ice-capades

Per yesterday's FDNB (Fleet Distribution News Bulletin) here's the latest updated production timetable for the 2018/2019 Ford EcoSport. 06/29/2018 - 2018MY Fleet Final Order Due Date 07/16/2018 - 2018MY Last Day to Spec Change 09/24/2018 - 2018MY Job Last Date 07/16/2018 - 2019MY Order Bank Open Date 08/16/2018 - 2019MY Scheduling Begins 10/01/2018 - 2019MY Job #1 Date The 2019 Ford EcoSport Order Guide will be released to Dealers on or about the date that the USOB (Unscheduled Order Bank) opens and will be uploaded to the Order Guide Section as soon as it's available.

I had a meeting with our Ford Zone Manager on Wednesday to do the "wholesale" allocation for June, July and August production (varies by model) and not surprisingly the subject of Ford's recent announcement was discussed. Ford's telling their dealer taht the Fusion will be available for at least 3-4 years. Great. It was announced months ago that Ford had cancelled development of the next generation Fusion and informed suppliers of it. The damage was done with the initial announcement and now Ford's trying to walk it back since they haven't said anything about the final Fusion production timetable. If so, it mean that the Fusion will likely go 10 years without a redesign which is a lot like what they did years ago with the Taurus. Unfortunately, it seems like the Fusion will follow in the Taurus' footsteps and become irrelevant in the marketplace. Further, it seems that Dearborn never learns from its past mistakes and just keeps repeating them. Further adventures to follow from Ford's CEO who's claim to fame is reinventing the office furniture environment while at Steelcase!

One of the biggest mistakes that companies make is misidentifying who the buyer is. The buyer is the person that has the power to make the decision, not necessarily the person that walks in the door!

Okay, maybe they're not making the 8% profit objective and only 4%. Then introduce the product you think will meet your objective and then phase out the product you don't feel is worthy of your attention or future development. Just don't tell the competition further in advance than necessary what your plans are.

Bill Ford hired Hackett and had him start by running Ford's mobility division until they fired Mark Fields and moved him into the CEO position. Hackett's credited with turning around Steelcase and changing the office furniture environment. Hackett's presentations over the past 10 months as Ford's CEO have left analysts and everyone else shaking their heads wondering what he was saying. I've wondered and doubted all along his appointment as CEO but understand that he inherited the mess left behind from Mark Fields' 3 years of cost cutting and pushing back product updates and future product development. With the latest media fiasco, customers and Dealers alike are wondering what's going on with Ford management. Ford long ago posted the final production schedule for C-MAX at the Michigan Assembly Plant and quietly discontinued the C-MAX Energi but never announced that the C-MAX was being discontinued. But now we have Ford announcing the cancellation of all their car models, except Mustang, in a few years which gives the competition the advantage of reassessing their plans to capture a bigger share of the car market even though it's shrinking. Mustang is a both a heritage model and a halo product for Ford that's been an even bigger success since becoming a global seller. No one should doubt it's profitable for Ford at a production rate of only 125,000 units as roughly half of that is for export with more equipment content at much higher prices in US Dollars. And the Fusion, even with reduced sales last year, still sold over 200,000 units but is built in Mexico at substantially reduced costs compared to U.S. production and Ford still claims they're not making money on the Fusion. If that's the case, that's another matter that Ford should be investigating. For years, everything at Ford corporate has been profit driven. Dearborn sets a profit objective and even if a product comes close but doesn't meet the target they'll refuse to increase incentives, even slightly, even if it means losing business and customers. They might talk about entry level buyers but then limit production of "price point" vehicles that their Dealers could advertise to be competitive. They continually fail to realize that if you don't sell the prospective customer the first time, you don't get the opportunity to sell them as repeat customers. Ford management is only interested in protecting their own careers and bonuses and very little about the Company, its Dealers or customers, current or future!

My boss lives on a 100 acre Arabian horse farm and bought the only World Champion Arabian to come out of Wayne Newton's ranch in Las Vegas as a wedding present for his wife years ago. They have 8-10 Arabians at all times and won Canadian Nationals a few years ago and his wife travels around the country judging Arabian competitions. My dad was a horse trainer too and I've never heard of either of those horse breeds you reference. Regardless, the only think people would think of with "Quarab" is Arab. Neither would be suitable for a Ford name.

I haven't had a chance to see the video released to Dealers but unfortunately, the damage is already done and it's all anyone I run into is talking about! As for all the references to "white space" silhouette vehicles... to me it sounds like "code" for "We have no idea what we're doing"!

This has been Ford's practice for years and they never learn but are just content to let the competition catch up and surpass them while the Ford models die from neglect. Ford says they're losing money on 200,000+ Fusions built at a non-union plant in Mexico? Someone might want to look at management if that's true. Customers looking to trade or coming off a lease and looking for a new vehicle want something that looks new. It was so nice in the 60's and 70's when vehicles got redesigned every 3 years. Each vehicle had its own design characteristics that gave it its identity and those elements were maintained and revised for the next generation to keep that model's identity. You could always identify the new models which helped drive the trade-in sales, etc.

Either that or just move Expedition & Navigator production to Ohio and let Kentucky Truck Plant build only Super Duty's.

Sure, there's been a lot of speculation for months about what Ford's future direction was going to be but I think that management has taken things to an extreme. Unfortunately, they keep making the same mistakes over and over. Fusion's history mirrors the Taurus... Introduce an all-new Fusion for the 2013MY which gave the Market a very sharp mid-size sedan that looked better than anything else on the road and then go 6 years with barely noticeable changes. A few exterior changes that the average buyer never noticed because the changes were so slight, introduce the Fusion Sport AWD which while well intended was not a sales success, do another minor refresh for the 2017MY with the most obvious change being the change to a rotary dial shift knob. In the meantime, the competition caught up and surpassed the Fusion with new features and are refreshing their models more often. The mid-size sedan market is shrinking but it's not going away. Ford just telegraphed it's production plans to their competitors. Toyota, Honda & Nissan have more loyal owners and now they can look forward to tapping the orphaned Fusion owners that will be looking for a replacement sedan in the future. That's roughly 200,000 Fusion sales at the current rate that the competition can look forward to. Once they capture those buyers Ford will have a very difficult time getting them back! Ford says that they're losing money on the Fusion even at a 200,000 unit production rate? Maybe someone in the Dearborn glass tower should think about producing better quality vehicles in the first place instead of having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on recalls! How many hundreds of thousands, or millions, of vehicles over years do you produce with something as simple as a door latch that's defective? My last thought is about the thousands or tens of thousands of salaried workers that Ford's hired in recent years. Those positions have to come at a very high cost overall with contributions and value that have to be questioned when looking at Ford's situation today. I expect that the changes announced will take place at the end of the 2019 Model Year since they've already committed to 2019MY production for these models which isn't far away. In the meantime, Ford will keep up the promises of an all-new lineup for the 2020MY and the media will have lots of time to write and speculate about Ford's decisions while their Dealers try to convince prospective customers why they should buy a discontinued model. As always, history will be the judge!

Probably just to make sure they don't run into any unexpected problems on the new model year startup production.

Ford started scheduling retail 2019MY Mustang orders yesterday but will hold those units at the plant and not ship them until the OK to Buy status is reached. Normally the process is as akirby stated but Ford changed this for the 2019Y Mustang probably because the 2019MY is just carryover.

Hmmm... There was really no rush to order before it's too late as the 2018 Escape doesn't balance out for some time.

Ford actually builds a fairly good volume of Focus ST's from what I've seen.

Ford does not convert retail orders that were not scheduled before balance out. The Dealer will have to re-order the vehicle as a 2019MY.

2018MY Mustang orders finished scheduling almost a month ago (03/22/2018?). 2019MY Mustang scheduling started on 04/19/2018 with retail order scheduling starting on 04/26/2018.

The customer is legit... Owns a real estate company that "Flips" property and owns 6-8 different sports cars including (2) Corvettes including a Z06. I've attached a photo of his "Pre-Trade" 2017 Camaro 2SS 50th Anniversary Edition with only 973 miles that's being traded in for the Shelby GT350 that will arrive in a couple of weeks.

Per Friday's FDNB (Fleet Distribution News Bulletin) here's the revised production timetable for the 2018/2019 Lincoln MKX/Nautilus. 05/04/2018 - 2018MY Fleet Final Order Due Date 06/14/2018 - 2018MY Last Day to Spec Change 08/30/2018 - 2018MY Job Last Date 06/13/2018 - 2019MY Order Bank Open Date 07/12/2018 - 2019MY Scheduling Begins 09/04/2018 - 2019MY Job #1 Date The 2019 Lincoln MKX/Nautilus Order Guide will be released to Dealers on or about the date that the USOB (Unscheduled Order Bank) opens and will be uploaded to the Order Guide Section as soon as it's available.

Per Friday's FDNB (Fleet Distribution News Bulletin) here's the revised production timetable for the 2018/2019 Ford Edge. 05/04/2018 - 2018MY Fleet Final Order Due Date 06/14/2018 - 2018MY Last Day to Spec Change 08/30/2018 - 2018MY Job Last Date 06/13/2018 - 2019MY Order Bank Open Date 07/12/2018 - 2019MY Scheduling Begins 09/04/2018 - 2019MY Job #1 Date The 2019 Ford Edge Order Guide will be released to Dealers on or about the date that the USOB (Unscheduled Order Bank) opens and will be uploaded to the Order Guide Section as soon as it's available.

Sounds like additional profit motive for the dealership. Have you had previous incidents of wheel damage? If not, I'd pass anyway. Our dealership regularly uses the wheel repair division of Dent Wizard to do the work when necessary for Ford CPO (Certified Pre-Owned) vehicles. They do excellent work and the cost is well below what you've been quoted.

Yes but also because much of the traffic (visitors) and contributions were coming from Ford Motor Company employees. Ford ended up withdrawing their lawsuit as a result.

Your experience is very unusual to say the least. Sometimes a vehicle might be delayed for an issue but that's almost always a temporary matter and resolved within a reasonable period of time. After all this time, even though your dealership is very small, I'm surprised that they didn't just reorder your vehicle long ago. Your dealership should be talking to upper management at the regional office about this issue, if they're not already. There's no reason after all this time for your vehicle to have been delayed so long without anyone being able to get answers.

Fuzzy, as always, you are a great contributor and resource for the BOF members here! Ford should be paying you for all you do to help! Anyone here remember years ago when Ford tried to shut down this site?

At least Lincoln woke up and is going back to traditional model names to help re-establish brand and model identity and recognition.

I tried looking at Ford's Vehicle Visibility tracking site but it will only allow me to track or trace vehicles for my dealership. Perhaps someone else here that works for Ford with different access can take a look now that we have a VIN number (1FT8W3B60JEB51302) to work with.