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balthisar

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Everything posted by balthisar

  1. > Ford executives are already talking about the need to offset the higher expenses in this latest deal. The automaker has said the UAW contract would add $850 to $900 per vehicle in additional costs.
  2. I'll vote third party, despite people telling me I'm wasting my vote. Statistically, no one individual vote ever matters on the national scale, other than potentially Florida 2000. Funny, when I do tell people I'm voting for a third party, I'm always supporting the enemy of whomever it is I'm talking to!
  3. That's still an historically large house, though. Here's an actual Census report that's fascinating because it goes beyond merely home size. Here in SE Michigan, there are shitloads of houses under $200,000, and, no, they're not all in Detroit. Most of them aren't in Detroit. But they're also not in the "cool" places like Royal Oak that everyone thinks that they must live in to feel content. They hear someone make fun of "Westland" by calling it "Wasteland" and now it's not on anyone's list for consideration, even though it's a perfectly fine, non-failing city. My first house was smaller than my parents' house. It was in a slightly worse postal code. I was making less money. I was 25 or so years behind them, so why should I have expected to have the same stuff? I certainly didn't expect to live in a million dollar condo in downtown Birmingham on my first salary directly out of the Army.
  4. Unifor came from the CAW, and the CAW broke away from the UAW, because the membership thought that the UAW was way too weak in its demands, right? I might be misremembering it, but it seems to me that you OAC guys should be the loud ones. On the other hand, with St. Thomas closed, it's just you now.
  5. I've got a 2021 Mach E that I'll probably replace with a '24. Depending on price, I'll probably downsize the battery and switch to RWD, because I've accepted that for the next few years, I'll use my ICE Expedition for road trips. I realize that a lot of people have different needs than I do, though, and don't have the luxury of having multiple vehicles.
  6. Throughout May and June there was an industry-wide shipping issue getting vehicles out Mexico (affecting all OEM's -- this is not proprietary information). I was actually visiting the plant in late May, and there were unshipped MME's visible from the public streets filling every possible parking area at CSAP, including some lots that are/were employee parking lots. These weren't chip-hold vehicles; it was all logistics-related. Also public is the fact the CSAP was down for a month while being reconfigured for a major upspeed. I can't say what the consumer sales are, but my own observations look like what we're seeing is a sudden influx due to the backlog.
  7. If you're an active employee, you should have access to https://us.fordtirehotline.com/
  8. I had a Fusion Energi with 13 miles of winter range, and about 25 miles of summer range. I much, much prefer my Mach E with 180 to 300 miles of range for 99% of my use. Road trips can be irritating, but that's 1% of my use, in which case I take my ICE vehicle instead. And it's fun, and I can drive it like a car instead of a stupid Prius-like hypermiler wannabe that the Fusion Energi encouraged. The problem with the PHEV is I either babied the heck out of it to get the range, but as soon as I was on gas, I just said "screw it" and drove the hell out of it, not realizing anything in savings. If it had only had, say, double the electric-only range, it would have been great, but as is, I couldn't get to half my destinations in SE Michigan on electricity alone. Just eliminate the complexity of a second drive train and go all electric. Your gas car won't do 100% of what you need, and neither will your electric. That's why rentals exist.
  9. These aren't the ones being built by TDM (Troy Design & Mfg., a fully-owned Ford subsidiary) in Plymouth, MI?
  10. I wonder if these Dec 1. retirements are really November 30th. The lump sum pension payout devalues significantly on December 1st, thanks to the Fed raising interest rates.
  11. While I don't listen to AM radio, we have the massive, huge AM 760 New Radio here in the heart of Ford corporate. I'm not sure how this can happen, or how much money can be saved. On the other hand, my ODB2 programmer has just come in, and I'm looking how to delete AM, FM, and Sirius from the menu choices. It would be nice to have that option in the menu.
  12. Same here. I met quite a few of our execs when we were in China, because it's a small community when you're there. Most of them are everyday Joes. Some of their wives, though, seem to go on power trips (but I never met Hinrichs' wife).
  13. You didn't find anything at https://accessories.ford.com/? My 2022 Expedition Max version is installed, and I paid for it with the points I got for buying the truck.
  14. "No one ever gets fired from Ford Motor Company" is what I was taught when I started working at Dearborn Engine and Fuel Tank in 2000. We don't have LDEP's anymore. There's some nebulous thing in "Career Navigator," but it certainly doesn't work like LDEP's did.
  15. I don't seem to have Alexa on my Mach E. I wonder if I need to await a software update for it. I did find Alexa on my Expedition that finally arrived. It seems there are two parts, though. "Alexa" per se, and some "Ford Streaming" thing that's about to expire. And when I, as a computer and tech literate guy, try to find out what all of this stuff is, I find out that Ford's website kind of sucks and doesn't make anything at all clear. Between "Hello Ford," "Hey Siri," and "Alexa," I won't be too sad if Alexa stops working when my Ford Streaming trial ends in a few days. In a world where everyone has cellular phones with unlimited data packages, I don't see who's paying $120 a year for Ford Streaming, plus whatever the AT&T Hot Spot service costs, plus cell phone. I guess it's people who just have more money than brains, or are just bad at personal financial management, or make so much that they don't worry about personal financial management. I'm a little peeved to find out that BlueCruise was "included" but am now told it's only a "trial"; it's the whole reason I stepped up to Platinum.
  16. I'd happily spend my time at any Pilot instead of that shady Walmart in Huber Heights, OH. I just hope they're putting enough in. Right now I don't have trouble finding spots, but as more and more vehicles are electrified, it becomes a PITA. Hell, I don't even like filling up my ICE vehicles at Costco because waiting in those lines suck, and they move pretty quickly given how many folks are waiting.
  17. That priority is only valid for other orders due to that dealer. Someone's 19 at another dealership might actually be built and shipped first.
  18. Banks do leases, too, as do dedicated leasing companies, and even the finance arms of competing manufacturers. You're not stuck with Ford Credit if you have to lease.
  19. Close. I downloaded PL215 and the order guide, figured out what I wanted, and told my dealer to order it. I got my order number back from them, and have been tracking on a Ford internal site since then. I know more about the vehicle then my dealer. And, I'm an idiot. My order number was on a document they email me, and it says "Preview Order," and there it is: the A-Plan pricing. ?
  20. If I had the PL215 document in effect at the time of the order, is it safe to say that "Invoice Less Holdback (3%) + 275 - ad-rate" would approximate the A Plan price for PL215, even though PL245 is active now? My understanding of the advertising rate is that it's regional, but when I put in random city ZIP codes into the A Plan pricing website, the A Plan pricing doesn't change, making me think it's pretty uniform, at least in Detroit, Houston, and NYC. Reverse engineering the current A Plan prices vs. PL245 seem to show that the advertising rate is currently 1.07731133817556% of MSRP (not counting delivery). Is delivery supposed to be price-protected? PL215 showed $1695 for my vehicle, and both the A Plan site and PL245 shows $1795 for my vehicle, but the window sticker is showing the PL215 rate for delivery, but all of the current PL245 pricing. Anyway, mostly it's curiosity, because my vehicle is still sitting at KTP waiting for something or other.
  21. Rim theft was common at my Army Reserve outpost. Yup, they'd come off the street onto a military installation with actual weapons stored there, and just take what they wanted. If I wanted to steal from MAP, I'd go to the body shop parking lot off Van Born. Much more privacy back there.
  22. It was sure as heck voluntary when I tried to buy a Mercury Marauder, and that's here in Michigan, where everyone accepts A Plan.
  23. Where are you located? While the rules don't require them to, in certain areas, they're just going to go out of business if they don't offer A Plan.
  24. It's going to be the next electric F-150. Easy enough.
  25. VOME. When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere!
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