GearheadGrrrl
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Posts posted by GearheadGrrrl
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Clearly Detroit has forgotten why they got out of Class 8 trucks decades ago- Most of the profit in a big truck went to the drivetrain suppliers with the assembler struggling to make a profit selling to fleets that specced their favored drivetrain and then bought from the lowest bidder who would assemble it into a truck. That's why Daimler, Volvo, Paccar, and Traton all have their own drivetrains now and only one engine "vendor" survives, Cummins.
Now throw in the fact that the volume of the auto industry in the US is nearly 100 times that of Class 8 trucks, and clearly the volume is there for what's left of the big 3 to build their own engines.
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Ford's retreat continues- Wonder how long what's left of Ford will last?
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This is a "protest" I'll happily skip- $50+K for a pickup that will bankrupt me at the pump?
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EVs will have to prove their worth to earn mass adoption- The current generation are throwaways with an inadequate charging network and often have no GHG reduction advantage over IC vehicles running on renewable fuels.
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IIRC Vander Haag Truck Parts sold them.
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Average family size has shrunk by about one since the 1950s to about 2.5, so the market for 3 row vehicles is shrinking as families of 5+ become rarer. The need for AWD or 4WD is decreasing too as more Americans are living in cities in the south where mud and snow capability is less important. Americans are still feeding their fantasies by buying jacked up 6+ seat pickups and SUVs, but rising prices are tempering those fantasy motivated buying choices.
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Back to our subject, pickups and BOF SUVs face existential challenges-
For a start, affordability- And even if you decontent a BOF pickup/SUV down to the barebones they were decades ago, they're still gonna cost more to build than a unit body FWD sedan/hatch.
And for the customers that still buy 'em, where ya gonna park 'em? Even in the suburbs garages are shrinking and vehicles have to share them with lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc.. And in the cities? You're lucky to get a driveway.
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Agreed on the death of motorcycling- I've got nine motorcycles and nine heirs, and only one can ride a motorcycle and he's the oldest!
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Why hobble a decent medium duty truck with a pickup bed? Fit it with a flatbed with side kit, tool boxes, etc. and have a versatile truck that can outwork any pickup!
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Yes, strategically it would be great to have more factories. But will they produce a profit to pay off the bonds and please the shareholders? Probably not- Ford and many other manufacturers already have adequate capacity and building more plants than needed just soaks up CapEx that's better spent on updating and improving the product.
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Had Bloomberg on all day and even the Trump supporting execs they interviewed thought Trump had gone too far. Was good to see Trump retreat a bit, but new plants are billion dollar 50 year investments that can't be made when Trump changes his mind on tariffs every day.
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Nebraska Tractor Tests used to review trucks advertised for tractor work like Jeep, Land Rover, and Unimog. They didn't do too well against real tractors because they simply didn't have the low speed gearing and suspension reacting to ground engagement loads probably didn't help either. That said, for light tractor work it'll probably work OK.
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Was looking at a Golf R and price jumped up over $3K overnight, hearing that BMWs are selling fast.
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Auto industry is already in an affordability crisis with new car loans over $1K, and now Trump dumps this on them! Ford and GM will be hurt worse than the Asian makers as even in full size pickups almost all are assembled or have powertrains from Mexico or Canada. $100K for a Super duty and $60K for a fleet trim pickup is going to be a hard sell!
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IIRC F150 EV reservations vaporized in a similar manner. Looks like many customers made reservations for several brands of EV vaporware and then bought the one that was actually realized in 3D first or just plain lost interest...
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Not Cummins' 1st gas engine- They offered a "Giesel" gas spark ignited version of their small diesel V8 in the 1960s.
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Problem is the automation, not the employees- USPS top management has closed lots of regional sorting centers so now a package going 5 miles between towns goes 500 miles to a massive sorting center and back. Get a misscan somewhere in there and the package can take a cross country detour. Worked for USPS for 15 years and the workers had to do a lot of workarounds to avoid these mail detours, for example we would manually route mail directly between those adjoining towns so time critical stuff like notices, church bulletins, and ads for local businesses made it to local mailboxes before the event.
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Ford hasn't seriously pitched anything to militaries in years, and there's plenty of other competitors in that space. Heck, even GM is further along than Ford in military products!
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Agreed- The "Chicken Tax" has stifled innovation and jacked prices for trucks in our country, extending that insane tax to all vehicles will result in maybe 4 manufacturers surviving and Ford, GM, and Harley probably won't be one of them.
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Read through all of Ford's literature and especially the order guides, you've got a lot of options with the Transit that will determine your satisfaction with the van. Also helps to find a very helpful dealer and salesperson who has experience speccing Transits that can guide you through all the choices.
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To be honest, if I were looking for a class 4, 5, or 6 medium duty work truck I'd probably buy an Isuzu- Compared to the Ford, GM, and Stellantis it's a real truck with a tilt cab, etc.. Isuzu's problem is lack of dealers, perhaps GM will push more dealers to carry rebadged Isuzus?
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Cummins already has this covered with 7, 10, and 15 liter inline sixes suitable for just about any commonly available fuel and some fuels that ain't so common.
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I've got a '22 Transit Connect with the 8 speed auto, in the manual it says 150K miles service interval but lowers that to 30K if you're towing or hauling tall stuff on the roof. There was also a TSB that noted some internal transmission upgrades around December 2021, unfortunately mine was built before that. I'd ask Ford or the previous owner for at least a contribution to the rebuild cost, also I remember someone on the fordtransitconnect.com forum that was able to revive these transmissions by doing some work on the solenoids.
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We ain't that young...
Corvette ZR1X
in Competing Products
Posted
Ford kills the GT and gives us warmed over Mustangs, the accountants are happy while the fantasies of a Mustang win at LeMans are best forgotten. Meanwhile, GM bets big with world class "Vettes starting with a base model selling for not much more than a Mustang V8 up to million dollar fast for a fifth the price. The Mustang's selling points are down to a thousand pound tow rating, a tiny back seat, and the Ecoboost Mustang's economy that you can't even get a manual with...