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Hackett's remedy for sticker shock


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https://www.autonews.com/commentary/hacketts-remedy-sticker-shock

 



Car prices can't keep rising forever, he says. And the way to fix that problem is through what he calls "reductive design." He notes that Ford still has some cars with CD players when most everyone is carrying around a library of music on their phones.

 

And those ballyhooed garage door openers built into car headliners? Seventy percent of drivers who have them don't touch them.

 

Found that interesting-I use mine all the time and my sister's 2020 Explorer XLT didn't have homelink on it. I'm going with that its a slight pain in the ass to setup (was in my old house, but it had better security) and its just easier for users to use the remotes they have for garage door openers (if they have them-wonder what the market penetration is for that) to open them...plus I'd say better then 80% of the people on my block don't even use their garages for their cars. 

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13 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

https://www.autonews.com/commentary/hacketts-remedy-sticker-shock

 

 

 

 

Found that interesting-I use mine all the time and my sister's 2020 Explorer XLT didn't have homelink on it. I'm going with that its a slight pain in the ass to setup (was in my old house, but it had better security) and its just easier for users to use the remotes they have for garage door openers (if they have them-wonder what the market penetration is for that) to open them...plus I'd say better then 80% of the people on my block don't even use their garages for their cars. 

Likewise- Hackett must have valet parking at his town house.

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"Reductive design" = "decontenting". Ford has lots of experience with that.

 

Hopefully, Hackett can figure out a way where "reductive design" allows Ford to improve the materials quality, fit, and finish of its vehicle interiors. This is an area where Ford continues to lag behind the rest of the industry.

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That's all I've ever used since 2000.   I bought a Lariat visor for my new F150 XLT just to get the opener buttons.  I hate having those clip on openers on the visor.

 

Now if you said 70% don't park in a garage I could believe that.   I widened 2 of our 3 garage doors by 1 foot when we built the house otherwise we wouldn't be able to park in there.   The neighborhood where we rented while building the new house had about 30 houses and I think only one or two actually parked in the garage.  The only thing that would fit with enough room to actually open the doors was a Miata.   The new house right down the street looks to have the same 8 foot doors with only a foot or so on either side.   It's ridiculous.

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2 minutes ago, Trailhiker said:

I see them getting rid of spare tires, jacks and lug wrenches soon. It would save them $ and weight to just throw in a can of fixaflat.

 

They have been doing that with higher performance vehicles. my 2013 SHO comes this way and I've had a few incidents with tires over the past few years that I was able to just nurse it home or just add air til I got it fixed or replaced without resorting to the can of fix a flat it came with. 

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34 minutes ago, akirby said:

 The neighborhood where we rented while building the new house had about 30 houses and I think only one or two actually parked in the garage.  The only thing that would fit with enough room to actually open the doors was a Miata.   The new house right down the street looks to have the same 8 foot doors with only a foot or so on either side.   It's ridiculous.

 

Newer construction is like that-I had a friend live in a townhouse development that was built in the late 1990s and they claimed that a midsize car could fit into the garage-which was complete bullshit. You couldn't even open the doors of a Focus or Fiesta in it! The parking was terrible too...it was so bad that people used up all the parking and was on street parking-and supposedly a fire truck could make it down the street still, which was more BS-that Firetruck would have ripped off alot of rear view mirrors and smacked into parked cars getting to a call.

 

My old house had a nice garage but my current house is from the 1990s and its gonna be a tight fit fitting my SHO into it. We don't currently use it because garage door opener issues (long story-garage doors where jacked up and replaced, but they didn't put an opener on the one side and left us one to install-plus the electrical was completely rigged-used extension cords!!!! Getting that fixed next month)  

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8 minutes ago, Trailhiker said:

I see them getting rid of spare tires, jacks and lug wrenches soon. It would save them $ and weight to just throw in a can of fixaflat.

Hlaf the people out there wouldn't know how to change a tire anyway.

I'd hope they would still be optional for people who want them though.

 

Good example Trailhiker sir. Ford currently offers Michelin Self Sealing tires on certain 2020 Explorers. But Ford includes spare tire/jack/lug wrench as standard on all Explorers. Going with Hackett's "reductive design", they could easily get rid of the spare tire/jack/lug wrench on all Explorers equipped with self sealing tires. https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2019/03/12/spare-the-flat-tire-fiascos-all-new-ford-explorer.html

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2 minutes ago, Trailhiker said:

I see them getting rid of spare tires, jacks and lug wrenches soon. It would save them $ and weight to just throw in a can of fixaflat.

Hlaf the people out there wouldn't know how to change a tire anyway.

I'd hope they would still be optional for people who want them though.

 

It's sad but true. I would say 60% of drivers don't know how to change a tire. I usually inspect the jack/donut setup when I buy a car so there are no surprises if I need it.

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A perfect candidate for "reductive design" is printed owners manuals for Ford cars and trucks. Just get rid of them. Digital owners manuals can easily be integrated into the Sync 3 and Sync 4 systems (I think they already are actually). And Ford/Motorcraft websites offer PDF versions of owners manuals that can viewed on a smartphone, tablet, or microcomputer.

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23 minutes ago, Trailhiker said:

I see them getting rid of spare tires, jacks and lug wrenches soon. It would save them $ and weight to just throw in a can of fixaflat.

Hlaf the people out there wouldn't know how to change a tire anyway.

I'd hope they would still be optional for people who want them though.


Ford needs to offer run flat tires and should be standard on Lincoln's. Trucks I can say yes have spare tires, but Explorer and smaller need to just be fix a can of fix-a-flat or run flat tires.

Other things they can eliminate are CD/DVD players, paper owners manual (Just make it online and do videos on the sync system) Plastic Engine covers, cargo nets. They also need to continue the streamlining of options and reducing the build complexity. What they need to stop is decontenting in features the customer sees. 

Things like Homelink, auto-dimming mirrors, roof racks, cargo management systems can be moved to dealer installed or installed after production. 

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19 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

 

Newer construction is like that-I had a friend live in a townhouse development that was built in the late 1990s and they claimed that a midsize car could fit into the garage-which was complete bullshit. You couldn't even open the doors of a Focus or Fiesta in it! The parking was terrible too...it was so bad that people used up all the parking and was on street parking-and supposedly a fire truck could make it down the street still, which was more BS-that Firetruck would have ripped off alot of rear view mirrors and smacked into parked cars getting to a call.

 

My old house had a nice garage but my current house is from the 1990s and its gonna be a tight fit fitting my SHO into it. We don't currently use it because garage door opener issues (long story-garage doors where jacked up and replaced, but they didn't put an opener on the one side and left us one to install-plus the electrical was completely rigged-used extension cords!!!! Getting that fixed next month)  

 

Our old house was built in 1995 and came with 2 9' doors with at least 2' in between and on each side.  Plenty of room even for the Expedition.   Had we not had the bad experience in the rental house I probably wouldn't have thought to make the garage doors bigger on the new house.  

 

We actually have a 4 car garage - a 3 car side entrance plus a 4th added on to the side of the house facing the driveway (that's my workshop).   I changed the workshop door from 8 ft to 9 ft and changed the large door on the 3 car from 15' to 16'.   Good thing too - my F150 fits lengthwise with about 4 inches to spare (I put pool noodles on the wall and just bump into them when I park) but we barely have enough room to open the doors on both vehicles.   The 3rd bay is for storage right now (until I get my mid life sports car).

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Just now, jpd80 said:

I wonder if Ford is looking to decontent vehicles but leave the price the same?

i recall the grizzle inside Ford about how much cost copilot 360 was adding to vehicles as a standard feature 


They even dumped the rain sensing wipers from it to lower that cost, originally they were going to be included. 

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5 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

A perfect candidate for "reductive design" is printed owners manuals for Ford cars and trucks. Just get rid of them. Digital owners manuals can easily be integrated into the Sync 3 and Sync 4 systems (I think they already are actually). And Ford/Motorcraft websites offer PDF versions of owners manuals that can viewed on a smartphone, tablet, or microcomputer.

 

Well from what I see only me and a few others ever read the damn things anyway.

 

What they should do is make the pdf accessible from the main display screen and update it via sync updates.  I think some luxury mfrs do this already.

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You can keep features while cutting costs through lean design, Tesla is particularly good at this.  They've significantly reduced part count costs through software and a single user interface.  You just have to be onboard with touching the screen instead of using buttons.  Tesla doesn't even use a rain sensors, it uses the camera and AI.

 

The 2019 Escape is a pretty good example of emergency cost cutting that did not benefit the customer's Botton line.  They redesigned the LED taillights to a single halogen bulb, eliminated the steering wheel paddles and CD player, and cut some of the standard equipment on Titanium, and actually made the car more expensive by reducing incentives and leasing residuals.  That's mainly what drove sales down for Escape, although Hackett explained it as customer prep for a more expensive 2020 Escape.  That's partly true, but I'm sure it had more to do with diminished margins in that segment.

 

Until Mach E, I was complaining about Ford's lack of new amenities in their all-new products, I'm hoping we get back to a Ford that is less about removing stuff and more about adding stuff (like the Mullally years).  I've been watching some reviews of the latest Hyundai Sonata and it's weird and annoying that I'm envious of their clever toys. 

 

 

 

Edited by Assimilator
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What if you took the new short C utility, decontented a lot of the convenience features and the others we've talked about, gave it a single large touch screen like Mach-E with basic functionality?  To me that would fit the bill as a new affordable white space vehicle that could still make money.   Build it in Mexico.

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32 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:

Plastic Engine covers

 

I've noticed that Ford has been eliminating this feature on a lot of its 2019 and later U.S. models. My 2019 Ranger XLT doesn't have an engine cover.

 

On Fusion, Ford got rid of the hood insulator as well as the plastic engine cover. The underhood photos of 2013 Fusion vs 2019 Fusion show this.

 

2013_Fusion_Ecoboost.jpg

2019_Fusion_Ecoboost.jpg

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Another de-contenting story.  I bought a 2019 Nautilus to replace my 2018 MKX and noticed they had removed the plastic cover over the spare tire under the cargo floor (I bought the cargo package for both cars which has the organizer around the spare tire instead of a foam block).  I complained about it suspecting it was missing, but I guess I was the only one who complained because they found out it had been eliminated.  Hopefully they weren't lying to me, but they showed me none of their Nautiluses had them. 

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decontenting will  only save trivial amounts...going to take new, cheaper lineups...ie the baby truck being released. This subject mirrors what I have said all along...you cant just continually raise pricing and rave about ATPs, the higher the price of a vehicle the smaller the market and the bigger the dependence on leasing programs, leaving out some frivolous features and saving maybe $1000 from MSRP wont solve this issue. So, it will come down to what features are deemed necessary in a more basic lineup...Ill be curious how this pans out...

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3 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

If noise was part of the reason for an engine cover, wouldn't be just easier/cheaper to use a heavier duty hood blanket?

 

Yes sir. But on the Fusion Ecoboost at least, Ford got rid of both the cover and hood insulator/blanket.

 

I noticed also that 2019-2020 Fusions no longer have laminated acoustic side glass for the driver and front passenger doors. Just regular tempered glass.

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5 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

 

Yes sir. But on the Fusion Ecoboost at least, Ford got rid of both the cover and hood insulator/blanket.

 

I noticed also that 2019-2020 Fusions no longer have laminated acoustic side glass for the driver and front passenger doors. Just regular tempered glass.

 

Allot of the de-contenting is in areas like this, where you don't notice it.  To me it's the worst part of the process, it makes the cars lower-quality with no reduction in cost to the consumer.  

Edited by Assimilator
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41 minutes ago, Assimilator said:

 

Allot of the de-contenting is in areas like this, where you don't notice it.  To me it's the worst part of the process, it makes the cars lower-quality with no reduction in cost to the consumer.  

 

All depends if your customer notices it or not. 

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