http://www.auto.com/industry/ford25_20021025.htm

Ford is trying to cut costs, but with all of the recall problems lately why risk having major recalls on the #1 selling vehicle?

"This year it was absolutely the right decision" for the Expedition and Navigator, CEO William Clay Ford Jr. said in New York on Thursday. "It is costly. We felt it was important to get the quality right." With the top-selling F-Series, "we're not counting on doing it that way."

Huh?!?!!?

I think I will wait until the 2005's come out.

 

You're Goddamn right to wait for a 2005!!!

Ford has a history of using 1st year owners as guinea pigs instead of researching designs themselves. They then have to deal with low dealership morale and spend the next 5-10 years paying people to solve problems and handle customer complaints that could have all been avoided with a little more R&D.

Lack of foresight on Jr's part, in my opinion

 

Could you explain then why Ford has been the #1 selling truck if what you say is true? All manufacturers go through problems when they switch over to a new model. Don't just think it's an isolated problem with Ford. And I rathr doubt that they use the consumer as guinnea pigs. It's also costly for Ford.

 

I bought a 94 Mustang GT the first year of the new style and the only proble I had with that car was the radio other than that the car ran great for the 2 years I had it.

 

I had a '94 Mustang GT also. I had the following problems in the first year:

New clutch at 8,000 miles
New steering rack at 12,000 miles
New interior door panels at 15,000 miles (they "creaked" every time you rested your arm on them)

Sold it with 45,000 miles and it ran fine after getting the things fixed under warranty.

 

Navi Man,

The F-150 is not the #1 selling truck because it's the best truck in America. It's tops in sales because of marketing, availability and affordabilty. Ford builds literally millions of F-150's with a seemingly endless variety of options. You can get a base model F-150 for around $14,000 or you can get all of the options. You can also find a Ford dealer in every town across the country.

This is not a personal attack. I see you're offended regularly by people that complain here about Ford's quality control issues. If Ford doesn't stick up for themselves, then why should you do it for them I only complain because honestly wish that Ford would do better.

My view of the situation is that they lack the long term vision required to make a product as superior as they possibly can for use in the real world.

The current evidence indicates that Ford is run by accountants with their sole interest being the stock holder's current profit. They don't believe that you have to spend money in development to make a truley valuable, viable product. If you look at the recent history of Ford, you'll see that there are serious problems with all of their models. All of these problems are the result of cost cutting during the R&D and production process.

Ford, Lincoln, Mercury recalls since 1998. Imagine how much money it has cost Ford and it's dealers to resolve these issues What do you think costs more: R&D or recalls. R&D requires a group of engineers spending time discussing theory and later on building a product and testing their theories. Recalls involve a group of engineers discussing problems. You'll also have public relations teams discussing fall-out and image. Then there's a group of accountants and lawyers trying to figure out how much it's going to cost in terms of dealer time, liabilty and lost production. It goes on and on, literally for years.

My argument is that the money being saved now by cutting R&D as well as quality control measures is lost down the line by recalls, TSB's, non-returning customers and the time it takes to fix mistakes after the vehicles leave the factory. It is going to cost less in the long term to spend extra time with research rather than fixing a problem after production.

It's a philosophy that is flawed; looking solely at short-term profits. There is a long history of Ford accountants overruling the concerns of engineers in order to save a very small amount of per-unit production costs. One seemingly small decision can have major financial ramifications. An example from a few years ago is when Ford accountants decided they could save about $1.00 per unit in the production of the E40D transmission. The part in question failed and ended up costing Ford about $2,100.00 per-unit to fix. There are examples of such errors on all Ford models.

All manufacturers can and do have problems. What's improtant to understand, is that it's not necessary.

In my situation, I have a 1997 that has all sorts of problems that 1998 and later F-150 do not. It's disturbing that I end up paying out-of-pocket to fix production and design problems that could have and should have been solved at the factory.

 

"This is not a personal attack. I see you're offended regularly by people that complain here about Ford's quality control issues."

I'm not offended regularly by people who have legitimate complaints. I approach things by looking at both sides.

I have read many of your posts and have agreed on some and disagreed on others. You have even helped me on occassion. I didn't think you were going to write a novel justifying your view point. Even after reading your last post, I find some things that I would agree with, but others that I wouldn't. That's what open forums are for. Ford, although far from perfect, isn't the big bad guy you portray them to be. I think if you were to reread what you wrote, you have even contradicted yourself in some areas.

Anyway, I don't want to drag this issue out. Let's just leave it as we agree on some, but not all issues.

 

Actually, I think you mis-understood the intent of the article and Jr.'s comments. With the Expedition/Navigator, there were actually quite a few small problems that Ford caught at the last moment that delayed the launch for a few months as they fixed both the problems (in general) and reworked vehicles prior to ship. This prevented any recalls or warranty calls on those items. As a result, they hired extra inspectors for a while to ensure that everything was taken care of, POST launch.

Jr.'s comments are that they're not planning on doing that with P221; i.e. they're going to catch everything up front (or somewhre in the middle) such that there is no need to do the clean-up job done with Exp/Nav.

Actually, you're going to want the 2004. For the same cost cutting reasons you cited, Ford will be de-contenting the truck throughout its life, just as it does with all models.

Again, as a point of reference, I had a 2001 SuperCrew with ABSOLUTELY ZERO problems. I don't believe that the first model year is NECCESSARILY a lost cause - it stands a good chance of being the best.

 

That was my interpretation of the article also. Ford wasn't cutting back on their inspections, but just weren't going to employ the extra cautious inspection that they did with the Expy/Navigator rollout.

 

Jumping on the negative regarding this? We haven't even seen the new skin on the 2004. Maybe "we're not counting on doing it that way." means they plan the better quality controls during manufacturing to eliminate the need for the additional inspections.

Wouldn't that be better than inspections?

Could be those are already in place for the Navi/Expy line and the additional inspections were to validate the new processes? Hmmmmmmm

 

His comments were meant to calm the fears of the stockholder's, he was in New York to meet with, that he was spending their money on these inspections.

Remember, Ford's number one goal is money not quality or satisfied customer's; those are just slogans.

From an e-mail Ford sent me:

Quote:

At Ford Motor Company, we consider the satisfaction of our customers as one of our most important objectives. If you have any other inquiries or concerns, please feel free to contact us and we will be happy to address them.

Thank you for contacting Ford Motor Company.

Sincerely,
Jacqueline
Ford Motor Company
Customer Relationship Center

 

AJ,

Cheer up buddy. You don't work for Nader do you?

 

Ford is in a bind
I read where they are trying to save ONE BILLION DOLLARS
At the same time they are coming out with a brand new design for their ABSOLUTE best selling vehicle
If they have major problems with the 2004s they are going to be in serious trouble ( They already have major economic woes)

So just how are they going to save that ONE BILLION

 

I think what he's (William C. Ford) trying to explain, is the well-known philosophy that you can't inspect quality into a product. You must put systems in place that will ensure that it is constructed right during assembly rather than just trying to catch/identify the problem(s) after the fact.

 

Er... some people are blowing this out of proportion:

As in not via EXTRA inspectors (which are costly), they're planning a different approach, but their goals are the same.