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Farley to address high warranty costs.


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29 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:

"Part of the quality push involves reducing the complexity of the automaker's vehicles, Farley said.


For example, the proximity key for the F-150 truck unlocks all four doors, but Farley said consumers only use it for the front doors, meaning Ford can eliminate two sensors — a manufacturing cost savings and a potential reduction in warranty risk."

So on an $80,000 truck you have to unlock the doors manually if you want to put anything in the backseat before you get into it. That is not going to save you warranty costs that going to save you production costs. Warranty costs are going to come down from actually demanding the highest quality components from a supplier not the lowest cost ones. 

 

Or you reach into your pocket and hit the keyfob?

 

In the grand scheme of things, its not a huge deal. 

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30 minutes ago, jasonj80 said:

"Part of the quality push involves reducing the complexity of the automaker's vehicles, Farley said.


For example, the proximity key for the F-150 truck unlocks all four doors, but Farley said consumers only use it for the front doors, meaning Ford can eliminate two sensors — a manufacturing cost savings and a potential reduction in warranty risk."

So on an $80,000 truck you have to unlock the doors manually if you want to put anything in the backseat before you get into it. That is not going to save you warranty costs that going to save you production costs. Warranty costs are going to come down from actually demanding the highest quality components from a supplier not the lowest cost ones. 


As stated you just touch the front handle first then open the back door.  Our 2014 Escape was like that.  Not a big deal.

 

But I think the warranty risk is that if the part is bad you only have to replace half as many.

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Further proof that Farley is taking quality seriously.  Having a separate person in charge of quality, and vehicle launches.  From the Detroit Free Press:

 

"Meanwhile, Linda Cash, 58, "has elected to retire" effective Jan. 1, marking the end of an "outstanding 36 years" with the company, the last three as vice president, Quality and New Model Launch Program," Ford said.  As a result, Ford is splitting her one job into two — quality and new model launches."

 

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2020/11/24/ford-cmo-farley-deering-linda-cash-sankaran/6404894002/

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1 hour ago, mackinaw said:

 

Could be, but the take home message is that too many suppliers are delivering defective parts.  


I’m not so sure.  I have sympathy for the suppliers. Hackett pushed them to get their prices so low that he maintained a minimum profit percentage per vehicle.  
 

As a result, suppliers took the job (because who would turn down business) and (as expected) produced parts that were subpar.  But then one has to ask, are they sub par because of Fords engineering or because a supplier found a way to make it $0.03 cents cheaper giving them a tiny bit more profit?  The article makes it sound that a majority of the time it was Ford engineering. 
 

Personally, at the end of the day, there are very few instances where it’s a “supplier issue”. I’ll accept the Takata airbags as a supplier problem or an unauthorized change in materials etc.  But generally, a manufacturer says “build me this based on these specs”.  The supplier does that.  The manufacturer then signs off on the part if it meets their standards and puts in a massive order and then builds with that component.  That’s 100% on the manufacturer and I don’t think the supplier should have to eat any of that cost.  
 

 

Edited by FR739
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Warranty costs ballooned under Hackett's three years and one of the big issues was that he cut the teams

that checked incoming parts for quality. Without those people doing their jobs, it was inevitable that many

problems would be picked up late or not at all. Say what you about screwing down suppliers and them

making inferior parts but for Ford to drop the ball checking parts? That is an unforgivable lapse.

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9 minutes ago, jpd80 said:

Warranty costs ballooned under Hackett's three years and one of the big issues was that he cut the teams

that checked incoming parts for quality. Without those people doing their jobs, it was inevitable that many

problems would be picked up late or not at all. Say what you about screwing down suppliers and them

making inferior parts but for Ford to drop the ball checking parts? That is an unforgivable lapse.

 

Agreed, and it's good to see that Farley has brought back quality teams.

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18 minutes ago, mackinaw said:

But the supplier should have some sort of QA/QC program in place.  Accepting Ford's statement that 1/3rd of the parts they get are are defective, means that 2/3rds of the parts are okay.  This is squarely on the supplier.


Thats not at all what Farley said.  He said 1/3 of their warranty issues are due to defective parts while 2/3 are design, engineering and manufacturing.

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4 hours ago, akirby said:

 

There are 3 areas to product development:  design, engineering and testing.   Speeding up the design process probably doesn't affect quality and I know a lot of his changes were in this area.  Neither does eliminating unnecessary processes and process steps and other overhead.    But when you rush engineering and cut back on testing then you risk things slipping by into production.   Farley seems to acknowledge this and it sounds like he plans to address that.

Testing is probably the easiest area to cut costs.  And it’s usually a very bad decision to reduce testing. 

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I’m glad that Farley is onto this early in his term, I’m sure that this has been well discussed internally and now being implemented. Ford is being flogged by quality costs, you bet they’re listening now, I pray that Ford is a little less fit and a damned site more diligent.

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3 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:


There's one supplier in particular that comes to mind... they’re TERRIBLE. Bad parts all the time that come in from them that we literally have to put straight into the scrap bin. 

Is there not a process for workers and/or managers who see this problem to report it up the chain so that the supplier is held accountable and/or loses the contract to supply those parts?

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6 hours ago, akirby said:

I think with the bulk of the new products out or almost out the door (Bronco, Maverick, Bronco Sport, Mach-E, BEV Transit and F150) it will be much easier to slow down and take more time to get things right going forward and stop taking so many chances.   Which is what Farley seems to be embracing and that's good news for buyers.


It's pretty obvious they've already started slowing things down. My current 6 weeks of layoff is a good example of it. I still have a copy of the bulletin with the layoff schedule for Ranger, when we launched Ranger there wasn't that much time between Preproduction phases after the initial 6 month retooling TLO. Look at how long it took Bronco Sport and Mach E to start up. This isn't something that Farley just came up with last week, it started as soon as it was obvious what a clusterfuck the Explorer/Aviator launch was turning into. 

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Atp's.....this is a direct result of that and why we went elsewhere.....$112k for a gt500 at my dealership with no manual trans is the end result..goodbye ford....the design and quality is truly well below what the others are building....get me a dam f350 lariet, single cab, with long bed and i might come back

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40 minutes ago, 1984Poke said:

Is there not a process for workers and/or managers who see this problem to report it up the chain so that the supplier is held accountable and/or loses the contract to supply those parts?

There is but if the supplier doesn't do anything with that message then all we can do is straight to the scrap bin when bad parts come in. 

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10 hours ago, jasonj80 said:

"Part of the quality push involves reducing the complexity of the automaker's vehicles, Farley said.


For example, the proximity key for the F-150 truck unlocks all four doors, but Farley said consumers only use it for the front doors, meaning Ford can eliminate two sensors — a manufacturing cost savings and a potential reduction in warranty risk."

So on an $80,000 truck you have to unlock the doors manually if you want to put anything in the backseat before you get into it. That is not going to save you warranty costs that going to save you production costs. Warranty costs are going to come down from actually demanding the highest quality components from a supplier not the lowest cost ones. 

If Ford is cutting out the ability to open the rear doors by touching the rear door handle sensor they are making a mistake.  We have a baby and most of the time we are opening the rear doors on our Edge first to put her in.  When you're carrying a child in a carseat and a diaper bag, not needing to fumble around with the keyfob or go for the front door handle first to get the rear doors open is an overlooked convenience that I am sure many parents appreciate and will miss when it is gone.

I am happy to hear Farley is finally tackling warranty costs but sad to see more boneheaded cost-cutting from Ford.

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