Ford should sell NA operations

[g48150]

So why get rid of Land Rover? last time I checked they where making money...

 

As for that substandard reliability, The JD Power ratings are all fucked up..look who is at the bottom of the list with Land Rover..Mini and Hummer. I heard from Mini owners the reason their car is so low on the list is that JD Power counts things people dont like on the car as a fault, and the problem with the Mini was owners thought that cup holders where way too small and dinged them on that. People who had Hummers hated the MPG they got with the truck (DUH!) thus the low ratings on them..

 

Don't blame the product when the testing methodolgy is fucked up

 

Quality is defined by the customer, don't forget that. The American People didn't bail out on Ford, GM, and Chrysler during the 70's when gas was high and the popular cars sucked it down just as hard as they do now. The Big 3 continually screwed up most basic things about cars that Toyota, Honda, and Nissan got right the first time. Performance, Interior, and Quality.

 

Interestingly, Hyundai made #3 on the JD Power list. Say what you want about the 10/100,000 warranty, that don't sell cars, it was the nice VP of such and such that called me every week for the first six months that I owned my new Azera.

 

Fact is, the Big 3 wouldn't be where they are today if it wasn't for one thing, LISTENING. How much would a simple phone call cost from a VP of such and such from the Big 3 to call the average American and ask "How do you like your car?" "Is there anything I could do to help?" Its not THAT expensive to call long distance anymore, hell, switch to Vonage if you're THAT worried about long distance. I wouldn't worry too much about hurting the feelings of that VP of such and such, if they REALLY cared, then they wouldn't be in the mess that they're in... :titanic:

[taxman100]

Ford Motor Company, for a variety of reasons, is an inferior company to some of their competition in the design, production, and sale of motor vehicles. Their labor costs are higher, their management not as talented nor focused on the product, and they currently do not offer what customers want to buy.

 

You can come up with all the reasons in the world, but the successful business model in manufacturing automobiles in North America is to build new modern plants in rural areas, use non-union labor, and work the system to receive as much in tax incentives as possible. Management and labor both have to have bigger goals than putting as much money into their own pockets as possible - the old way of building cars is killing the industry.

 

The more time I spend doing maintenance on my wife's Toyota, the more I notice about how they had sweat the details in the way the mechanics are designed and put together. At least in 2000, Toyota was still run by the engineering types. It is similar to my Grand Marquis - you spend time under the car or under the hood, and you can see on both cars how the basics were done very well.

 

Ford can sell their North American operations, but it would not change the fact they are not very competitive right now in the vehicles people want to buy. The pipe dream of importing cars from Europe won't work - labor is even higher over there, and the Japanese transplants would cream them on price and quality. (A four door Focus diesel with auto cost the equivalent of more than $30,000 in Great Britain)

 

Myself personally, once the Panther platform goes away, they really don't sell much I couldn't buy at a half dozen other dealers in town, as far as sedans, small wagons, and smaller SUV's go, so while I try to buy American, it won't be like I'll be forced to walk to work.

 

And I certainly won't be buying a Jaguar in this or any other life I may live.

[Roadrunner]

So. If Ford should sell Jaguar because they've lost ---sooooo--- much money on them, I submit Ford should sell its NA vehicle operations which lost more money in the last two years, than Jaguar has cost Ford over its entire lifetime.

 

Given that Ford's NA operations have been bailed out by Ford Credit for the last six years, is there any reason why Ford shouldn't pull the plug on NA ops?

 

I understand this is a devil's advocate position, but if you look at the size of Ford's NA operations versus Jaguar, there is a lot more money to lose via Ford/Mercury/Lincoln than via Jaguar due to size. The rollercoaster can hurt worse, in other words.

 

 

LOL, Making friends all over the place aren't you Richard? I guess it's finally catching on about you. Again.

 

And no, Jaguar has never been profitable. They've been making cars with substandard reliability for years now. The same is true for Land Rover. They should be sold.

 

Think about it this way: what if they killed the brands?

 

Ford's not against killing Mercury, so why not shut down Jaguar and Land Rover. It's better to delete something than it is to potentially let it become a strong competitor in someone else's hands.

Edited August 8, 2006 by Roadrunner

[NoMoVisteon]

Quality is defined by the customer, don't forget that. The American People didn't bail out on Ford, GM, and Chrysler during the 70's when gas was high and the popular cars sucked it down just as hard as they do now. The Big 3 continually screwed up most basic things about cars that Toyota, Honda, and Nissan got right the first time. Performance, Interior, and Quality.

 

Interestingly, Hyundai made #3 on the JD Power list. Say what you want about the 10/100,000 warranty, that don't sell cars, it was the nice VP of such and such that called me every week for the first six months that I owned my new Azera.

 

Fact is, the Big 3 wouldn't be where they are today if it wasn't for one thing, LISTENING. How much would a simple phone call cost from a VP of such and such from the Big 3 to call the average American and ask "How do you like your car?" "Is there anything I could do to help?" Its not THAT expensive to call long distance anymore, hell, switch to Vonage if you're THAT worried about long distance. I wouldn't worry too much about hurting the feelings of that VP of such and such, if they REALLY cared, then they wouldn't be in the mess that they're in... :titanic:

Now you're talking!!! This idea does have merits for sure. If I were a customer who was buying a Ford car , truck or Suv, getting a call from a VIP in upper tier would definately be something to experience. Maybe having a select few along with some of big brass do that would really make some very good impressions on customers. And just think, word of that would definately get around that is positive. Never mind worrying about phone rates and all, you can bet that Ford not doubt gets some pretty good phone as it is with the business they do. Let's see the big brass got to bat for the customers who buy!!!

[Roadrunner]

Hyundai's a much smaller company in American operations versus Ford/etc - it's not so easy for a person to be making phone calls all day because there will be a lot more people to call.

 

As an aside, if some guy was calling me every week about the car, I'd personally find it annoying instead of appreciated.

[g48150]

Hyundai's a much smaller company in American operations versus Ford/etc - it's not so easy for a person to be making phone calls all day because there will be a lot more people to call.

 

As an aside, if some guy was calling me every week about the car, I'd personally find it annoying instead of appreciated.

 

 

Hyundai is a smaller company, yes, but one of the KEY FACETS to the Way Forward is to act EXACTLY like a small company. Who said anything about making phone calls all day, maybe doing this in shifts, maybe 2 to 3 hours at a time. Having a VP of such and such make three phone calls during his precious lunch (god knows we've all worked lunch before), would seriously pay dividends for the bottom line given enough of them do this.

 

Yeah, I was kinda confused when these guys kept calling, but I realized its because they CARE about the customer and are passionate about what they do. That is something to be said for a KOREAN company to figure this out, and not an American one.

[F250]

Hyundai is a smaller company, yes, but one of the KEY FACETS to the Way Forward is to act EXACTLY like a small company. Who said anything about making phone calls all day, maybe doing this in shifts, maybe 2 to 3 hours at a time. Having a VP of such and such make three phone calls during his precious lunch (god knows we've all worked lunch before), would seriously pay dividends for the bottom line given enough of them do this.

 

Yeah, I was kinda confused when these guys kept calling, but I realized its because they CARE about the customer and are passionate about what they do. That is something to be said for a KOREAN company to figure this out, and not an American one.

 

You sound like a Hyundai salesman trolling for customers.

Just what the world needs, more telemarketers.

What do you think these Hyundai executives, if they really are, would do if you said you hated their car? Would they buy it back for what you paid? Would they send a team to your house to pick up the car, give you a loaner, repair any problem and return it detailed? No. It's called lip service, talk is cheap.

[F250]

Ford Motor Company, for a variety of reasons, is an inferior company to some of their competition in the design, production, and sale of motor vehicles. Their labor costs are higher, their management not as talented nor focused on the product, and they currently do not offer what customers want to buy.

 

Let's see Ford has had the best selling truck for 29 years, the best selling vehicle of any type for most of those years and the F-150 earned best in class JDPower quality ratings and NHTSA safety ratings. Yep, sounds like an inferior product in design, production and sales, genius. I'll bet you are about to mention cars and the price of gas. Ok, Toyota outsold Ford last month and it was a big news story. Why? because it was so unusual. Ford is still way ahead of Toyota year to date.

 

Let's look at it another way. For over 20 years the full size pickup truck has been the hottest selling, high profit vehicle segment in the market and Toyota had nothing competitive. Toyota has tried since the early 90's to design and build a competitive product for this market and FAILED. For their third attempt Toyota builds a huge new plant dedicated to producing only full size pickup trucks and before the plant can even be completed and the first unit built the market finally starts to shrink. Simply put the party is over and they haven't even shown up yet.

 

People like to bash Ford for investing too heavly in trucks and SUVs but these people ignore why. It's because that is what people wanted! The market was clear, Ford would not have built them if customers were not buying these vehicles in record numbers, but they did. Ford tried to design more fuel efficent vehicles since the 80's and each time stopped production because customers demanded bigger engines and more power. The original Taurus had an optional 4-cyl 5-speed high MPG powertrain that only lasted a couple of years because no one bought it. On the contrary customers wanted more power than the 3.0L so the 3.8 was made optional. The Mustang GT had an optional high-tech (for the era) turbo EFI 4-cyl engine option that was discontinued quickly due to low sales. When Ford tried to replace the Mustang with a 4-cyl FWD car the public said "hell no" and they renamed it the Probe, which was later dropped due to low sales while the old Mustang continued. The Thunderbird of the 90's was originally designed only as a V-6 but had to be quickly redesigned to accept a V8 due to customer demand. The Explorer had to be redesigned to accept a V8 due to customer demand and the old 5.0L had to stay in production for this vehicle because the 4.6 OHC V8 would not fit. Even the little Tempo eventually got a V6 option by popular demand.

 

There are other examples but the point is Ford has built fuel efficent vehicles in the past 20 years but customers didn't buy them and demanded bigger engines and larger SUVs. Now these same people blame Ford for not having enough small, fuel efficent cars in their lineup.

[g48150]

No. It's called lip service, talk is cheap.

 

What about an operating loss of around 2 billion for the first half of the year for Ford Motor, is that cheap?