Not to beat the prop rod thing to death, but I think it depends on the car and the intended market.   My wife's Escape has a prop rod and I do not give a rat's buttocks because it is just another transportation module.   However, the Mustang is more of an icon and many Mustang GT customers do mods, show off their cars to friends, or at meets, clubs, drag strips, etc.   Many of us open the hood more than the trunk.  The first thing I did with my Mustang was add hood struts.   I bought aftermarket non-Ford ones, though.         

Sorry I misread.

Note #1: The price did go down, for Ford. They just kept the difference.    Note #2: What did you recommend to the wife to replace her 22 ST?   

I didn’t say fail, I forgot to type back   Another brand falling back to online shopping

I've never defended decontenting for useful features.  It sucks.  But most Ford prop rods came that way from day one and it's true that most people don't care.  You're the one who obsesses over the tiniest details.  I explain why Ford makes certain business decisions and I guess being in a fortune 50 corporation for 38 years I understand and accept those decision more than others.  But certainly not everything and we've discussed all the royal fuck ups lately.  

The brand didn't fail.   It's still online.

So sad another brand falling to online shopping.  

They have to keep the Corsair, adding to the already established Nautilus import chain makes it easier  but agree, cost factors may be worrying. They have to find a way as it’s a fair chunk of sales.   Farley has changed plans so many times his head must be spinning, their assessment of threats headwinds is atrocious and smacks of wilful blindness.

I’m not sure why you defend Ford on this stuff so much.  Is the end function the same? Does the hood stay up in order to do whatever is necessary under it? The obvious answer is yes. This would be acceptable if the price ever went down, but it rarely does. Ford routinely removes features from its vehicles, and I believe more than just Ford enthusiast notice. Is it enough to get people to not buy them yet, hard to say.  Five years ago, you would’ve never heard me badmouth Ford, but these actions are reducing value for the customer are wearing me out. Much to my chagrin, my wife just bought a 26 explorer ST to replace her 22 model. I tried to discourage her from buying it, but in the end it’s hers and that’s what she picked. I’ll post some observations about the 26 when I have some more time.

You misunderstood me, my comments were aimed at you listening to wankers over on other sites. As a n LS owner you know the truth, the vehicles weren’t failures and in fact such a threat to J/LR that they lobbied For to kill all those projects you mentioned. I never understood Ford scrapping DEW for Lincoln s it was perfect for them and the T’Bird.     DEW was Ford harvesting a Jaguar developed platform for its own premium vehicles that Lincoln had the capacity to pay for where J/LR couldn’t which is why they (J/LR) needed to go as their product cycle renewal costs were more than the value of the brands, Tata agreeing to fund the $8 billion product cycle costs   By 2006, it was all getting too hard for Bill Ford and all he could see is money bleeding everywhere, pity some smart heads around him didn’t keep some of the gems like DEW to keep Lincoln going to a more upmarket level of vehicles.