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Automotive Paint

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  1. If I were Ford, whose diesel p/u has not only the worst recent reputation but also the worst fuel economy by far in this era of $4/gallon diesel, I would be scared to death if Toyota showed up on the scene with a diesel especially if it got better fuel economy. IMO Ford's most profitable vehicle is also the most vulnerable at the moment.
  2. While silver has been a very popular trend for several years I wouldn't purchase a silver vehicle for a couple of reasons: 1. The high aluminum content required to make silvers is silver's Achilles heal since the aluminum flakes found in silver begin to degrade over time as the result of a chemical reaction. That's why regardless of how well that 3 year old BMW 7 series, which probably has oem paint coatings which are the twice the quality of what the US oems would use, was detailed it still looks nothing like a new silver BMW sitting on the dealer's lot. 2. The high metallic content of silvers make any potential autobody repairs/repainting noticeable regardless of the quality of the repaint. While many silver repair jobs are readily noticeable even the best blend jobs on silver metallic paint jobs are noticeable if one knows what he's looking for. The last thing I want is a color which is more prone than others to tipping off the dealer of being repainted at trade in time. Just my .02
  3. Mall of Georgia Ford has been advertising one of those classic bring $49 to put down and pay the payment on the window sales. What makes this dealer so unethical and sleazy is the fine print is 180 months @ 8.5% APR! They showed new Fords with payments on the window but the fine print didn't say what the selling prices were so here's what a loan calculator said: They advertised F-150 's - $229/per Loan Amount:$23,255 Total of Payments: $41,220 Interest: $17,965 They advertised Expedition - $269/per Loan Amount:$27,317 Total of Payments: $48,420 Interest: $21,100 They advertised F-250's - $289/per Loan Amount: $29,348 (funny because the truck with the payment on the windshield sure looked like a 4x4 Lariat to me) Total of Payments: $52,020 Interest: $22,672 For arguments sake: Assuming you are a simpleton who takes this deal because for whatever reason you can't afford a new Ford vehicle payment any other "normal" way what will your opinion of Ford be when you are so upside down on your mortgaged Ford it will take getting an inheritance or hitting the lottery to get rid of it? Now on the flip side of things what if you were a financially savvy and intelligent consumer who was currently considering a Ford and you saw this commercial? Using simple consumer financial common sense what does this imply about the brand, the dealer and the consumer which Ford markets its vehicles to?
  4. Unless the car never moved after you purchased it and it only saw partial sunlight in the same spot(s) this has nothing to do with a base/clear paint. Whether chitty lacquers, chitty enamels, half-arse acrylic urethane clears, half-arse acrylic urethane single stages, polyurethane clears, polyurethane single stages, UV inhibited coatings or waterborne coatings they all have a nifty little additive(s) in their formulation called ultraviolet light absorbers aka UV inhibitors. Regardless of coating type/technology its up to the coating manufacturer to decide on what type(s), what percentage and what grade quality of UV inhibitors he is going to use in his coating. That said it doesn't matter if the manufacturer only used one UV inhibitor of less than average quality at the bottom end of the recommended % ratio or 3 high quality UV inhibitors at their maximum recommended formulary % because unless this vehicle, which is covered uniformly with what you call sorry base/clear, never moves and stays mostly shaded there is absolutely no possible way for only a select horizontal and select vertical panel of the vehicle to oxidize while other panels didn't. Not only does UV light travel in a straight line (the reason why all those Big 3 paint peelers peeled on the top surfaces only and why top surfaces degrade faster than sides) but the basecoat/clearcoat used on your vehicle isn't smart enough to know that while it all came out of one huge 1000+ gallon batch at the manufacturer its now currently coating a vehicle with multiple panels. Not to mention its not smart enough to decide which panels it wants to fade on and which panels it wants to retain its gloss on. If what you say is true and you bought your car new it was most likely repaired/ repainted at the dealer prior to sale and if that's the case there's a fair chance it was done by a mobile "lot lizard" who paints in the back parking lot (out in the elements but he might use a canopy tent for shade in the summer) of nearly every new car dealer in the US for literally a fraction of what the dealer body shop charges. BTW- The next time you trade a vehicle and the dealer tells you he subtracted $500++++ off your trade in value for that simple little door ding know that the typical lot lizard repairs these dings for $50-85/per depending on market and demand. Kinda explains why many cars in the mall parking lot have a door ding or two but not a single 2,3 or 4 yo used vehicle on that new car dealers used lot has a ding. FWIW- The best thing Mercedes ever did for US was introduce the US automotive market to base/clear. The Big 3 didn't switch to b/c because b/c was less expensive than the low quality enamels and lacquers they were using at the time.
  5. Please consider the following is coming from a loyal Ford owner not a Consumer Reports writer: How can you not agree the F-150 isn't overpriced when its basically had a $4K rebate hanging over it since 2001? They advertise them $10K off sticker for Christ's sake! My trucked is loaded with nearly every option for an FX4 minus roof and it stickered for over $41K ! For freaking what? It's a pickup truck! All these options for all this money and it doesn't even have an engine light or passenger vanity mirror light for God's sake! As Ford employees do you not think trucks your company thinks are worth $41K shouldn't have common courtesy shit like this that at the most costs them $5 considering how they fuck suppliers? That said my truck was purchased used with 801 miles. After 6 hours of haggling the truck was purchased for $31K which was an ok deal IMO even considering it was certified pre-owned which meant 3.9% and 100K powertrain. My brother who is a loyal Ford guy said while its a sharp truck felt it was a $28K or $29K truck. I see where he's coming from. The reason he buys used Mountaineers and Exploder's is because they depreciate so freaking fast you can get a decent vehicle with low miles for a fraction of new sticker. Of course you have to get an extended warranty because the 5spd trannies are still garbage but these warranties are cheap through his credit union. Ford's biggest f'up is all the al la cart options that don't show up in the pricing guides and until they 86 the vast majority of stand alone options and package these options in consistent packages for each model like those slant eyes at Toyota and Honda do their vehicles particularly their high dollar ones will have piss poor resale. I've stuck with the brand through thick and thin but I'm getting pretty sick of these elementary asinine mistakes Ford continues to make.
  6. All you need to do is look back the last 10 or 15 years and see typically every newly redesigned truck wins its first year which IMO is why Ford, Dodge and Chevy (the long term players in the recently crowded market) never seem to release a new pickup during the same model. It's hard to lose if you are the only manufacturer on the block that put a newly redesigned truck on the dealers lot this year. Ask yourself this: If you manufacturered a pickup truck but never spent a dime on advertising would it win Truck or 4X4 of the year in a newstand magazine?
  7. Considering all that is at stake with the launch of this vehicle what would it hurt to wait 6 months to launch the new chassis with a properly tested and inventoried new motor and tranny especially considering the main sales nemesis of the current truck is its 90's motor and tranny? What's the rush? I want Ford to be succesful like everyone else but Ford has history here (read PSD) that has cost it not only major market share but its reputation as well.
  8. Canada has a problem with Ford using America's favorite world saving midget because he has a non-accident non-injury simple DUI or two on his record but it doesn't have a problem with Ford specifically advertising and catering to the sodomites? Sounds like the socialist moral majority up there isn't very consistent.
  9. On the powertrain side, there is one big disappointment – there will be no BOSS V8 engines at launch; all the V8 engines at launch will be from the Modular / Triton family. However, new engines will be added quickly though the 2009 model year and at the beginning of the 2010 model year. This is the stupidest thing I've heard since rushing the problematic 6 liter PSD to market along side of the old 7.3 PSD for the 2003. Lets ass-sume the new motors are flawless once they actually make it into the truck what type of resale do you think the 2009 truck with the antiquated motors and trannies will have? The bright side of things God forbid the new gas motors are a national disaster such as the 6 liters were in 2003 the new trucks with the old gas motors will at least have good resale. Pop question: Name an auto manufacturer in modern history which the typical consumer holds to a high regard who has ever launched a totally redesigned version of its most successful vehicle with a lineup of previous engines from the previous platform only to replace the entire engine lineup sometime year after the launch of the redesigned vehicle? I don't know if you've noticed or not but the typical auto buyer is getting away from rewarding stupidity with his hard earned money. Sure this truck will sell but look how many sales this is going to cost Ford in the process because once again they didn't have their chit together before launching a vehicle.
  10. Wow! :shades: I guess if you have $77K to drop on a pickup you don't care if it gets 10mpg and most insurance companies either won't insure it or insure it as a commercial vehicle. Sorry Ford, but if I needed a pulling truck for that kind of money I'm buying a true medium duty truck with a medium duty diesel motor and medium duty transmission.
  11. Everybody has been begging for this but in the early 00's when fuel was cheap Ford was blinded by the profitability of the SD's. Then the window sticker climbs $8K-10K over the course of 5 years, diesel fuel doubles in price (not to mention USLD is about 5% less efficient than the 'good stuff') and the 6 liter PSD turd swung the gate wide open for the Cummins and Duramax to gobble up PSD market share. Now the 6.4 PSD is averaging 12-14 mpg unloaded @ $3.39 per gallon. While I like my Ford's if Chebby shows up with a viable 6 cylinder diesel first that proves itself in MPG's and reliability, I'm sorry Momma Ford but its been real because you have been begged for 6cyl diesel option in the F-150 for at least the last 7 years. IMO the primary downfall of the Big 3 is not responding to the consumers changing demands. The consumer has begged for a 1/2 ton diesel for the better part of decade with nothing concrete in future pipeline. Now if Ford gets off its arse with a 6cyl diesel I'll take it in an Exped or 150....
  12. You are correct but I think they should not satisfied with being profitable overall as a company but by product/vehicle. Simply put loss leaders are for companies like Wal-Mart that sell thousands of relatively inexpensive (and mostly consumable in nature) products in a single retail store. For the sake of example lets say the Focus overall is sold at a loss of $1K per unit under the pretense of keeping Cafe averages up. A 'normal' or 'typical' business would chit can such a high priced dud in a second but not Ford or the Big 3. If Ford eliminated a loss leader or two that were nothing more than a lower priced car with great MPG thereby raising its CAFE average do you honestly believe the state and federal politicians are going to allow them to be fined or would they be thrilled Ford was becoming lean in order to stay in business? Granted, if Ford did away with say 2 vehicles which they were losing money on the employees in the plants that produced them could easily be out of a job unless they had another plant to work at. Which leads me to this: If Ford eliminated financial 'losers' from its lineup and concentrated on profitable units like the 150, 250, 350 and Expedition why couldn't these displaced employees work at a profitable truck plant as presumably a 2nd or 3rd shift that might not exist now to produce more trucks or SUV's? Why would they need to produce more than the current production? Because Ford is no longer wasting money to run entire plants on vehicles that lost money and closing these plants will save a ton of money in overhead between upkeep, maintenance, design, tooling and adverting for the non-profitable vehicles, etc. Adding a shift here and a shift there to a plant currently running 1 or 2 shifts that are already building a very profitable vehicle with existing employees already on the corporate payroll will maximize the productivity of said plant because that additional new shift or two is producing that many more profitable vehicles. Now what do you do with all these extra but profitable vehicles these plants are producing because they added a shift or 2? Cut that vehicles price several thousand to give your product a significant price advantage in the market place. This should be easy to do because you have eliminated the operating costs of an entire plant or two that was building a vehicle that lost the company money, payroll hasn't change simply shifted to profitable plants that had capacity to another shift and by adding a shift or two to a plant that was already making money even thought it was only running 1 or 2 shifts you will make that plant much more efficient and that much more profitable. A company can be very competitive in its market IF its profitable on everything it makes and sells. Does this make sense or am I over simplfying too much? As a customer I'm only trying to invoke some thought.....
  13. The best Mustang in probably 20 years and sales are in the tank even though it doesn't have any US competition???? I'm telling you from experience its too cheesy on cheap interior pieces and over-priced by $5K at a minimum. The F-250 and 350 will continue to decline between the housing/contractor market being off and the fact the new 6.4 Powerjoke is getting about ~13 mpg unloaded in the real world. These trucks are overpriced by $10K once they reach XLT trim levels and above. Plus, when the entire world knows you make as much as $20K per loaded SD truck you have just destroyed any pricing credibility you have as a manufacturer. The 150 is still nice but dated with an underpowered 4.6 and a barely adequate 5.4 both of which are gas hogs compared to the Chebby motors though real world vs. window sticker MPGs on the Chebbies took a dump during the 2007 model year (though John Q Redneck probably doesn't know that yet). The 150 at the FX4/Lariat level is overpriced by $8K to $10K all day long which is why I bought a $41K truck with 801 miles for $31K. There was no way in hell the new trucks were even worth phony invoice minus a $4K rebate. Plus, they need shit can all the al cart options across the brand because they don't add up at trade time. Every Honda dealer knows what std equipment and few possible options an accord EX V6 has. My stupid truck had at least $7K in options per the original window sticker including a $1300 wireless DVD that is worth almost nothing at trade because the guides and the dealers say they aren't worth anything. I'm glad some idiot took a bath on these options because I would have never bought a truck equipped like this from Ford had he not. Screw advertising campaigns and the stupid post 9/11 yo-yo rebates that DESTROY trade values. CUT THE STUPID PRICES AND HOLD THEM THERE! Rebates do not benefit consumers as a whole they destroy resale and alienate potential repeat buyers. Get a f'ing clue Ford! Between the deadbeat mortgage fiasco and 2008 being an election year I wouldn't hold my breath that momma Ford won't be going to the courthouse next year looking for protection and I don't mean for condoms either. Good luck! Ford's my favorite brand but it must continue to give me reasons why it should remain that way as well.
  14. I don't know if it would make it that far. Recent polls show the positive approval rating for Congress is around 11%. Remember a month or so ago when BOTH parties of voters shut down the phone system in Congress because those pricks were going to give amnesty to illegals even though both the blue and red voters were overwhelmingly opposed to it yet they were going to vote it in anyway? That alone should tell you the voters have finally got off their dead asses and become fed up with the BS in DC and I believe the next thing the typical voter from either side of the fence will grow a pair on is this ridiculous spending. I believe the 2008 and 2010 election cycles are going to prove to the politicians that the American people have had enough of politics and spending as usual. Plus, I thought the Dems court the UAW so why doesn't the UAW tell Hillary and her cronies if you want our votes and hard earned money you will speak out publicly against creating any measure/law that will destroy the businesses which feed our families? Grow a pair because your jobs and consumer spending depend on it.
  15. I've been watching CNBC all day in my office and they broke the Warren strike before a picketer had exited the building. That said the strike has come up about every 5th or so story with emphasis on the what the BIG 3 stocks are doing. I can tell you this: Halo 3 is getting at least 3x's the airplay as the GM strike on CNBC. This USA Today Blog doesn't look too promising as far as the court of public opinion goes: USA TODAY BLOG Maybe some of the more articulate members should post on it? Good luck! FWIW- Based only by his news conference, even though I'm pulling for you UAW folks Gettelfinger didn't come off as the sharpest knife in the drawer but hopefully like most chefs you have an assortment of knives in your drawer.
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