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Ford Transit Connect arriving in U.S. with full interiors that get stripped to comply with "Chicken Law"


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interestingly enough apparently its as high as a 20 % tariff.....anyways, its only temporary as we know eventually the Connect will be assembled either here or Mexico i beleive....and since they are not bringing in massive amounts of Connects, this acts as a case study...ie, will it sell?, what are the complaints ?, what do AMERICANS feel we should change....smart if you ask me whilst a factory here is brought up to speed....and also, isnt the chassis due to change with the new Focus?

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The tax is 25% on commercial vehicles.

 

The connect has its own unique platform to cope with its role. Higher gvwr. I don't see it sharing with the focus.

I thought it was already based on a strenghtened focus chassis? could be wrong, but hell we get DIDDLY details on such info from ford itself, hell, half the time i get more info here. If so though, it leads one to beleive when the Focus gets "upgraded" that the Connect will also follow suit ( as mentioned C3 )

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Just shows the stupidity and unintended consequences of "protectionist" trade policies....no matter who is doing it.

 

 

I think it shows the stupidity of not producing your product in the place you plan to sell it. We need more laws like this.

 

If it's good enough for China, Korea, and Japan, it should be good enough for the U.S.

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I think it shows the stupidity of not producing your product in the place you plan to sell it. We need more laws like this.

 

If it's good enough for China, Korea, and Japan, it should be good enough for the U.S.

 

The TC is in testing mode. Producing such a product when Ford weasnt sure if it would be a success or not over here could have left more out of work. Protectionism never works. It got us into Great depression and should never be used again.

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I tend to think of the United States as being better than those countries, not the other way around.

 

I would like to think that however when looking at how the US students stack up, and the US medical care stacks up, a person would be foolish to assume that we are just simply better.

 

I tend to think we have been better and can be better again but we have work to do.

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There has to be better way to do that.

 

Wonder why they could have not been sent to Canada almost assembled (missing bumpers window glass door panels seats and the IP . Then final assembled here and shipped south then they would be covered by the auto pact..

 

Volvo did exactly that in the 70's and 1980's The cars were final assembled in Halifax and shipped all over the U.S and Canada circumnavigating the chicken tax.

 

If the TCT's are built in England then they come in to Canada tariff exempt as they are covered under the Commonwealth trade agreements.

 

 

Even sillier is that the removed components are not shipped back to to the point of assembly and reused.

 

And they worried about wasting energy and forcing us to to be more energy consumption consciouses

 

Matthew

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I would like to think that however when looking at how the US students stack up, and the US medical care stacks up, a person would be foolish to assume that we are just simply better.

 

I tend to think we have been better and can be better again but we have work to do.

 

Care to explain that one. We have second best mortality rate in the world (only after Japan, though many say thats due to eating habits), we have the lowest death rates with cancer, nobody gets a $ on their head, etc, etc, etc. Seems like we have the best, sure not perfect...but still alot better.

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There has to be better way to do that.

 

Wonder why they could have not been sent to Canada almost assembled (missing bumpers window glass door panels seats and the IP . Then final assembled here and shipped south then they would be covered by the auto pact..

 

Volvo did exactly that in the 70's and 1980's The cars were final assembled in Halifax and shipped all over the U.S and Canada circumnavigating the chicken tax.

 

If the TCT's are built in England then they come in to Canada tariff exempt as they are covered under the Commonwealth trade agreements.

 

 

Even sillier is that the removed components are not shipped back to to the point of assembly and reused.

 

And they worried about wasting energy and forcing us to to be more energy consumption consciouses

 

Matthew

 

Im betting the owrth of the seats isnt enough to justify it.

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So taxes aside.... does this mean that a passenger van version would be cheaper than the work truck?

I specd out an XL Wagon ( has two seats behind the front row, and windows all around ) and compared to an XL Van...no windows or seats...it was approx $100 cheaper....no brainer for the customer

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There has to be better way to do that.

 

Wonder why they could have not been sent to Canada almost assembled (missing bumpers window glass door panels seats and the IP . Then final assembled here and shipped south then they would be covered by the auto pact..

 

Volvo did exactly that in the 70's and 1980's The cars were final assembled in Halifax and shipped all over the U.S and Canada circumnavigating the chicken tax.

 

If the TCT's are built in England then they come in to Canada tariff exempt as they are covered under the Commonwealth trade agreements.

 

 

Even sillier is that the removed components are not shipped back to to the point of assembly and reused.

 

And they worried about wasting energy and forcing us to to be more energy consumption consciouses

 

Matthew

 

The chicken tax only applies to commercial vehicles. For passenger vehicles the tax rate is 2.5%.

 

When it was introduced back in the 1964 it was aimed at Volkswagen as Germany was the one to introduce the tax on the frozen chickens. Incidentally it was also on potato starch and brandy but they have since been repealed.

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I thought it was already based on a strenghtened focus chassis?

 

I did a bit of checking and yes your right. It is on a modified C170 chassis, stronger and longer. This is the chassis that the north american focus is based on, the rest of world focus is on the C1 chassis.

 

 

but hell we get DIDDLY details on such info from ford itself, hell, half the time i get more info here. If so though, it leads one to beleive when the Focus gets "upgraded" that the Connect will also follow suit ( as mentioned C3 )

 

Your not the only ones, they don't tell us 2nd line manufacturers anything either.

 

I will conceded that It is quite possible that they will switch it to the common C3 chassis. Especially seeing as it didn't change over to the C1 chassis when the focus did.

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If the TCT's are built in England then they come in to Canada tariff exempt

They're built in Turkey.

 

And undoubtedly, this is the cheapest solution.

 

1: why not ship partially assembled vehicles?

 

Because that would complicate assembly in Turkey

 

2: why shred the seats instead of shipping them back?

 

Because it's cheaper to sell the metal seat frames & glass as scrap and shred the foam & vinyl.

 

---

 

The stuff that makes the most sense isn't always the cheapest to do.

 

How much does a quarter-pounder value meal cost? Okay, now how much would it cost to buy a quarter pound of grass-fed hormone free beef, organic lettuce, and the sundry other bits required to make a decent meal? And how much longer would it take?

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I did a bit of checking and yes your right. It is on a modified C170 chassis, stronger and longer. This is the chassis that the north american focus is based on, the rest of world focus is on the C1 chassis.

 

From what I understand, the front end from the firewall forward is straight out of the C170 Focus and the rest is different.

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I specd out an XL Wagon ( has two seats behind the front row, and windows all around ) and compared to an XL Van...no windows or seats...it was approx $100 cheaper....no brainer for the customer

I've seen several around Raleigh. All of them were electrical contractors. (not the same company)

 

It took awhile, but I'm seeing more and more at the dealers.

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I think it shows the stupidity of not producing your product in the place you plan to sell it. We need more laws like this.

 

If it's good enough for China, Korea, and Japan, it should be good enough for the U.S.

 

And the TC will be produced here, this is just a stop-gap solution to introduce it to the market.

 

Even sillier is that the removed components are not shipped back to to the point of assembly and reused.

 

I was wondering the same thing, but others have brought up legitimate points against that since I read your post.

 

I specd out an XL Wagon ( has two seats behind the front row, and windows all around ) and compared to an XL Van...no windows or seats...it was approx $100 cheaper....no brainer for the customer

 

Why don't they just sell a few of these units as-is (in passenger form) and see how they do? I saw a red passenger version down here a few weeks ago, or at least it had rear windows.

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Care to explain that one. We have second best mortality rate in the world (only after Japan, though many say thats due to eating habits), we have the lowest death rates with cancer, nobody gets a $ on their head, etc, etc, etc. Seems like we have the best, sure not perfect...but still alot better.

 

I'm not sure how you define "second best mortality rate"... Practically every measure of health puts the United States on the boundary between developed and developing nations.

 

Infant mortailty: 6.3 per 1000 live births (a bit worse than Cuba)

Life expectancy: 35th (just higher than Taiwan and Albania)

Health Care Expendiatures: 17.6% of GDP (70% more than the next nearest country).

 

We're spending more, and getting less.... and it's not hard to see where the money's going.

 

[edit: deleted my bad math...oops!]

Edited by Noah Harbinger
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