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Ford Flex Ceases Production in 2020


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I have a friend that has a flex with over 100k on it and they still love it. They are not loyal to any brand as they have a new Honda Accord, but they haven't been able to find a replacement vehicle that has the interior flexibility that the Flex does to accommodate their family's needs. It is too bad that Ford hasn't devoted some investment in it, to keep it more interesting to people.

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I have a friend that has a flex with over 100k on it and they still love it. They are not loyal to any brand as they have a new Honda Accord, but they haven't been able to find a replacement vehicle that has the interior flexibility that the Flex does to accommodate their family's needs. It is too bad that Ford hasn't devoted some investment in it, to keep it more interesting to people.

 

Mine has ~102,000 miles on it now, and I still love it too. It's been a great vehicle, and I love the distinctiveness of it.

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I have a friend that has a flex with over 100k on it and they still love it. They are not loyal to any brand as they have a new Honda Accord, but they haven't been able to find a replacement vehicle that has the interior flexibility that the Flex does to accommodate their family's needs. It is too bad that Ford hasn't devoted some investment in it, to keep it more interesting to people.

 

We've got 105k on ours and we love it for the same reasons. It works perfectly for our family of 5, with plenty of room in the second row to get back to the 3rd row between the 2nd row buckets, and enough legroom in the 3rd row for any of the 3 kiddos.

 

 

Mine has ~102,000 miles on it now, and I still love it too. It's been a great vehicle, and I love the distinctiveness of it.

 

It's great how the Flex fits different folks so well for completely different reasons.

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Flex has allot of fans, part of it might be the culture of exclusivity since it's such a low selling product. The Flex is just beyond dated at this point as a new car, but it's still something special and stylish.

 

I agree it's dated, though still distinctive. Powertrain wise, it's still up there with the rest of the lineup (unless you want them to offer the 2.0, 2.3, and/or 2.7 EB engines). The interior, though still nice, needs an update aside from different center stack controls, but only a redesign would solve that, which obviously isn't happening.

 

I'm suprised that Ford didn't see the LWB D3 aka Flex for the Explorer...would have been an improvement in the second row seating.

 

Was that done for better off road capability?

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I will say that Flex is one of the few products designed in the US instead of Europe, and I MUCH prefer interior designs out of Dearborn, but they tend to be trendier and date faster.

 

Designed in the US: F series, Mustang, Fusion, Edge, Explorer, Expedition, Taurus, Navigator, MKZ, MKX, MKC, MKS, Continental

Designed in Europe: Fiesta, Focus, Transit, Transit Connect

 

You have a strange definition of "few".......

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I will say that Flex is one of the few products designed in the US instead of Europe, and I MUCH prefer interior designs out of Dearborn, but they tend to be trendier and date faster.

 

I also prefer the US interiors to the Euro ones. The Euro ones are overstyled in my opinion.

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An interior refresh and updated power trains would help out greatly. The interior was the absolute best in any Ford when the Flex was released in '08. Now, it's just average compared to the rest of the lineup.

On the one hand, I never really liked the Flex's exterior, so it's not really surprising to see it go. On the other hand, the car has somehow managed to attract people that would never otherwise even consider buying a Ford to FoMoCo showrooms... As a result, instead of voting with their dollars for Toyota/GM/the German Three they ended up buying a Flex and contributed to Ford's bottom line by doing so. Whether Ford has made any money on the Flex is a different story, however.

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I have a '13 Flex. I had three random people ask me about in the last two months. If they cancel it I will probably look at Expedition as a replacement.

And we don't really know how many conquest sales the Expedition will be able to generate. I remember reading an article somewhere, according to which people normally buying Expeditions are likely to end up buying a Ford anyway.

 

Of course, Ford had their hands full with trying to survive for the better part of the last decade, but it sure is painful to watch how neglected the Expedition/Navigator twins have been since the year 2003.

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Would it really cost that much to update the driver interface area, tweak the front and rear facia, and provide new powertrain options if they are going to keep it around that long? Shouldn't most of those parts already be available?

 

 

Not if they don't anticipate sales to improve with that investment. I admittedly don't know much about the Flex but does it use any interior switchgear that any existing vehicle uses or is it a gen behind?

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Not if they don't anticipate sales to improve with that investment. I admittedly don't know much about the Flex but does it use any interior switchgear that any existing vehicle uses or is it a gen behind?

It has the 2013 equipment that is still in use for Explorer, Expedition, Fusion, Taurus, et all. The 2015 F-150 and Mustang and 2017 Super Duty move away to new gear.

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Would it really cost that much to update the driver interface area, tweak the front and rear facia, and provide new powertrain options if they are going to keep it around that long? Shouldn't most of those parts already be available?

 

Unfortunately, it would probably be too costly.

 

If the Flex were to get the 2.7L EcoBoost and the new 9 speed, we would buy another as soon as that happened. Since that likely won't happen, we are probably on our last Flex. We really like it, but when we are ready for another one, I just don't want to buy a new vehicle that is so far out of date.

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Unfortunately, it would probably be too costly.

 

If the Flex were to get the 2.7L EcoBoost and the new 9 speed, we would buy another as soon as that happened. Since that likely won't happen, we are probably on our last Flex. We really like it, but when we are ready for another one, I just don't want to buy a new vehicle that is so far out of date.

This is why I'm going to buy a Yukon instead of an Expedition as a stop gap measure until the new Expedition or Navigator comes out.

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Yeah it's unfortunately tough to justify a new one....granted for me the 3.5 EB would be an upgrade, but otherwise is basically the same vehicle. Which I guess in some ways isn't bad, but in others it's almost like not getting a new car.

Unfortunately that's the ramification of Ford's lack of investment in some of these refreshes. It gives existing owners little incentive to update to a new vehicle.

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