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New lawsuit $1.2B


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There's a big axe being ground here and you can see the venom in the tone applied,"
"Ford lied", Ford deliberately did this or that,  there's a lot of proof required to get to that
and sure, I get that folks may be steamed up at the thought that maybe there were faults
in Ford's testing methodology (still to be proven IMO) but is that the job of this law firm?

The other half of this is what if what they say is true that Ford has been fudging testing
coast down figures for years because power train couldn't get to the fuel economy targets
set by the brass and they just made the figures work, does that sound like something Ford
would do, would Ford's eng just buckle to the will of some financial manager/ the top brass?

wasn't there a nother case a while back where lawyers said they had Ford dead to rights for
cheating on Ranger fuel economy? Never heard what happened with that or the Fed investigation

 

Edited by jpd80
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27 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

wasn't there a nother case a while back where lawyers said they had Ford dead to rights for
cheating on Ranger fuel economy? Never heard what happened with that or the Fed investigation

That’s what prompted this lawsuit.  Maybe they did the same thing with F150!  They could have picked any Ford vehicle but F 150 has way more potential plaintiffs than the others.

Total fishing expedition.

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28 minutes ago, akirby said:

That’s what prompted this lawsuit.  Maybe they did the same thing with F150!  They could have picked any Ford vehicle but F 150 has way more potential plaintiffs than the others.

Total fishing expedition.

Of course it is, they're obviously boot strapping F150 to the claim to draw in the most amount of claimants
but I wonder about these so called "tests" that have been performed to check the validity of Ford's own
fuel economy tests. The funny part is this sounds like baddah bing badda boom, get it in the press
and squeeze Ford in the hopes they settle out of court.....

 

Quote

 

According to testing conducted by plaintiffs following EPA-mandated coastdown procedures, Ford has overstated the fuel economy in its F-150 trucks by 15 percent for highway mileage and 10 percent for city mileage. Assuming the lifetime of a truck is 150,000 miles, city driving would consume an extra 821 gallons over the lifetime of the truck, or at $2.79 national average fuel price, an extra $2,290 in fuel costs. The highway extra fuel (actual MPG compared to Ford’s reported MPG) is 968 gallons or $2,700.

Looking at the 2018 sales of F-150s and assuming that 70 percent are V6 F-150s, there were 636,000 trucks sold, the lawsuit states. Total additional fuel cost for that one model year would be $1.4 billion for city fuel, $1.3 billion for the highway rating or $1.2 billion for the combined rating.

I'd love to know where the feds are with their criminal investigation into all of this
as it may speed up the results of this trial, either Ford  covered up mistakes or
a genuine error was made by failing to update test procedures to include new
roll down factors as directed by the EPA....self reporting would suggest the latter.

In the absence of malice (just incompetence) , does that let Ford off the hook
if none of this has been deliberate...and what would it do to F150 sales if Ford
was forced to restate fuel economy figures significantly lower - 15% or 4 to 5 mpg?

Edited by jpd80
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1 hour ago, jpd80 said:

either Ford  covered up mistakes or a genuine error was made by failing to update test procedures to include new roll down factors as directed by the EPA....self reporting would suggest the latter.

Ford ran into trouble before with total road horsepower engineering models validated by coast down testing for fuel economy calculations. This was in 2014. It had to lower EPA fuel economy estimates for all of its hybrid and PHEV plus Fiesta. https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/06/ford-revises-c-max-fusion-mkz-hybrid-fiesta-fuel-economy-ratings/index.htm

Given Ford's culture, it's probably a combination of incompetence and malice.

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2 hours ago, jpd80 said:

Of course it is, they're obviously boot strapping F150 to the claim to draw in the most amount of claimants
s significantly lower - 15% or 4 to 5 mpg?

5MPG on the CAFE side, fines, payments and buybacks could be 10billion+. At that point you’ll see a full sale to VW.

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My Ranger has a combined rating of 22 and I get a little under that in mixed driving, but I have always considered EPA figures to be the best case scenario. If you go easy on it (65-70) and aren't bucking a wind or pulling a trailer it would make the EPA rating. Once you start running 75+ the MPG starts dropping quickly.

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2 hours ago, jasonj80 said:

5MPG on the CAFE side, fines, payments and buybacks could be 10billion+. At that point you’ll see a full sale to VW.

For that to happen, it would have to be proven to be across all vehicles, not just F150 but I see where you're going
with things unraveling completely which is why Ford will probably delay proceedings as much as possible.....

Having said that,
If what I suspect has happened, this could be across all vehicles for several years now....

 

Edited by jpd80
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I haven't looked up what the EPA rating is for it but FWIW I'm averaging about 1 mpg less (hovering around 27 mpg, mostly highway at 55+ to and from work) with the Escape rental I've had for the last week than I do with my Fusion, which usually hovers somewhere around 28. I haven't driven the rental any differently than I usually do. Considering (despite what my wife keeps trying to talk me out of) I really want my next vehicle to be a new Ranger (she wants me to get literally anything else off the used lot for financial reasons) I'm pretty happy with stated mileage numbers. 

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23 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

But you're skilled in hyper-miling techniques. Most drivers, including those in the class action suit, are not.

I most certainly am not.  The only thing I do is lift completely off the gas and coast when I can (anticipating red lights and stop signs and traffic, etc.).  That's it.

My commute into work is 22 miles at mostly 50 mph.  On the interstate I drive 70.   I've driven to the airport 50 miles all interstate at 70 mph and gotten 25 mpg.   In mixed everyday driving I get about 21.   Now I have a 2WD with 3.31 gears which helps a lot as does stop/start.   But no special hypermiling techniques.

I think there is a big difference in the early ecoboosts and what is now the 3rd gen in my F150.  Early ones had to run rich to prevent the heads from overheating.

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The thing about this is that attorneys take these cases because it's possible that they will win, no matter if it was intentional or unintentional error.  They will make millions while the consumer will get a tiny fraction of what they get.  The blood is in the water for sure in regards to MPG for Ford.

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People are stupid.

Many years ago I had a customer with a Ram 2500 4x4 regular cab/ Cummins. Constantly complained that it should get 20mpg at 80 mph. He was a real a-hole about it. Finally, he came in saying he read on the internet that his thermostat was defective.

We made an appointment for him. A few weeks later he came in and claimed he was getting 2 mpg better. I asked the tech what he did to fix it: "I wiped the stat housing off with a rag so it looked like we worked on it, there's nothing wrong with his truck."  That's one magic rag.

The tech who does my service had a guy with a first-gen 3.5EB come in for regular service. While talking he checked the mpg's on the screen. "How did you get 12mpg?"  "Well, I was driving 95mph."  Most people leave that part out if they're bitching about their mileage.

other things that affect mileage:

I get 1-1.5 less mpg on 10% ethanol. Since the cost is less it's a wash but the mpg goes down.

Driving conditions. Rolling hills and high winds. Bucking a 40mph wind in rolling hills will lower your mpg's! You'd think that would be obvious but not for everyone.

Cold weather: below zero temps combined with remote starts. You burn more energy in the cold and so does your vehicle. At -35 your shocks don't even work right for at least the first 5-7 miles. And your torque converter won't lock up for at least the first 10 miles.

Most times peoples expectations don't match the situation.

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You want $hitty fuel economy?  Pull a 13'+ tall fifth wheel west across South Dakota at 70MPH.  7.3 MPG was all my Power Stroke could muster.  Something about a 30 MPH head wind while on a steady incline causes fuel economy to drop.  I can get 12 MPG running 55-60 on level ground with no wind.

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3 hours ago, MY93SHO said:

People are stupid.

Many years ago I had a customer with a Ram 2500 4x4 regular cab/ Cummins. Constantly complained that it should get 20mpg at 80 mph. He was a real a-hole about it. Finally, he came in saying he read on the internet that his thermostat was defective.

We made an appointment for him. A few weeks later he came in and claimed he was getting 2 mpg better. I asked the tech what he did to fix it: "I wiped the stat housing off with a rag so it looked like we worked on it, there's nothing wrong with his truck."  That's one magic rag.

The tech who does my service had a guy with a first-gen 3.5EB come in for regular service. While talking he checked the mpg's on the screen. "How did you get 12mpg?"  "Well, I was driving 95mph."  Most people leave that part out if they're bitching about their mileage.

other things that affect mileage:

I get 1-1.5 less mpg on 10% ethanol. Since the cost is less it's a wash but the mpg goes down.

Driving conditions. Rolling hills and high winds. Bucking a 40mph wind in rolling hills will lower your mpg's! You'd think that would be obvious but not for everyone.

Cold weather: below zero temps combined with remote starts. You burn more energy in the cold and so does your vehicle. At -35 your shocks don't even work right for at least the first 5-7 miles. And your torque converter won't lock up for at least the first 10 miles.

Most times peoples expectations don't match the situation.

Excellent points. In many parts of the country all gasoline is blended with 10% ethanol. Ethanol has about 75% of the energy of gasoline, so mileage is less. The blend is not exact -when ethanol is cheaper, relative to gasoline you are probably getting 12 or 13% ethanol which will yield slightly less mileage.

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8 hours ago, akirby said:

I was referring to the 17/22 "actual" mileage.   I can easily beat that no matter how I drive and the EPA tests also beat it.

Thank you, now I understand and don't get me wrong, under normal circumstances you should easily beat
your truck's EPA numbers. The lawyers are trying to dress this up as worst possible case and going
after the official 26 mpg tells us the trucks in question is most likely the 2WD 2.7 EB.

Anytime I read these cases and the Lawyers start saying this or that, I really wonder about the spin going on,
did they actually take client's trucks to an independent lab and have the actual EPA test loop performed?
and even then, one dud result is not enough to brand all the other 600,000 or more trucks as the same (insane thinking)

IMO, proving that Ford deliberately engaged in deceptive and misleading conduct is a very long bow to draw
especially when Ford self reported to the EPA that it found errors in test procedures used to evaluate  Ranger.

 

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