Bachi Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, Zooks527 said: Good morning, and excuse me for being a bit thick. When you say "It's not going to last long", are you referring to the production slowdown or the happy dance the prior poster was talking about? I think he's talking about the production. A few posts before "It's not going to last long", he said: Yes, they are back to work; and this is not going to last long. Sure they're working, but I think, still with those dummy steering wheels. I don' know much about the processes at ford, but I work for a German carmaker. If there's an issue like this, the cars will be "fixed" according to the actual production order. Edited February 14, 2019 by Bachi 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 2 hours ago, Zooks527 said: Good morning, and excuse me for being a bit thick. When you say "It's not going to last long", are you referring to the production slowdown or the happy dance the prior poster was talking about? I'm kind of assuming you're talking about the happy dance, because it seems that even though the plant is back up and running, no real changes to the situation will take place until a bunch of steering wheels show up at some unknown future point and they can start running through the pile of wheel-less cars out in the lot. And a side question, if I may. How do they coordinate getting the steering wheels onto the cars in the hold lot? Do they do it in place (which seems inefficient) or do they move them back to the plant (which would seem hard to do without a wheel)? Every car in the plant has a blend number that is used to keep track of what features and such a specific car gets, so when steering wheels do eventually arrive they will come already assigned a coordinating number so it's just a matter of finding the right car. The strange part is, not every car is missing a steering wheel. I don't understand that part. There was a bulletin my friend told me about (he works there, I work at a different Ford plant) from the plant manager that came out yesterday that made it sound like this is going to continue for a while. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bachi Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 (edited) I follow the news about the strike in matamoros. Doesn't look that good for us. Work's still not continuing in a lot of factories down there. Maybe Ford is already a step further in autonomous driving, doesn't need a steering wheel for that ? Edited February 14, 2019 by Bachi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zooks527 Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 26 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said: Every car in the plant has a blend number that is used to keep track of what features and such a specific car gets, so when steering wheels do eventually arrive they will come already assigned a coordinating number so it's just a matter of finding the right car. The strange part is, not every car is missing a steering wheel. I don't understand that part. Thank you for this reply and the one in the other thread as well. The "some need a wheel / some don't" bit is certainly strange. I know that the graphics on the steering wheel buttons change depending on the car's options. It'd be funny if something as small as that is what's driving the issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EUStang4Rai Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 38 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said: Every car in the plant has a blend number that is used to keep track of what features and such a specific car gets, so when steering wheels do eventually arrive they will come already assigned a coordinating number so it's just a matter of finding the right car. The strange part is, not every car is missing a steering wheel. I don't understand that part. There was a bulletin my friend told me about (he works there, I work at a different Ford plant) from the plant manager that came out yesterday that made it sound like this is going to continue for a while. hmmmm - round about 4000 cars produced in a week. So they need huge parking areas in Flat Rock to park all those cars without steering wheel. Maybe someone can post a picture, so we can search our cars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 58 minutes ago, EUStang4Rai said: hmmmm - round about 4000 cars produced in a week. So they need huge parking areas in Flat Rock to park all those cars without steering wheel. Maybe someone can post a picture, so we can search our cars. You can find it pretty easily on google earth. The plant is at I-75 and Gibraltar Rd. in Flat Rock Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EUStang4Rai Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 3 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said: You can find it pretty easily on google earth. The plant is at I-75 and Gibraltar Rd. in Flat Rock Thank you fuzzymoomoo. True, but how long does it take to fill all the parking areas around the plant? The space is of course limited and - if I understood you correctly - the lack of steering wheels continues. No end in sight. And no idea when this will end? You apprehended it in an earlier post, that the production may stop again. And it will stop, if I count 1 and 1 together. Isn't there any progress in the delivery timetable from the supplier? Have they continued their strike in Mexico? I thought they have "won" the dispute. And again, thank you for all these information. We get absolutely no answers from our dealers. They know nothing about such problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HotRunrGuy Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 52 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said: You can find it pretty easily on google earth. The plant is at I-75 and Gibraltar Rd. in Flat Rock Hmmm, an assembly plant with it's own drag strip (far left side). "QC'ing your new Mustang, a 1/4 mile at a time"! HRG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bachi Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I guess the plant has it's own testing facility with a small track ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 The areas circled blue are employee parking lots. The lot circled in green is a holding lot for shipping. There's another holding lot to the north across Vreeland Rd. (I marked it with a green line) where they process international shipments (they bring in stuff from Oakville Assembly in Canada) as well as a drop off point from other plant for loading into trucks for the final leg of their journey. Regarding the test track to the west, I don't think that's used anymore. In fact I think Ford actually sold or leased it to Bosch for testing. There's a smaller test track they use for squeak and rattle testing but it's hard to make out where it is on that map. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 1 hour ago, Bachi said: I guess the plant has it's own testing facility with a small track ? Every plant has a test track, just not that big. They’re much more compact and more rough road for squeak and rattle testing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 I re-circled the picture Yellow is the body shop. Somewhere in there, I think closer to the freeway is where the Stamping area is but I'm not 100% sure on that. I never walked through there when I worked there. The small red circle is where the fire was a few years ago. The damage visible on the outside from the road only recently (last 6-8 months) got fixed The black circle is the paint shop. The orange circle is final assembly the purple circle is the former plastics department where they actually made and painted the front and rear bumper covers for the Mustang (for some reason the Fusion and Continental were never a part of that). That was shut down about a year ago. Not sure what is going to become of that area. It was supposed to be something to do with Lincoln quality control or something like that but since the Continental is probably going away nobody I know who works there knows what’s going to happen with it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 The building under the google logo is the COBRA center where they make all of the axle sub assemblies and some other stuff I'm not exactly sure of. A lot of launch planning and training goes on there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 To the Southwest of the main assembly plant complex at the corner of Gibraltar Rd. and Hall Rd. is the new autonomous vehicle center. Construction on that should be wrapping up pretty soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zooks527 Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 1 hour ago, fuzzymoomoo said: The lot circled in green is a holding lot for shipping. There's another holding lot to the north across Vreeland Rd. (I marked it with a green line) where they process international shipments (they bring in stuff from Oakville Assembly in Canada) as well as a drop off point from other plant for loading into trucks for the final leg of their journey. Doing a rough count and quick multiply, there seem to be about 2500 marked spaces in the green circled area. Figure another 1/3 of that amount if you were going to dense pack them so that they would need to be moved in blocks gets you to space to store, perhaps, 4000 - 5000 cars. At 400/day, that could fill up fast, as well as be a logistics nightmare to empty afterwards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 14, 2019 Share Posted February 14, 2019 The lot across the street is much larger. It's HUGE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zooks527 Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 3 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said: The lot across the street is much larger. It's HUGE. Pulling it up on Google Maps, yeah, 2x to 3x the size at least. So, figure storage space for up to 20k all-in cars between all the lots. Certainly enough to hold things while waiting for parts to come in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 4 minutes ago, Zooks527 said: Pulling it up on Google Maps, yeah, 2x to 3x the size at least. So, figure storage space for up to 20k all-in cars between all the lots. Certainly enough to hold things while waiting for parts to come in. They won't keep unfinished cars in either of those lots. Those are for units awaiting shipment only. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 (edited) I was wrong about the racetrack apparently they’re using it to store all the cars built without steering wheels it was full by the end of the night shift on Tuesday morning Edited February 15, 2019 by fuzzymoomoo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bachi Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 2 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said: I was wrong about the racetrack apparently they’re using it to store all the cars built without steering wheels it was full by the end of the night shift on Tuesday morning Okay I hope they don't run out of storage space, pulled it up on google maps There are a few pretty large parking lots right next to the plant. I follow the news about the strike in matamoros, but it's not quite sure what's actually happening there right now. Some are working some are not. Some will apparently get 20% more, others now want that, too. Big mess. The german dealers don't know anything about that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzymoomoo Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 It's really hard to find information about that strike. Practically nobody in the media is reporting on it. American media in particular is too preoccupied on whether or not a fart means the president is a racist sack of shit or not. I'm not surprised nobody over in Europe knows about it. The way I understand it, the strike is 3 different unions (if you can call them that. They sound more like a mafia than a union to me) and a BUNCH of different companies involved. I can't find a list of every company effected by it. Im not even sure that this is related to the strike, that's just my theory. I actually have no clue where most of the parts come from, unless I'm actually there to read the shipping label which since I work at a different plant, I'm not. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fastbackdream87 Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 Gents, To piggyback on fuzzymoomoo's post regarding the blend of vehicles and finding which steering wheel goes where: currently Mustangs with dummy steering wheels (which are actually bare Continental wheels) have a piece of paper on the dashboard with their respective broadcast code written in sharpie. For argument sake, we'll say there's 4 different codes. Each car is being distributed to their respective lots where, you guessed it, the wheel will be put on. In retrospect, 1 repairman can do roughly 30 cars an hour (if not more) as it's not that long of a repair. What will take the longest is getting it back inside the plant, prerolling the module, then test rolling it, dyno/static, etc, etc. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bachi Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 56 minutes ago, fuzzymoomoo said: Im not even sure that this is related to the strike, that's just my theory. I actually have no clue where most of the parts come from, unless I'm actually there to read the shipping label which since I work at a different plant, I'm not. No matter if it's related to the strike, fact is that they are missing? Problem is that ford is apparently depending on one supplier. If there's no other one, we just have to wait. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zooks527 Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 (edited) 11 hours ago, fuzzymoomoo said: I was wrong about the racetrack apparently they’re using it to store all the cars built without steering wheels it was full by the end of the night shift on Tuesday morning Well, some day, this will be a status symbol - "I don't know about your car, but mine was on a track before it even had a full mile on it!" Yeah, the Matamoros strike sure seems to have thin coverage. I did find a couple of stories, though. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/feb/3/andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-mexicos-president-unle/ https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/30000-workers-go-on-strike-for-wage-hike/ Sure does look like a great example of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Edited February 15, 2019 by Zooks527 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bachi Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 Okay I found out that my car was already built in December and left the plant on January 14th. So I guess I'm one of the lucky guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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