Farley to address high warranty costs.

[jpd80]

56 minutes ago, FordBuyer said:

I remember the last time I visited the DTP back around 2007 or so, and one of the videos along the line talked about the increasing number of wiring harnesses used in the door. They were up to about 3 at the time. God knows how many more wiring harnesses are used now, and just how many more miles of wire in general and sensors everywhere. Show me an auto manufacturer with scores of new vehicle launches in one year with lots of new tech, and I will show you a company with lower reliability scores. But also a company with higher sales. Once Ford gets decent reliability out of Explorer/Aviator, they will make good profit margins and continue to sell well. Both are good lookers with lots of tech and multifunctional.

This.

The day that  Ford stops disappointing enthusiastic buyers is the day they turn a big corner. There’s so much to  like about Explorer, all Ford has to do is make sure the quality is there and the fish will jump into the boat.

[SoonerLS]

16 hours ago, Harley Lover said:

And it's damning of his leadership and decision making.

Not necessarily.

 

While Hackett functionally ran the company, he took orders from the board, and we don't know what those orders were. For all we know, Bill Ford sat him down and told him "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, get new product out the door ASAP." That, IMHO, seems rather likely, considering how far behind the curve Fields had them in his efforts to prepare for a downturn that didn't materialize.

 

If those were his marching orders, it speaks well of his leadership and decision making that things went as well as they did, because that easily could have become a complete clusterf*ck across the board. 
 

And let's not forget that it's because he got the new product out the door that Farley is in a pretty good position to be able to dial that back a bit and work on quality.

[twintornados]

4 hours ago, SoonerLS said:

....While Hackett functionally ran the company, he took orders from the board, and we don't know what those orders were.

 

Orders from Boards of Directors are only one thing.

 

"Enhance investor value"

 

Which, in a company like FoMoCo, is a double thumbs up since that also boosts the exclusive Ford Family stock.

[akirby]

7 hours ago, SoonerLS said:

Not necessarily.

 

While Hackett functionally ran the company, he took orders from the board, and we don't know what those orders were. For all we know, Bill Ford sat him down and told him "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, get new product out the door ASAP." That, IMHO, seems rather likely, considering how far behind the curve Fields had them in his efforts to prepare for a downturn that didn't materialize.

 

If those were his marching orders, it speaks well of his leadership and decision making that things went as well as they did, because that easily could have become a complete clusterf*ck across the board. 
 

And let's not forget that it's because he got the new product out the door that Farley is in a pretty good position to be able to dial that back a bit and work on quality.

 

This happens in IT every day which is why I called it a conscious business decision.  You know the code has bugs and you didn’t do as much testing as you wanted to do but getting it out the door is more important than getting it 100% right and you hope the damage is minimal.  Sometimes it bites you in the ass but that’s a calculated risk.

 

Had we not had the Explore launch debacle we wouldn’t even be discussing it.

 

But like I said, they’re past the new platform / new drivetrain / new product development crunch (for non BEVs) and should be able to dial it back and focus more on quality going forward.  

[Gurgeh]

2 minutes ago, akirby said:

 

This happens in IT every day which is why I called it a conscious business decision.  You know the code has bugs and you didn’t do as much testing as you wanted to do but getting it out the door is more important than getting it 100% right and you hope the damage is minimal.  Sometimes it bites you in the ass but that’s a calculated risk.

 

Had we not had the Explore launch debacle we wouldn’t even be discussing it.

 

But like I said, they’re past the new platform / new drivetrain / new product development crunch (for non BEVs) and should be able to dial it back and focus more on quality going forward.  

 

This tension is displayed in two headlines I saw in the last few days in the automotive press:

 

Lincoln Ranked Dead Last in Consumer Report's Annual Reliability Report  --Ford Authority

Aviator, Corsair Helped Boost Lincoln Market Share in 2020  --Automotive News

 

Obviously, Lincoln would have done even better if it hadn't shipped all those early Aviators with so many build and parts problems, just as Ford would have been wise if it had figured out a way to avoid the probably unfixable Chicago plant altogether. But Lincoln would still have done a heck of a lot worse if those two critical launches had been pushed into 2021.

[ice-capades]

14 hours ago, jpd80 said:

Yes, the cruel part is that most focus on the mistakes instead of celebrating all the things that worked well.

 

I think it's a natural reaction and easier for most to complain about product issues before making the effort to talk up the positive points. 

[ice-capades]

11 hours ago, FordBuyer said:

I remember the last time I visited the DTP back around 2007 or so, and one of the videos along the line talked about the increasing number of wiring harnesses used in the door. They were up to about 3 at the time. God knows how many more wiring harnesses are used now, and just how many more miles of wire in general and sensors everywhere. Show me an auto manufacturer with scores of new vehicle launches in one year with lots of new tech, and I will show you a company with lower reliability scores. But also a company with higher sales. Once Ford gets decent reliability out of Explorer/Aviator, they will make good profit margins and continue to sell well. Both are good lookers with lots of tech and multifunctional.

 

Good example is when My Ford Touch was introduced and then the SYNC performance issues. 

[ice-capades]

17 hours ago, jpd80 said:

And every time Ford finds itself in this position, it’s because they tried to save money, which as it turns out, costs it more than if it had embraced quality in the first place.

 

A lot of corporates are run this way, reactive only after losing billions because they just can’t “see losses” until after they have happened .

 

Success hides a multitude of mistakes until the "mistake" issues grow large enough to get widespread attention. 

[Harley Lover]

8 hours ago, SoonerLS said:

While Hackett functionally ran the company, he took orders from the board, and we don't know what those orders were.

 

LOL. Then why not make the exact same excuse for Mark Fields? Or Jac Nassar? Or Bill Ford? After all, we don't know what orders they were given by 'the board', do we? Again, LOL. That's an excuse and a poor one at that. As you said, Hackett functionally ran the company, as did Fields and Nassar. 

 

Did 'the board' tell Hackett to disband quality teams that are now being reinstituted? Did 'the board' okay doubling warranty claims? Did 'the board' okay losing an extra $2+ billion per year (and counting) because of poor quality? Did the board think it was okay to dump poor quality on unsuspecting consumers? LOL. Quit making excuses for Hackett. Or perhaps we need to revise our view of the tenures of Fields and Nassar after all.

 

As for Ford, as he admirably admitted at the time, when he stepped down he knew he needed to hire someone who knew how to run the company. That there was no mention by Ford of 'the board' - if 'the board' can excuse Hackett's failure, then certainly Ford should have used that excuse as well. Interesting that he didn't put that in play - and certainly he's an insider who doesn't need to speculate. Time for Hackett to own it, as well as those who continue to try to excuse the reality of the results.

Edited November 26, 2020 by Harley Lover

[ice-capades]

29 minutes ago, Gurgeh said:

 

This tension is displayed in two headlines I saw in the last few days in the automotive press:

 

Lincoln Ranked Dead Last in Consumer Report's Annual Reliability Report  --Ford Authority

Aviator, Corsair Helped Boost Lincoln Market Share in 2020  --Automotive News

 

Obviously, Lincoln would have done even better if it hadn't shipped all those early Aviators with so many build and parts problems, just as Ford would have been wise if it had figured out a way to avoid the probably unfixable Chicago plant altogether. But Lincoln would still have done a heck of a lot worse if those two critical launches had been pushed into 2021.

 

Unfortunately, the Chicago plant isn't going to go away. The problem is a management issue both with Ford and the UAW. Ford is ultimately responsible and won't solve a lot of the issues until they start to address the issues and hold the UAW accountable for its share of the problems.  

[HotRunrGuy]

Leaning on the Suppliers is one thing, but they also need to look internally at what all those replacement 1.5 & 2.0 EB short blocks cost.  I can't imagine that was a Supplier "cutting corners" that caused those failures.

 

HRG

[FordBuyer]

36 minutes ago, ice-capades said:

 

Unfortunately, the Chicago plant isn't going to go away. The problem is a management issue both with Ford and the UAW. Ford is ultimately responsible and won't solve a lot of the issues until they start to address the issues and hold the UAW accountable for its share of the problems.  

Sabatogue is certainly a UAW problem. Anyone doing it should be fired and prosecuted. You can't have a quality plant if that stuff is going on and no one is held accountable. Hopefully at least that kind of behavior is solved. 

[fuzzymoomoo]

3 minutes ago, FordBuyer said:

Sabatogue is certainly a UAW problem. Anyone doing it should be fired and prosecuted. You can't have a quality plant if that stuff is going on and no one is held accountable. Hopefully at least that kind of behavior is solved. 

Not in my experience. There's a lot I disagree with the union about but I do praise them for weeding that bullshit out for the most part. I've seen people walked out of the building for that. It's not 1981 anymore, that shit is taken VERY seriously. 

[FordBuyer]

42 minutes ago, HotRunrGuy said:

Leaning on the Suppliers is one thing, but they also need to look internally at what all those replacement 1.5 & 2.0 EB short blocks cost.  I can't imagine that was a Supplier "cutting corners" that caused those failures.

 

HRG

It's a management culture where cost cutting is second nature. I remember my Dad who was a design engineer at Ford being frustrated by management where cost cutting was king which explained collapsing suspensions on 70's Torinos. Needless to say he was not surprised. I don't think that culture has changed much. Maybe it hides out for awhile and then shows its ugly head again. I used to know some parts checkers at Ford and they were always frustrated by management when they suggested ways to improve the robustness of the part. 

[SoonerLS]

11 minutes ago, Harley Lover said:

 

LOL. Then why not make the exact same excuse for Mark Fields? Or Jac Nassar? Or Bill Ford? After all, we don't know what orders they were given by 'the board', do we? Again, LOL. That's an excuse and a poor one at that. As you said, Hackett functionally ran the company, as did Fields and Nassar. 

We don't know what the board's directives were for Fields or Nasser, but we can reasonably presume that what they were doing wasn't in line with the board's wishes because they were pretty obviously forced out of their positions. Hackett wasn't. 
 

As for Bill Ford, his position was different than any Ford CEO since the Deuce; even if he wanted to, he couldn't claim that he was only following the board's directives because he was also chairman of the board. It's hard to blame the board when you are, effectively, the board.

 

I'm not making excuses for Hackett, just pointing out that there are alternate views to the "Hackett was a bad, bad CEO" narrative and that all we see are the tactics implemented, not the strategic vision behind them. We can say that tactic X had bad results, but without knowing why tactic X was implemented, we can't say that it was a bad decision.

 

Think of it this way--losing the Philippines to Japan in the early stages of WWII was a bad outcome (especially if you were one of the Battling Bastards of Bataan). It's possible that we could've concentrated on, and succeeded at, saving the Philippines, so was the decision to effectively abandon our forces there a bad one? Taken in a vacuum, it looks really bad, but when you look at it in terms of the over-all strategy, it was the only decision they could've made.

 

Likewise, without knowing the strategy behind Hackett's tactical decisions, we don't have the framework necessary to evaluate those decisions. Yeah, you can look at the results and say they're doubleplus ungood, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the decision itself was bad. What if the trade-off for keeping the quality teams was delaying Bronco another year? 

[FordBuyer]

5 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

Not in my experience. There's a lot I disagree with the union about but I do praise them for weeding that bullshit out for the most part. I've seen people walked out of the building for that. It's not 1981 anymore, that shit is taken VERY seriously. 

So all the sabatogue during the Explorer launch has been solved with prosecutions? That is good and is probably half the problem of the launch meaning no more Explorers going to Flat Rock to be fixed. CAP built the Taurus and previous generation Explorer and police versions and other than the mysterious monoxide problem seemed to be decent vehicles and made good money for Ford.

[fuzzymoomoo]

15 minutes ago, FordBuyer said:

So all the sabatogue during the Explorer launch has been solved with prosecutions? That is good and is probably half the problem of the launch meaning no more Explorers going to Flat Rock to be fixed. CAP built the Taurus and previous generation Explorer and police versions and other than the mysterious monoxide problem seemed to be decent vehicles and made good money for Ford.

It wasn't sabotage. It was trying to do too much in to short of a period of time. 
 

And for the carbon monoxide problem of the previous generation. If you believe that was intentional and/or sabotage then I got some beautiful oceanfront property in Nebraska to show you. 

[akirby]

2 hours ago, HotRunrGuy said:

Leaning on the Suppliers is one thing, but they also need to look internally at what all those replacement 1.5 & 2.0 EB short blocks cost.  I can't imagine that was a Supplier "cutting corners" that caused those failures.

 

HRG

Nobody said it was a supplier issue.  That was clearly a bad design.

[akirby]

49 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

It wasn't sabotage. It was trying to do too much in to short of a period of time. 

I heard of a lot of deliberate actions or i actions that led to big issues.  To me that qualifies as sabotage.  Not the only reason though.

[fuzzymoomoo]

23 minutes ago, akirby said:

I heard of a lot of deliberate actions or i actions that led to big issues.  To me that qualifies as sabotage.  Not the only reason though.

Give me an example, so much happened I can't think of anything at the moment that could even remotely be considered sabotage. 

[CurtisH]

2 hours ago, HotRunrGuy said:

Leaning on the Suppliers is one thing, but they also need to look internally at what all those replacement 1.5 & 2.0 EB short blocks cost.  I can't imagine that was a Supplier "cutting corners" that caused those failures.

 

HRG

I’m not familiar with the issues with the 1.5 and 2.0 EB’s.  What’s going on with them?

[HotRunrGuy]

7 minutes ago, CurtisH said:

I’m not familiar with the issues with the 1.5 and 2.0 EB’s.  What’s going on with them?

 

Coolant leakage between bores.  Here's the thread on mine.  https://blueovalforums.com/forums/index.php?/topic/68329-2018-25k-15l-eb-coolant-loss/&tab=comments#comment-1082873

 

TSB's exist for both 1.5's and 2.0's

 

HRG

 

 

Edited November 26, 2020 by HotRunrGuy

[FordBuyer]

39 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

Give me an example, so much happened I can't think of anything at the moment that could even remotely be considered sabotage. 

How about roving bands of bad actors deliberately disrupting and damaging work stations as was reported at the time. Forget all the particulars without looking it up, but it was deliberate sabatogue.

[akirby]

44 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said:

Give me an example, so much happened I can't think of anything at the moment that could even remotely be considered sabotage. 

There were reports of misinformation being reported up the line or that problems or potential problems were purposely not communicated.  

[fuzzymoomoo]

1 hour ago, akirby said:

There were reports of misinformation being reported up the line or that problems or potential problems were purposely not communicated.  

Reports to me are absolutely useless, kinda like a signed affidavit. Without any kind of proof it's just hearsay.