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Automotive News & Views What about the future of Ford Inc?? 
1858 messages, Last post on Oct 16, 2006 at 6:25 AM
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Replying to: nippononly (Oct 24, 2005 11:05 am) Ford probably saved a bundle by allowing another company to handle development and manufacturing costs. The previous generation Ford diesel - which was also developed and manufactured by another company exclusively for Ford - had a very good reputation. Some of my relatives are farmers, and they all swore by the previous generation of Ford Powerstroke diesels. As for Ford's higher warranty costs...could this also be because the company is being more generous in handling warranty claims? One way for a company to cut warranty expenses is to get tough on claims and start denying them, which looks great when the expenditures are tallied, but doesn't necessarily mean that quality has improved. The last few launches - Five Hundred/Montego, Mustang, F-150 - have gone well for the company. The bugs seem to be worked out of the Fusion and the Escape. I'm not quite sure that this higher level of expenditures is necessarily an indicator of declining quality. |
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Your point on the homeowner and his mortgage make good sense, but I do not believe it applies here, because while the mortgage is probably a fixed debt for a specific time, the debt on the automakers just goes on and on...plus, with their credit downgraded to junk, their interest costs will increase...which is like the homeowner with an ARM at 2%...he can afford it now, but not when it goes up to 5%...plus health care costs are increasing (despite that agreement), retiree costs are going up, but profit is not going up...their highest profit vehicles, SUVs and trucks will take a beating with $3 gasoline, while their high-mpg vehicles make them almost nothing...remember, even with the high profits of SUVs, GM and Ford lost money on North American vehicle sales, what will happen when the only vehicles sold are the low-profit, no-profit vehicles... Oh, and don't forget...their pensions are underfunded by, I believe, at least 5 billion each...if they had to pay that money in from savings, their savings drop quite a lot... Lastly, I predict July 1 as the midyear point...nothing says it may just wait until Oct or Xmas of 2006...
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Replying to: nippononly (Oct 24, 2005 11:05 am) Yeah, but even Toyota is beating up their suppliers on price, and I think it's showing in the increased number of Toyota recalls (just recently we've seen one for 800K cars, then one for 1.5M cars). Maybe their suppliers are making better money than the Big 3 suppliers, but that doesn't mean the parts are better. I don't think Ford scrambled to get parts for the Fusion - they just delayed the car until the properly made parts were available. Similar things happened with the launches of the Mustang and the Five Hundred, and because Ford delayed them to get things right the vehicles had much fewer problems.
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Replying to: mirth (Oct 25, 2005 8:00 am) I guess I could also say the radio has been an issue with some folks too. (CDs skipping) Once again, that is provided by an outside vendor and not necessarily Fords fault. They have been replacing radios as needed. All in all though. A poor radio seems to be the only"across-the-board" issue with the Freestyle. |
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exactly - what was the big Toyota recall for? A headlight switch! The truck recall back in May was for poorly manufactured ball joints. Toyota should be making all that stuff itself, then it wouldn't be subject to huge recalls like that. And the irony is, the recent cars recalled for the switch were almost all in Japan, Toyota's home turf, rather than around the world! If Ford's bottom line is being hurt because warranty claims are so frequent on these diesel engines, it seems like it wouldn't have much to lose by building its own. It obviously has plenty of experience building engines. |
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| The issues with the diesel engine are not the only warranty cost dragging on Ford's bottom line. That's just the singular example Ford's spokesman was willing to name. | |
| The major auto companies just can't afford to make the majority of parts themselves. It's just not manageable - they can't do it and still be competitive. I'm afraid that parts quality is becoming the victim of the increased competition in the auto industry. | |
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From what I have read, it sounds like the fundamental difference 9s the the domestics (GM in particular I think) look at it as an adversarial relationship, and like to throw their weight around demanding they cut the price, and you know where that shows up! Toyota, OTOH, still wants a low price, but the tend to partner with the suppliers to make sure that everything goes well, and might even allow a change that might make a part more expensive if the supplier could show that it has quality implications.
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Replying to: stickguy (Oct 25, 2005 11:50 am) Toyota, Honda, and others demand cost cuts just like the domestics. But, unlike the domestics, they will help the supplier figure out how to do it. They share technology, and sometimes even development costs, in order to aid the supplier in manufacturing the parts within their target price range. |
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Replying to: nippononly (Oct 24, 2005 11:05 am) As to the Diesel - Navistar is the producer of the engines, former and current. At one time, I had heard that Ford owned a piece of Navistar, which is an International Harvester division, I believe. Not sure that's true anymore, but Dodge buys their Diesels from Cummins. GM is the only manufacturer to go it alone, I believe, with previously disasterous results. I've not heard of any trouble with the Duramax, but this is the first time, since the Oldsmobile diesel that GM has got it right. |
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