GearheadGrrrl

Did a search on cars.com for pickups within 50 miles of my rural home, came up with 60 total- 36 Ram, 18 Chevrolet and GMC, and only 6 Ford. Price wise, the cheapest pickup was a Ram and the cheapest Ford was $10K more- That makes Ram tempting even if you're a Ford driver. Even if chip supplies returned to normal tomorrow it'll take at least the rest of the year for inventories to return to the "normal" 60 days and with crop prices up the farmers will be looking for trucks to buy before the end of the year to reduce their tax liability. It may be outside their "comfort zone", but Ford and the dealers need to quickly learn how to market and incentives BTO sales to survive.

They copied JIT from the Japanese, forgetting that the auto industry and suppliers in Japan are fairly centralized so their supply lines are short. Doesn't work so well in a spread out continent like North America where suppliers and assembly plants are often a thousand or more miles apart and the weather can shut down transportation for days.

More "dealer light" than factory direct- Still need a local retailer to offer test drives, handle trade ins, etc.. But if you look at how the "friction" of cost drivers in other areas of business and how retailers that add another layer of cost without commensurate value have been driven out of those market, the days of the dealer that adds little value to the vehicle are numbered.

This crisis is an incredible opportunity for Ford- For decades the sales model has been to waste ten or so million dollar acres of prime retail property to store new cars so the customer can sign and leave with a new vehicle before they do due diligence just so the factories can keep running. To continue that stupidity, we build vehicless for inventory first and figure out how to sell them later, to the point where Ford has at times had a million unsold vehicles in the system, plus the downside financial risk of millions of vehicles that Ford has leased and financed. There has to be a better way... How about offering enough incentives for customer orders that they can order a car for less $$$ than buying a heavily rebated one that's wasted lot space and tied up capital for months? Do the same thing with used, with many trades going almost straight through reconditioning to a new owner as the online dealers are increasingly doing. And all that prime acreage on high traffic roads? Profitably lease it out, maybe even a Ford themed restaurant or accessories store. Save the back lot for service and employee parking, but cut down on that space by reducing wait times for parts orders and employee van pooling- We make great vans and minibuses, don't we? Ford is starting to figure it out- Being big in the fleet biz they've been offering good BTO deals to them forever, and the $500 rebate for retail customer orders is a start. But so many dealers who can't think farther out than end of month don't get it and see this as a chance to virtually auction off the dwindling inventory of new vehicles for inflated prices while demanding list price for a customer ordered vehicle... Next month and maybe for a few more months they'll have little or no new vehicles to make those absurd profits on. I speak from personal experience as a shareholder and customer- I've been "stalking" Transit Connect wagons for over a year now and there's currently at least 10 with the options I want (XLT or higher trim with trailer tow package) within 250 miles but the only discount off MSRP is the $1000-1750 rebates, and only the $500 rebate if I order one that won't arrive until at least September. That puts the price over $30k, at that price I may as well get a cheaper mopar minivan or spend another $5-10k and get a Toyota Sienna that beats the Transit Connect by 9-10 MPG and offers AWD to boot. Millions of customers like me are making the same decisions, and most don't have near enough blind "brand loyalty" to order a $50,000 pickup at a mere $500 off MSRP with no build date. Ford and dealers, you can do better...

Same here- I was working at a Mercury dealership when the Ford dealer across the street got in their first 1970 Louisville. Was only an LN500 gasser with the 300 cube 6, but everyone was impressed with the cab layout, instrument panel, wiring and plumbing, and other details. That Louisville was the talk of both dealerships for days...

Overdrive was an "opinion leader" for owner operators, who were 20% of the market back then, and probably less than 10% now. As for service availability, some like Boyer Ford in the midwest did a great job and helped build the Ford heavy truck brand while some did nothing or next to nothing. Even if you didn't have a good dealership, All the 9000s and much of the smaller series came with industry standard components from Cat, Cummins, Detroit, etc. that could be fixed by just about any heavy truck repair shop.

It all goes back to Ford's over reaction to the not real profitable Class 8 market in the 80s when most of the profit in a new truck went to the engine and powertrain suppliers. Fearful of the cost of the upcoming emissions standards, Ford (mis)management decided they could make more money sending big SUVs instead of big trucks down the Louisville assembly line and pretty much gave the big truck business including the new HN80 conventional to Daimler. A quarter century later Class 8 is owned by only four makers who have used their market power to raise prices to profitable levels and pretty much pushed outside engine suppliers out of the market. If Ford had smarter management they'd be #1 or #2 of the four surviving truck makers.

Another example of how Daimler has made Ford look like amateurs- You can see it too in the hundreds of options Freightliner and Western Star offer to make uplifts easier.

Having a bum right leg, after some persuasion my employer had an aftermarket cruise control put on the mechanical Cummins L10 engined '86 Freightliner I drove, cost several hundred bucks because besides the computer it needed speed sensors and a servo to work the throttle as well as switches. About the same time Detroit Diesel brought out the Series 60 with electronic controls and cruise was standard- All the truck maker had to do was add the switches, maybe some sensors, and wire it up. Couple years later in '96 or so I test drove a VW TDI and same deal- Cruise control standard because all they had to do was put a switch or three on the end of the turn signal stick.

Ford is quite aware of the LNG/CNG/RNG market, that's partly why they developed the new 7.3 V8 and have "gaseous fuel prep" packages for so many vehicles. Daimler and some of the other medium and heavy truck makers can supply these alternative fuel trucks direct from the factory, Ford doesn't do that but that may be because most dealers couldn't handle gaseous fueled trucks?

Once they went to electronic engine controls all it took to add cruise was some software and switches. Camera based low speed navigation assist is a repair cost accelerator and waste of chips, drivers should learn how to drive instead. Automatics? The best are really automated manuals and torque converter based automatics are only an advantage in city traffic and for heavy hauls- I'm talking permit "super loads", not a half ton on or behind an F150. Real on board scales are useful on a big truck that has to loaded right up to the weight limit, sounds like the F150 system is much cruder, and the aftermarket already beat them to it using data from the onboard "tilt" sensors.

Why? I drove truck for decades and never got a ticket, overweight or otherwise- I knew my truck's empty weight, the weight of the load, and loaded it properly so I stayed legal.

As a Ranger and Buell owner, both products suffered from being sold by dealers more interested in pushing bloated full size pickups and cruisers instead of the world's best medium sized pickup and a great sport bike. Ranger buyers are not downmarket F150 buyers and Buell riders will not "grow up" and buy a Road Pig... Killing off Buell hasn't helped HOG(NYSE) sales any, and killing off the Ranger will not sell me an F150!

The limiting factor in Bronco and other "enhanced" 4WD sales is the lack of off road places to drive them. I live in a rural area, plenty of dirt township roads, and I have no problem traveling them with my FWD Golf TDIs with winter tires and bash plates. If you want anything more challenging the nearest ORV park that allows 4WDs is a hundred miles away, off roading on the other public lands will get you a big $$$ ticket, so if you want to test a Brocco's off road abilities out here you'll have to negotiate with a farmer.

1. What do you do with the Bronco showroom when the "off road" fad has passed? 2. The Land Rover style "off road course" can be a source of embarrassment once some U-tuber figures out that a minivan can traverse the course- Sorta like when one of the car mags got access to the master Land Rover course and traversed it with an Audi Allroad and a Volvo wagon!

If they have the production capacity, Paccar will get close enough to the heavy F series in pricing to capture some of Ford's volume- And doesn't hurt that while the heavy F series are pretty much "take it or leave it" options wise, Paccar will be happy to build to the buyer's spec with just about any compatable and legal combination of parts.

Sadly, having to have separate minivans (TC and Caddy) for NA and ROW markets pretty much undoes any savings. Can't blame Ford for that, it's another self inflicted wound from the stupid "chicken tax". As for dimensions, I've checked and the new Caddy and current TC are pretty similar- I like the TC because it's tall enough to haul a motorcycle which most minivans can't handle.

Ford had me confused too, or else Ford is confused and we had it right! I can't see any point in VW doing vans bigger than the Caddy/TC size as long as Ford is willing to do that for them- VW doesn't have much to offer between the car derived vans and Traton's MAN, Scania, and International trucks so may as well leave those chunks of the market for Ford to build. There's a downside to building two completely different TC/Caddy sized vans for NA and ROW, basically they've lost much of the advantages of collaboration and they're back to building two completely different vehicles... Ford should be capable of building the Caddy in Hermosillio.

The publicized plan was for VW to develop and probably build a version of their Caddy minivan on the MQB platform to be sold as the 3rd generation Transit Connect, while Ford will develop and probably build a version of the big Transit and Ranger to be VW's next generation Crafter van and Amorak pickup. Then the collaboration was expanded with VW sharing their MEB electric car platform with Ford. Now we're hearing that Ford will keep building their C2 platform Transit Connect In Mexico for at least the North American market, and who knows which minivan the rest of the world will get and from where. It could be argued that Ford has a plan and isn't showing their "hand" on purpose, but I'm beginning to suspect that Ford has no real plan and they're merely responding to the crisis du jour. As evidence thereof, Ford is getting pushback from the union at the Spanish plant that currently builds the Transit Connect over the loss of that product, while the UAW is confronting Ford over the absence of the new products that they were promised at Avon Lake plant. Meanwhile, Ford has promised 5 new products to a Canadian plant... Perhaps Ford has promised more new products than they can deliver?

Probably explains why it looks like we'll be offered a warmed over Focus based Transit Connect instead of the VW Caddy with a blue oval on the hood. I've been wanting a Transit Connect since I first saw how well it swallows motorcycles a few years back and was planning on buying one about when they'd be changing over to the VW design so I could take my pick of the two. I'm disappointed, but can't really blame Ford for this Johnson era tariff that's denied us a lot of neat little trucks and vans for decades now.

The Ford Ottosan joint venture is still building the Cargo...