RichardK
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Posts posted by RichardK
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Does anyone know when or if the Ecosport will be redesigned to look like the Puma?
Or is it just possible to import the Puma and call it the Ecosport?
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On 6/1/2019 at 2:46 PM, Auburn Al said:
If Ford ever wondered why they are losing brand value to the Japanese brands I have the reason. I’ve purchased three Toyota’s in 18 years and have put over 400K miles on them. I decided to purchase a NEW truck for the first time ever. I settled on the nearly 80K Ford Raptor as a 40th present to myself. At 6000 miles I started having oil pressure issues and transmission issues. The dealer I purchased it from said I should bring it in. I did that at 8,000 miles. I brought it in and must say that Grapevine Ford must be the worst service organization. The service group was lightly staffed on that day and had to search for someone to give my truck to. The two service managers were not around, but I grabbed their cards. I left messages with both of them. One never called me back and the other’s VM says it’s broken so I need to text him, which I did. While I was waiting around I asked for some water and was told “there is a water fountain inside.” No attempts to say “let me go get that or offer a bottle water.” No attempts to go the extra mile when I clearly have major issues. The manager and I spoke on Monday and when I asked him about a loaner his response was “Did you buy that with the warranty?” Wow! Didn’t realize I needed to do that as I never bought a new car and quite frankly never had an issue with one of the Toyota’s in all those years. I would expect that you spend $80K on a car that would be the least they would do when it’s determined I have head gaskets and transmission issues four months after purchase. I Ubered for a week and had great customer service. Upon picking it up on Friday I got in to find they had driven it for about 40 miles based on the paperwork. Did they fill it up with gas after making the repairs? Nope. Did they even wash it with all the dirt from having service guys all over it. No again. I asked about it and the response was astounding. “If you were my customer I would have made sure it was washed.” Really? So, the 80K I spent at Ford doesn’t constitute me as your customer. Ford just doesn’t get it. Fact is I WAS your customer, but will never return to Grapevine Ford let alone purchase another Ford.
Grapevine is one of the worst Ford dealerships on record. Go to one of the Five Star Dealerships, North Richland Hills, Lewisville, Carrollton, or Dallas.
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On 11/15/2019 at 9:11 AM, akirby said:
I doubt it. I mean, they were making $2B/qtr with Focus and Fiesta and they made $2B last quarter without them, so what does that tell you?
I agree.
Also, if you compare operating income, which excludes interest, taxes, etc:
3rd quarter 2018 $36,802,000 versus $37,252,00 for 3rd quarter 2019.
In 2018 they were still selling Focus and Fiesta, but virtually none it 2019.
I believe traditional sedans will be replaced by lifted vehicles, like the Mach E.
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The upstarts, especially from Korea, have directly impacted the unit sales and market share of Ford and the other manufacturers. Here are the sales figures for 2000 and 2018.
2000 2018
Kia 160606 589673
Hyundai 244391 667634
I am sure there are other examples.
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This act by the sheriff punishes the dealer more than Ford. $750,000 over two years is significant to Hixon and not so much to Ford Motor Corporation.
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Always good to hear from you Deanh and appreciate your perspective from the California market! Agree completely with your comment about ATP's having no effect on sales as no one other than Ford cares about it.
The market seems to gone past the initial demand for the Transit's and retail sales have been dropping. As for Transit Connects, our store didn't buy a single 2017MY Transit Connect and still has five or six 2016's that we're trying to get rid of. We do okay with C-MAX Energi models as they lease well, have done better with the Focus when we can get the 1.0L EcoBoost/Automatic SE's, the Fusion continues to drop each month (not helped by the very poor MCE), Escape commodity issues hurt getting the inventory we want compared to what Ford wants to build, F-150's and Super Duty's especially difficult to schedule due to commodity issues.
What is MCE?
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I had a 2012 Fusion for 3 years. During that time there were two defects. The passenger upper grab handle came loose and one screw came out completely, which I fixed myself. The gas filler door lost the spring tension. This was replaced by the dealer during an oil change. In JD Power methodology this would have been two defects in the long term survey. However, in reality these were non events.
You notice that Ford moved way up in the ratings basically due to improvements with Sync, according to an Automotive News article on this survey. When they were near the bottom you would think the transmissions were falling out. Ford brand gets 3 dots in power train mechanical quality, yet Lincoln gets 5 dots. This could be due to Focus issues.
These surveys are interesting, but not really useful.
Automotive News is subscription protected. However, it will let you in once a day.
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With all due respect, there is no guarantee a vehicle will operate for five years without cost of repair. Electronic and mechanical components will fail at some point in time, it is just a matter of when. Ford cannot guarantee the APIM forever and warranties will end.
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Unfort
Nope. A few powertrain engineers and management need to be let go too.
That is just gross negligence. I don't even own one of these vehicles and I want to be part of the lawsuit.Unfortunately, class action law suits only line the pockets of attorneys. The customer or injured party usually gets a very small settlement, like some extra rebate on a new purchase.
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...and those percentages are pretty flat compared to last year.
I'm curious, does anyone know which vehicles tend to be sold most to rental companies from Ford?
It seems to be Focus and Fusion, with some Edge and Explorer. I rent from Avis a lot and this is what I notice anyway.
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Good to see Lincoln back positive after a couple of slightly down months. And over 10,000 sold too, something they didn't do at all last year aside from December, which obviously always has inflated numbers. The new Navigator should give the brand a shot in the arm at the end of the year (and next year of course).
MKC continues to rise, while MKX would be down the whole year if it weren't for a big January. It'd be nice to see it push past the 3,000 level consistently. It's a great vehicle, I wonder why it isn't doing better. It'll be interesting to see what the new face will do for sales when it comes.
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As for Ford, nice to see Edge bump up. Like MKX, its sales haven't been gaining traction for some reason either. I wonder why that is?
Explorer with a nice (random) bump. Trucks keep chugging along nicely.
Lincoln with 10288 units had a chance to catch Infinity. However, Infinity jumped 15.6% to 12514. Lexus having some issues dropping 4.8% to 25401 and Acura dropping 1.3% to 12514.
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The trans is a piece of crap. I don't think anyone needs to back up their words when it comes to reiterating that fact.
I see you have a 2014. Have you had problems?
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I get matching company stock in my 401K. First thing my management company does every month is sell it. Worst mistake you can make is investing heavily in the company you work for (for retirement purposes). If the company goes belly up you lose your pension and your 401k.
I agree with that. I had the same situation with Home Depot. It is best to diversify. Remember, Enron? Employees lost everything.
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I'm sorry, but if your pension fund is that heavily invested in such a volatile industry, then your pension fund is being very badly mismanaged.
Pension funds invest for the future and in all manner of companies. I am not sure who these institutions are. This is not just the auto workers, but also teachers, federal workers, and even hedge funds, etc. I am not saying Ford is a great investment for short term gains. However, at this price level it might make a good value play. If it goes back to $18, that is a gain of 63%, plus while you are waiting it pays a dividend of over 5%. You cannot get a 5% yield on on any fixed term investment these days.
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False. That's only a problem to investors, and really only the short sighted day traders.
54% of the common stock is owned by institutions. This could be pension funds, where the stock value is a big issue. Day traders do not care about value or name of the company. They trade off volatility.
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I'd say more often than not Bill has been pretty astute with running the company and doing the right thing. The whole thing with Fields is just window dressing to help improve stock prices. There isn't anything "critically" wrong with the company.
I agree. As said earlier, Bill Ford realized he was not up to the task of running the company on a day to day basis. That is why he pulled Mulally in. Now, he brought Hackett in from the outside. In my opinion, Bill Ford is the visionary.
I am not sure why we are all going through the hand wringing. Apparently, the only major problem is the stock price. Ford is profitable and has huge cash flow. There are many other companies that wish they were in this shape.
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The transmission issues with Ford are absolutely ridiculous. I just bought out the lease of my 2014 Ford Focus a month ago and now the car is stuck in the shop with transmission issues. I was driving to an important appointment (which I missed) when it just stopped moving forward and I lost all power. Anyone else have something similar happen? If so, what was wrong with your car/how much did it cost? It’s been at the dealership for a week and a half now and I still have no exact answer as to what is wrong. Apparently, just to diagnose the problem the whole transmission needs to be overhauled and the labor alone is around $2000!! That’s before I even know what’s wrong and know how much the part to fix it will cost. A year ago I heard about a transmission recall and had the clutch replaced, is there any way it could be related? If I had known that a car this new would have transmission issues I never would have bought it in the first place. The dealership can’t even work with me and give me a loaner car while the work is being completed. All I can hope is that we will figure out the issue and will have a car back soon! I used to think very highly of Ford vehicles but after this catastrophe and all the things I’ve been reading about all the transmission issues Ford cars have I don’t think my next car will be from Ford. I mean c’mon, it’s a 2014, I shouldn’t be having transmission issues! My 2001 Mitsubishi was more reliable than this and I would take that car back in a heartbeat at this point! If anyone has any advice or suggestions it would be greatly appreciated!
It is odd you did not have any problems until 3 years later after buying out the lease.
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I read a quick review in Motor Trend the other day. They pointed out the Continental has a complete emphasis on luxury features with Ford achieving what they set out to do. Unlike some other so called luxury brands, which try to mix luxury with performance and missing the mark.
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Lincoln has trailed the other major luxury brands, Lexus, Cadillac, Acura, etc., in recent years, by a wide margin. However, this month they got close to Infinity's sales of 8514 versus Lincoln's 7177.
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"We saw strong customer demand for our cars and SUVs with the latest technology and sold a very rich mix in November,” said Mark LaNeve, Ford vice president."
How can he say this when car and SUV sales were both down? Is he saying that only the models with latest technology options are strong and entry level are not?
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If the Taurus is going to be discontinued, as some people are reporting, what will they use for the police interceptor, just the Explorer?
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I do not trust Consumer Reports and would not follow their ratings. However, that said, I subscribed earlier this year just to find out what they are saying in detail. It is interesting to note how the reliability ratings are determined. Way down in fine print it says a car is considered worse than average with a problem rate of more than 3% and better than average with a rate below 2%.
That is not much of a spread, yet they make sensational comments when a vehicle comes out worse than average. They even admit in the same paragraph that trouble spots in some areas are very low. However, they continue to make mountains out of mole hills.
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Lincoln MKZ, MKS, and MKX place within top 3 spots in their segment.
This may be a duplication from another post. However, it gives a little more narrative.
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I really do not see how some of this stuff could make it into a production car. Chrome tail lights? He even admitted this is not perfected for production.
2022 Ford Maverick Pickup thread
in Maverick (light truck)
Posted
I had a 2001 with the bed extender. It was very useful.