SoonerLS

The funny part is that all those people asked "why don't they digitize it?" without reading the source material from Ford (http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=36811), which states that they do take laser scans of the interiors. It's not like Ford doesn't know the interior volumes of their own vehicles--it's not all that difficult to get accurate numbers from the software you use to design the things, after all--but the ping pong balls provide a standardized measurement they can use to compare the interior volumes of their vehicles with those of their competitors, and automating the counting of the balls is a trivial task. Or maybe it's useful as s**t work for engineers who've screwed up...

Thus far, the only media spin I've heard on the topic has been positive. (You know, the kind usually reserved for Toyota after they've spent years dragging their feet and finally given in to fixing the problem... ) For a rather severe (though limited) problem, it might actually be a positive for Ford--they're in the press, and they're doing their best to do right by their customers.

I don't see that at all. Everyone has something about his job that he doesn't like, and nobody likes to see his entire profession labeled as cheats and game-players. Dean has a valid point about the hypocrisy in some statements about how salesmen and dealerships play games in the car-buying process--some do, and I won't deal with most of the Ford dealerships in this region because of them--but those games get played on the buyer's side, as well.

Unless the X Plan rules have changed drastically, to use it, you have to tell the salesman/dealership up front that it will be an X Plan purchase. I don't see how you can comply with that requirement if you've already "ordered" your vehicle...

Then there was the time that their review said they couldn't figure out how to fold down the rear seats in a (IIRC) Mercury Mountaineer--this despite the instructions being in an illustrated label on the side of the seat. Right next to the handle for folding the seat. On the side of the seatback, where you normally find the handle for folding a seat. And I'm pretty sure it was visible in one of the pictures in their review...

Yeah, it is. That article reads like someone who's writing out of her depth; some of it sounds logical, but there are too many mis-statements. One could forgive the odd phrases like "platform capacity," but someone reporting for a financial operation should be able to figure out the ownership of a company. Hell, if you Google "Chrysler ownership," one of the first hits is a news piece from earlier this year about Fiat increasing its stake in Chrysler to 58%...

Yeah, I liked that "lead sled" concept, too. I'd go with that or the Interceptor; I like what the MKR was supposed to be, but not the styling.

She said which is technically true, as selling out the remaining inventory is a phase of being phased out. As for the Ranger comment, she said which looks to me like she's saying that they can use the manufacturing capacity that the Ranger was occupying to build something else. I'm not sure what that might be, given that the Explorer is now on a car platform, but she's still talking about repurposing the manufacturing capacity, not the platform itself. At least I hope that's what she meant, but after that Cerberus comment, maybe I'm giving her too much credit...

If his business really is all within a four-mile radius, that mileage isn't all that bad. He's probably not getting many highway miles and doing lots of idling, so it could be worse...

I'm not talking about patriotism; I'm just talking about the companies themselves. Ford's HQ is in Michigan, which makes it an American company, regardless of where else it does business. Likewise, Toyota's HQ is in Japan, making it a Japanese company. The HQs are where the money ultimately goes and the power resides, so that's the part that's important, IMHO. Personally, I prefer buying from an American company (Ford, in particular), but I don't begrudge anyone the right to buy whatever they want. If you want to buy from a foreign company, I don't particularly care--that's none of my business.

Factories, schmactories. Where are the Global HQs of Ford and Toyota?

I didn't get to see any of the full stories, but I saw several news blurbs a couple of weeks ago about how Honda reportedly finally admitted that building their cars in Japan and importing them into the US was a money-losing proposition. No wonder they were in the vanguard of foreign makes opening assembly plants here...

So, in short, this Cars.com rating is just like all those stupid mile-long infographics--a ploy to drive traffic to the author's Web site...

I don't know the Oklahoma Highway Patrol's official policy, but a friend who is an OHP Trooper was filmed driving in excess of 120mph on Oklahoma back roads. They were shooting an episode of the TV show "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol," and one of the crews was riding along with him when he received a call of shots fired, officer down (IIRC, it turned out to be an erroneous call, so it didn't make the show). This would have been around 15 years ago, when he was still driving a Chebbie Shamu, so I don't know if he got up to 140, but he was definitely giving her the spurs, and he certainly wasn't disciplined for it.

There were several departments doing that. I read an article that the Austin, TX, PD was making a big ($1M+, IIRC) purchase of CVs before the end of the run, and I was told that the Kansas Highway Patrol stocked up, too. The article on the Austin PD said one of the main reasons they were doing it was because they had a metric boatload of money in parts stocked for their CVs; I'd imagine that a lot of the bigger departments are in the same boat.

I found this after a quick search: and this article: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-21/navistar-fined-by-epa-over-technology-built-with-agency

So what's different about the US door latches and marker lights?

That V8 Supercar looks to me like it's a unibody sedan with a roll cage welded into it. That's very much different than NASCAR's tube framed chassis with stickered-up sheet metal hanging off of it.

Yeah, but I remember him saying (or at least reports of him saying) that he stopped it because killing a nameplate with twenty years of brand equity was a mistake. That hasn't changed, so I doubt he'd change his mind on that. The only way I could see the Taurus name going away would be for this theoretical RWD sedan and the Taurus to co-exist for awhile, then phase out the Taurus.

That won't happen while Mulally is in Dearborn; after all, one of his first acts was to nix the killing of the Taurus name (and its 20 years of brand equity). Although I think the SHO name needs to remain Taurus-specific, I don't think the Taurus needs to remain FWD/AWD; I'm perfectly OK with a RWD Taurus.

IIRC, D2C began in the early 2000s; it was originally supposed to be an offshoot of DEW98, and it was delivered for the '05 MY, so I'd guess it really began in earnest in '02 or so.

Never mind. Misread the article...

That's part of it. The other part was that nobody was making the parts needed to maintain the analog cellular networks, so it only was a matter of time (basically, until the parts in stock ran out) before the networks started failing.

That's the irony of the whole deal; the original iPod had a non-proprietary connector--FireWire. The 30-pin dock connector didn't come around 'til the iPod Touch.

At your service.