Ford is done with making boring cars

[morgan20]

12 minutes ago, DeluxeStang said:

Ford used to be a joke back in the 70s and 80s, as well as every other American brand, or so my parents have said. Now, people are paying a premium for the Ford badge.

 

People are paying a premium for the Ford badge because Ford dumped most of the products that were a joke by the early 2020s. The remaining products that are boring or still a joke like Escape are on the cutting block.

 

Less is more at Ford

Edited October 11 by morgan20

[DeluxeStang]

1 minute ago, morgan20 said:

 

People are paying a premium for the Ford badge because Ford dumped most of the products that were a joke by the early 2020s. The remaining products that are boring or still a joke like Escape are on the cutting block.

 

Less is more at Ford

Exactly, but it's working. This strategy wouldn't have worked in the 80s, because Ford's reputation was below rock bottom. They've come a long way, that's my point. 

[Rick73]

1 hour ago, DeluxeStang said:

To be fair, they said the exact thing in the 90s. I guarantee there were people with 1970s Ford pickups talking about how this new 90s f-150 with a 4.6 and fuel injection was gonna be super unreliable. Cars have gotten way more reliable over time. Ford used to be a joke back in the 70s and 80s, as well as every other American brand, or so my parents have said. Now, people are paying a premium for the Ford badge.

Not actually what I was thinking about.  I was thinking more about having to spend over $1,000 to have a broken bolt replaced on an exhaust manifold, or well over $1,000 to have a dash control unit replaced, and knowing that this part is model specific and will likely not be available at all when the car is much older.  Reliability is a different subject, and usually an indicator of probability of failure.  That’s a concern also, but in the context of my post not applicable.  I’m more concerned with older cars no longer being viable cheap transportation for lower income owners because cost of repairs are way too high, and many issues beyond what most owners can fix themselves.

[ehaase]

52 minutes ago, Rick73 said:

I’m more concerned with older cars no longer being viable cheap transportation for lower income owners because cost of repairs are way too high, and many issues beyond what most owners can fix themselves.

Somehow people in the hood are still able to keep 15 year old Impalas, 25 year old Camrys and Accords, and 30 year Silverados running. 

[Sherminator98]

51 minutes ago, Rick73 said:

I’m more concerned with older cars no longer being viable cheap transportation for lower income owners because cost of repairs are way too high, and many issues beyond what most owners can fix themselves.

 

Who actually cares about that? The same issue was faced 20 years ago with lower income people and cars-cars are expensive and its just easier to buy something else that is "cheap" that might be worn out by some persons standards, but still can operate for a period of time to get them through? I get this feeling people are trying to hard to justify things that don't really matter for a company. There is a situation with a certain year of Mazda 3s that the part for clutch or something is impossible to get-but it is almost 20 years old too.

 

I sold my Fusion Hybrid with almost 220K on it to someone who was in a tough situation (their other car got destroyed after a botched oil change or at least that was their story) at a fair market price for what it was going for. 

[DeluxeStang]

10 minutes ago, ehaase said:

Somehow people in the hood are still able to keep 15 year old Impalas, 25 year old Camrys and Accords, and 30 year Silverados running. 

Exactly, expensive repairs are nothing new. It hasn't stopped people from keeping cars running. Life finds a way. 

[Biker16]

7 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

 

Having been alive for most of this and having someone working in the auto industry from 1982 till 2004, this chart is fucking useless...

 

The major dips are economic recessions/COVID and highs are boom periods economically. 

This doesn't prove your point at all. 

Sir,

My point is that all Automakers, not just Ford, plan to sell fewer vehicles in a shrunken US auto market going forward.

This will impact the number of factories, workers, and future auto buyers. It isn't hard to see who will and won't survive as the market contracts. 

https://press.spglobal.com/2024-09-26-S-P-Global-Mobility-September-U-S-auto-sales-smaller-volume,-little-change-to-underlying-dynamics

Less competition and fewer choices aren't good for car buyers or domestic automakers. 

Supply and Demand are not constants; Fewer Factories producing fewer but higher margin vehicles doesn't mean an increase in profitability. 

Edited October 11 by Biker16

[Sherminator98]

1 minute ago, Biker16 said:

My point is that all Automakers, not just Ford, plan to sell fewer vehicles in a shrunken US auto market going forward.

 

Less competition and fewer choices aren't good for car buyers or domestic automakers. 

 

They are businesses and business will find way to make profits. Not to mention that there are a few nameplates out there that can use some culling that the US market wouldn't miss anyways. 
 

[DeluxeStang]

24 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

 

Who actually cares about that? The same issue was faced 20 years ago with lower income people and cars-cars are expensive and its just easier to buy something else that is "cheap" that might be worn out by some persons standards, but still can operate for a period of time to get them through? I get this feeling people are trying to hard to justify things that don't really matter for a company. There is a situation with a certain year of Mazda 3s that the part for clutch or something is impossible to get-but it is almost 20 years old too.

 

I sold my Fusion Hybrid with almost 220K on it to someone who was in a tough situation (their other car got destroyed after a botched oil change or at least that was their story) at a fair market price for what it was going for. 

Exactly, I'm looking at getting a focus RS, probably a 2017, ideally a 2018, but those are nearly impossible to find they only imported like a 1,000 of them. I understand even at 30-40k miles, there might be things that need to be repaired and replaced.

 

It'll be the car I learned manual on, so that will probably break the clutch. But I'm budgeting for it. I figure if I have 5-10 grand on the side from repairs, it should be fine. 

 

I've never seen a used car that didn't have issues. Even used Toyotas and Hondas that are only a few years old have problems all the time. It's just part of life. Cars are generally reliable, but they're also very complex machines. Owners need to know that, and plan accordingly with their budget. 

Edited October 11 by DeluxeStang

[Rick73]

5 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

Exactly

No, not exactly, not even close.  The problem of high repair costs because of the way cars are designed and assembled is NOT the same as before.  Society has recently encountered this problem with other items where now many items that have minor failures are simply discarded and replaced with a new one.  It is often no longer practical to repair items that would otherwise have much longer service left in them.  With lower-cost items it’s understandable to take a throw-away approach, but with cars?  Cars are not to that level yet because of how much more expensive they are, but the problem of designs that do not emphasize repairability affects them in other ways.  Mostly, poor design that costs too much to repair will accelerate depreciation because fewer buyers will want a used car that costs way too much to repair after the warranty period.

 

So, who actually cares about that?  Well, me for starters, otherwise I wouldn’t have brought it up, and I seriously doubt I’m the only one.  I can give you examples if you want, but expect you already know of some questionable design decisions meant to maximize initial profit at expense of higher future repair costs that backfired due to higher warranty costs; not to mention tarnish reputation.

 

For what it’s worth, the example I originally used was for a vehicle well under 10 years old, and the owner traded for a different brand because of the high repair costs.  He did not even consider the same brand at all.  It’s not an imaginary problem, it’s real regardless of dismissive attitudes. 

[Sherminator98]

1 hour ago, Rick73 said:

No, not exactly, not even close.  The problem of high repair costs because of the way cars are designed and assembled is NOT the same as before.  Society has recently encountered this problem with other items where now many items that have minor failures are simply discarded and replaced with a new one.  It is often no longer practical to repair items that would otherwise have much longer service left in them.  With lower-cost items it’s understandable to take a throw-away approach, but with cars?  Cars are not to that level yet because of how much more expensive they are, but the problem of designs that do not emphasize repairability affects them in other ways.  Mostly, poor design that costs too much to repair will accelerate depreciation because fewer buyers will want a used car that costs way too much to repair after the warranty period.

 

So, who actually cares about that?  Well, me for starters, otherwise I wouldn’t have brought it up, and I seriously doubt I’m the only one.  I can give you examples if you want, but expect you already know of some questionable design decisions meant to maximize initial profit at expense of higher future repair costs that backfired due to higher warranty costs; not to mention tarnish reputation.

 

For what it’s worth, the example I originally used was for a vehicle well under 10 years old, and the owner traded for a different brand because of the high repair costs.  He did not even consider the same brand at all.  It’s not an imaginary problem, it’s real regardless of dismissive attitudes. 

 

A car is not a phone or any other electronic device-two completely different approaches of doing things. Electronics get cheaper as they age-better processes in making them and more powerful with each successive generation. Do you really need a new phone every 2 years or less? No, more like every 5-7 years. Part of the reason why they aren't repairable is to make them cheaper to assemble and to meet thermal requirements. 

 

If warranty costs where such a huge issue, why is the average age of a car in 2024 12.6 years, if repair costs where that much, people would be spending money on replacing them instead of repairing them. Your focusing on a fraction of a what could be actually going on, but people keeping vehicles longer and longer shows that repair costs are negligible vs buying a new car. 

 

[Sherminator98]

1 hour ago, Rick73 said:

For what it’s worth, the example I originally used was for a vehicle well under 10 years old, and the owner traded for a different brand because of the high repair costs.  He did not even consider the same brand at all.  It’s not an imaginary problem, it’s real regardless of dismissive attitudes. 

 

And that customer would have lost anyways if they had that many problems with a vehicle. I had a shit experience with my 2004 Focus SVT and we've had some stinkers at times with some Ford products but over almost 40 plus years of owning them that's only been about 2-3 vehicles out of dozens of them. Sometimes you just get shitty end of the stick.  

[DeluxeStang]

39 minutes ago, silvrsvt said:

 

And that customer would have lost anyways if they had that many problems with a vehicle. I had a shit experience with my 2004 Focus SVT and we've had some stinkers at times with some Ford products but over almost 40 plus years of owning them that's only been about 2-3 vehicles out of dozens of them. Sometimes you just get shitty end of the stick.  

That's funny, because our extended family has also owned about 40 Ford's, and our family has only had 2-3 bad experiences as well. People give Ford so much shit, and I don't understand why. Yes, they struggled in the past, yes, they issue a lot of recalls.

 

But their reliability is about on par with most other Japanese, Korean, and American brands, superior in many cases. Our families most reliable Toyota made it about 120k miles before the engine went out. The most reliable Ford in our family has 600k miles on the original engine and I'm not joking. Some of the only 90s cars you see driving around still are Fords, yet people act like Ford doesn't put effort into reliability, it's weird. 

[DeluxeStang]

2 hours ago, Rick73 said:

No, not exactly, not even close.  The problem of high repair costs because of the way cars are designed and assembled is NOT the same as before.  Society has recently encountered this problem with other items where now many items that have minor failures are simply discarded and replaced with a new one.  It is often no longer practical to repair items that would otherwise have much longer service left in them.  With lower-cost items it’s understandable to take a throw-away approach, but with cars?  Cars are not to that level yet because of how much more expensive they are, but the problem of designs that do not emphasize repairability affects them in other ways.  Mostly, poor design that costs too much to repair will accelerate depreciation because fewer buyers will want a used car that costs way too much to repair after the warranty period.

 

So, who actually cares about that?  Well, me for starters, otherwise I wouldn’t have brought it up, and I seriously doubt I’m the only one.  I can give you examples if you want, but expect you already know of some questionable design decisions meant to maximize initial profit at expense of higher future repair costs that backfired due to higher warranty costs; not to mention tarnish reputation.

 

For what it’s worth, the example I originally used was for a vehicle well under 10 years old, and the owner traded for a different brand because of the high repair costs.  He did not even consider the same brand at all.  It’s not an imaginary problem, it’s real regardless of dismissive attitudes. 

Man, engines have always been a considerable expense to replace, so have transmissions. Are they more expensive now? Yes, they also last a lot longer. 

 

The only super expensive thing I see to repair on my maverick is the transmission. The e-motors and CVT are apparently one unit, one goes out, you have to replace the other, or so I've been told. So I could see that being like a 10k repair. 

 

But with how reliable electric motors and e-cvts are, hopefully that doesn't happen. 

[DeluxeStang]

So back on topic with enthusiasts cars, the guy who designed that new RS 200 concept said they designed it to accommodate multiple types of powertrains. He even threw in a 😉 to the guy who asked him.

 

That seems like a lot of work for a "Just for fun after hours, this will never be made" type of car. Ford also filed a patent for the RS 200 name recently, and Farley indicated he was interested in doing more RS branded cars in the future while leaning into Ford's past icons. 

 

It's probably nothing, but there seems to be a lot of things lining up for an RS 200 revival... 

 

Edit: He also said this in a conversation on his Instagram. If there was a zero percent chance of a new RS 200, you think he would just say no, but he said this. 

Edited October 12 by DeluxeStang

[Biker16]

23 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

 

They are businesses and business will find way to make profits. Not to mention that there are a few nameplates out there that can use some culling that the US market wouldn't miss anyways. 
 

 

What concerns me is the pattern of declining market share in a shrinking auto market. While losing market share to more profitable competitors like Hyundai/kia, Honda, and Toyota.

 

 

[T-dubz]

There’s a revolving door at my dealership to fix all of the recalls my explorer has. I’d consider silvrsvt lucky to have his fusion last 220k miles. My last two ford’s combined have only lasted a little more than half that (new motor at 60k in one and new transmission at 70k in the other). I’ve owned probably 15 ford’s. On almost all of them, once you hit 70k miles, it was all down hill. It was bad enough that I’ve only kept one ford with over 100k miles. 

[morgan20]

15 hours ago, DeluxeStang said:

yet people act like Ford doesn't put effort into reliability, it's weird. 

Ford didn’t put effort into reliability until very recently. When I worked for Ford in the 1990s and 2000s, management was more focused on beating up suppliers on price than on anything related to quality. This continued into the 2010s and early 2020s.

 

The current head honcho big shot finally decided to put effort into reliability a couple years ago after the quality problems became so bad that they became front page news

 

Ford CEO Jim Farley told the Ford Retired Engineering Executives group “fixing quality is my No. 1 priority.” Farley reportedly acknowledged that these recent quality issues didn’t just crop up overnight and have been years in the making, which means they could take years to fully fix. Farley recently hired former J.D. Power vice president Josh Halliburton as Ford’s new executive director of quality, who also said completely fixing quality issues would be a long-term matter.

 

[akirby]

1 hour ago, morgan20 said:

Ford didn’t put effort into reliability until very recently. When I worked for Ford in the 1990s and 2000s, management was more focused on beating up suppliers on price than on anything related to quality. This continued into the 2010s and early 2020s.

 

The current head honcho big shot finally decided to put effort into reliability a couple years ago after the quality problems became so bad that they became front page news

 

Ford CEO Jim Farley told the Ford Retired Engineering Executives group “fixing quality is my No. 1 priority.” Farley reportedly acknowledged that these recent quality issues didn’t just crop up overnight and have been years in the making, which means they could take years to fully fix. Farley recently hired former J.D. Power vice president Josh Halliburton as Ford’s new executive director of quality, who also said completely fixing quality issues would be a long-term matter.

 

It’s only a priority when it starts affecting sales and/or the bottom line.

[jpd80]

1 hour ago, akirby said:

It’s only a priority when it starts affecting sales and/or the bottom line.

Which is such a shame and causes a lot of unplanned warranty expense,

I remember Fields cut back warranty hold back funds because Mulally

had done a good job getting warranty claims to low levels.

 

So yeah, Ford execs have been raiding perceived “hollow logs”

of money to do other things which in turn caused more warranty cost

shocks in the quarterly results.

Edited October 12 by jpd80

[jpd80]

Saw a YouTube the other day about  Nissan XD pickup with the Cummins V8,

the transmission in it costs $12,000 for a full rebuild. The problem is that none

of the Nissan dealerships can supply a front gearbox  converter seal.

Eventually, the aftermarket will supply things like this but it really makes me 

wonder about poor unknowing buyers purchasing something like this and 

getting stuck with a nightmare repair cost….

[Sherminator98]

On 10/12/2024 at 1:41 PM, Biker16 said:

 

What concerns me is the pattern of declining market share in a shrinking auto market. While losing market share to more profitable competitors like Hyundai/kia, Honda, and Toyota.

 

 

Wake me up when any of them actually challenge Ford in their primary market of trucks, which the vast majority of their profit comes from. 

 

Adding "small cars" isn't going to make them gain share in this market nor will it add to their profit. 

 

Ford is focused on selling less CUVs/SUVs at a higher profit and growing their Ford Pro line, which is what they are good at. 

 

 

[Sherminator98]

On 10/12/2024 at 1:50 PM, T-dubz said:

There’s a revolving door at my dealership to fix all of the recalls my explorer has. I’d consider silvrsvt lucky to have his fusion last 220k miles. My last two ford’s combined have only lasted a little more than half that (new motor at 60k in one and new transmission at 70k in the other). I’ve owned probably 15 ford’s. On almost all of them, once you hit 70k miles, it was all down hill. It was bad enough that I’ve only kept one ford with over 100k miles. 

 

 

The Fusion was an unexpected purchase from my Brother in Law who had it. I had all the records, and he had work done to it, but nothing I would call "major" like a new battery or engine work. I had to replace the front brakes because they locked up. I didn't drive it much since it was in the middle of covid, but it got me where I needed to go. I think the battery pack might have been on its last legs-I "only" got 29 MPG around town, but I was also used to the power of my SHO and Mustang GT, so I might have had too much of a lead foot. 

 

With the cars I've owned long term:

 

2006 Mustang GT-One of the spark plugs where stuck when they did work on it at 90K for a tune up. I had rear brake issue with it, replaced the caliper

2010 Escape-water pump failed on it and limped it back home to the dealership without any damage to it and it lasted another 2-3 years after that and was finally sold at 157K on it. It had some other recall stuff done to it over time.

 

2013 Taurus SHO-had about 100K on it when I sold it. I had the infamous tick from the cam phasers on it after start up. Had issues with the rear drivers side brake hanging up on it. Fuel sending unit failed on it with in the first 2 weeks of having it.

 

2017 Escape-Had mice eat wires on it some how-not a Ford issue. Rear shocks had to replaced at 125K then it was replaced with the Bronco Sport a month or two later. Had a transmission issue, but the dealership did something and it never popped up again with another 40K put on it. 

 

2022 Broco-I had a bottle of sunblock stretch out the door net LOL Just been a twice a year old change trip to the dealership and that is that. 

[Captainp4]

Ford should bring back the 96 F350 7.3 psd with zf5 manual transmission and only build that. I'd pay 60k for a brand new one lol (I know all the reasons they can't/shouldn't, just making a joke). Closing in on 400k miles on mine and I'd drive it across the country tomorrow. My 2010 250 with ~140k miles scares the crap out of me every time I start it wondering what's going to break next. '17 mkc has been pretty decent so far besides some evap issues with the capless gas filler. That's the newest Ford I own.

[DeluxeStang]

5 hours ago, Captainp4 said:

Ford should bring back the 96 F350 7.3 psd with zf5 manual transmission and only build that. I'd pay 60k for a brand new one lol (I know all the reasons they can't/shouldn't, just making a joke). Closing in on 400k miles on mine and I'd drive it across the country tomorrow. My 2010 250 with ~140k miles scares the crap out of me every time I start it wondering what's going to break next. '17 mkc has been pretty decent so far besides some evap issues with the capless gas filler. That's the newest Ford I own.

The 6.7 in the newer super duties seems to be really reliable for the most part, it gets close to the 7.3 while being a much better engine all around. The 6.4 in your 2010 wasn't great from what I've heard, but I'd consider giving the 6.7 another look.