazda CX-7/9 - handsome vehicles that can compete on style and technology.. right there in Ford's own stable.. and what do we get? A slab slided box. INstead of spending billions on an aluminum platform everyone just basically yawns at (XJ), they could have developed a versatile large RWD platform that could have worked in a Jag and a Lincoln or even a Mercury. Nissan/Infiniti and Mercedes/Chrysler have proven you can make a platform work in a premium and a more standard vehicle. But nope, the XJ ( a very fine car) sits on dealer lots with bland style, and the Town car is being killed off... while large luxury cars fly off other brand's lots and Cadillac proves there is room for a large American luxury car. So now sell Jag? After all that money? When someone else can come in, tweak it and make it work? Stupid. Why not kill Mercury and expand Lincoln? Just dumb, dumb, dumb!!! So yeah, falling to #3 makes a BIG difference - because it's just one more example of how Ford is in deep sh*t. And that is sad. This isnn't sky is falling. The sky has been falling for a long time, and Mark Fields is the latest "we're gonna turn this around" person... yeah, OK, let's hope he does. But Bill was supposed to do that too. Their heads are still not out of the sand.