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F150 reveal set for 6/25


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16 hours ago, akirby said:

Ford gambles on short term cost savings hoping to avoid costly warranty issues later.  It has not worked out well the last decade or so.

 

Throughout my career, it has TOTALLY been a pendulum with them. They build great stuff for a few years, build profit margins, then swing the other way, get lax and build low quality part and QC nightmares. (FYI: not blaming actual assembly here, because I know it isn't all on them.) While doing so they try to maintain profit margins until they realize what they have done, then start the cycle over again. We are definitely still in that swing to crap. What is always infuriating is a few dollars spent in the right places and a modicum of common sense in engineering/development would cure their most of their ills. It is far easier for them to dream up new schemes to take money from the repairing dealerships and keep decreasing part cost (and therefore quality), even though that will not add up to anything real in terms of savings.   

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4 hours ago, Trailhiker said:

 

Nice. Wish I thought of that!  They even have one on the other side for lefties.

 I also see the cord that looks like it plugs into an outlet somewhere in the truck bed.

 

Noticed the power cord too... we know 48V mild hybrid was coming so that's not a surprise. Just waiting to see which engine will get 48V. 

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9 hours ago, ice-capades said:

 

The cost cutting approach has existed for decades. The Harvard "bean counters" almost put Ford out of business in the late '70's. Unfortunately, Ford never learns from it's mistakes and the problem and negative impact have only gotten worse within the past 5-10 years. The cost cutting leads to the customer perceptions of a lesser quality vehicle design, some customers go to the competition, Ford loses market share, existing customer are dissatisfied when the problems start to appear and the recalls are launched, Ford incurs the warranty cost spike, the profit objective is missed, the shareholders are hurt, the negative media play (biased or not) impacts the overall perception of the company, etc.

 

Ford management thinks and acts short term, often as a matter of career preservation, and in inconsistent in following through on long term plans that would benefit the company, its customers and shareholders long term. And ever time there's a change in upper management, whatever long tern plan for vehicle development was in effect gets scrapped because someone has a "better idea" and the cycle starts all over again! 

In addition to ALL of that, you also turn away potential new customers who see the recalls in the news or hear from friends and family affected by recalls and other issues with their vehicles.

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1 hour ago, YT90SC said:

 

Throughout my career, it has TOTALLY been a pendulum with them. They build great stuff for a few years, build profit margins, then swing the other way, get lax and build low quality part and QC nightmares. (FYI: not blaming actual assembly here, because I know it isn't all on them.) While doing so they try to maintain profit margins until they realize what they have done, then start the cycle over again. We are definitely still in that swing to crap. What is always infuriating is a few dollars spent in the right places and a modicum of common sense in engineering/development would cure their most of their ills. It is far easier for them to dream up new schemes to take money from the repairing dealerships and keep decreasing part cost (and therefore quality), even though that will not add up to anything real in terms of savings.   


It all goes back to how the company is organized and who is responsible for what.  If the launch team and product team and warranty team are in different departments with different goals then each one makes decisions that benefit them but not the others.

 

OTOH if you make one department responsible for a vehicle so up to nuts and you make warranty claims worse than slipping a launch date or missing a price point then you’ll get better decisions.  That’s true for just about any corporation or large business.

 

Mulally ended some of that especially Europe vs NA.  Each one had been operating independently.  NA had a business case for Fusion on cd4.  EU had one for Mondeo on EUCD.  Independently they made sense.  Mulally forced them to look at it from the Ford perspective and see that one platform was better and cheaper.

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Akirby, you're right. Keeping ANY large organization in check has to be hard. And I have absolutely seen time and again where one hand doesn't even know the other even exists at Ford. 

I also think that there must be *a lot* of turnover in engineering. It seems like they fix a design/ quality issue only to have the exact same crop up again in a few years. 

 

For instance: Guibos. Why in the lilly blue F**k would they evan attempt that on their most important SUV after the debacle with Transit? 

OR: Why in the hell are they still doing/sourcing ANYTHING with Getrag? 

At least they finally learned their lesson with Navistar. 

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19 minutes ago, YT90SC said:

For instance: Guibos. Why in the lilly blue F**k would they evan attempt that on their most important SUV after the debacle with Transit? 

OR: Why in the hell are they still doing/sourcing ANYTHING with Getrag? 

 

Apparently it worked ok in the EU (in the case of the Transit)-might be a supplier issue in the US? Mercedes and other makers use them...apparently without issue. 

 

Getrag is huge company and there isn't many options outside of doing it yourself when it comes to manual transmissions for example. 

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38 minutes ago, YT90SC said:

Why in the hell are they still doing/sourcing ANYTHING with Getrag? 


Who else is going to do it? Ford isn't going to build an all new transmission in house for literally 1 vehicle and in all likelihood will only be at best (and I'm being very generous here) 30% of sales. 
 

Hell, Ford didn't even engineer the 10speed on their own, it was a joint project with GM. 

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30 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

 

Apparently it worked ok in the EU (in the case of the Transit)-might be a supplier issue in the US? Mercedes and other makers use them...apparently without issue. 

 

Getrag is huge company and there isn't many options outside of doing it yourself when it comes to manual transmissions for example. 

 

16 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:


Who else is going to do it? Ford isn't going to build an all new transmission in house for literally 1 vehicle and in all likelihood will only be at best (and I'm being very generous here) 30% of sales. 
 

Hell, Ford didn't even engineer the 10speed on their own, it was a joint project with GM. 

 

Tremec. Aisin. Borg/Warner. New Venture. And as much as I loathe them, ZF. 

As for guibos, the updated ones that were installed on the first recall are failing enough they have re-recalling them. It may still be source issues, but the ultimate fix is going to be replacement with U joints.  

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16 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

Hell, Ford didn't even engineer the 10speed on their own, it was a joint project with GM. 


Well to be fair they were the lead on that one and did the majority of the work on the 10 Speed. GM was the lead on the FWD 9-Speed that Ford ended up re-engineering and making it an 8-speed.

GM defiantly  got a better transmission that Ford did on that deal.

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19 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:

GM was the lead on the FWD 9-Speed that Ford ended up re-engineering and making it an 8-speed.
GM defiantly  got a better transmission that Ford did on that deal.


I don’t know - I thought GM also had complaints early on.  Ford seems to have fixed almost all the issues with new software.

 

Did anyone ever get the inside scoop on why Ford built 2 different fwd 8 speeds - the GM JV for 2.0 engines and a modified 6F55 for the 2.7 STs?

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31 minutes ago, akirby said:


Did anyone ever get the inside scoop on why Ford built 2 different fwd 8 speeds - the GM JV for 2.0 engines and a modified 6F55 for the 2.7 STs?


Couldn't handle the low end torque. Ford is pushing out 330/350 where GM is pushing out 280 in FWD applications of engines. 

Edited by jasonj80
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32 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:


Couldn't handle the low end torque. Ford is pushing out 330/350 where GM is pushing out 280 in FWD applications of engines. 


Well obviously but with the 6 speed you had 3 different versions - 6f35, 6f50 and 6f55 depending on engine.  So why didn’t they just upgrade the 8F35 in the same way and add a 8f57 version rather than modifying the 6F55 and adding 2 gears?  Looking at the gearing in the 8f57 it seems to have been a rush job.

 

Or to say it another way, why didn’t they design the JV 8 speed to handle both applications?   Had to either be too expensive or cause too many compromises on the 8f35 version.

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