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Sedans Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable What Are Your Thoughts on the Return of the Taurus/Sable?
530 messages, Last post on Aug 22, 2008 at 10:00 PM
You are in the Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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Replying to: barnstormer64 (Feb 07, 2007 6:31 pm) |
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I can't believe Maulley signed off on this. I knew he wasn't prepared for the auto-industry. He was a good politician and won government contracts to keep boeing from going under. He doesn't have those same government friends in the automobile industry.  Rocky |
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| I don't know I have a hard time seeing a upside to this. | |
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Replying to: british_rover (Feb 08, 2007 7:26 am) Not only are their products second-rate but their marketing geniuses must be second-graders. This AM on the MSN home page there's a pointer to a comparo between 2 under $30K AWD sedans. The 500 and the Legacy. Guess who wins? But hey NEXT time they compare it'll be the Taurus against the Legacy. NOW Ford will win just based on name alone eh? They must think so. Ford is grasping at straws and they're pulling the short one every time. I've got 3 FoMoCo vehicles in my driveway right now. They've all been very good vehicles. In all likelihood, they'll be the last Fords I'll ever own. One is a Lincoln LS, probably the best Lincoln ever built. It was a car that could compete with the Germans head to head. I was on the ground floor of Lincoln's resurgence. If given a little attention, it couldda been a contenda for sure. Instead, Ford let it die on the vine and came out with a Zephyr NO, Wait, a emm kay zee whatever the h__l THAT is (at least LS was Luxury Sedan) which is nothing but a dolled-up Mazda. I'm actually a bit ashamed to be seen in a Lincoln now. When many of my friends said "You bought a LINCOLN?" Accent on sarcasm, I said well, you wait this LS is a BMW fighter and they'll be more from Lincoln soon. Now? 2nd rate cars and stupid names. Sell your Ford stock before it;s too late. There isn't evven anything in the pipe for this company, save 2 concept cars which will probably never be built cause the new stuff they're doing is just going to seal their fate. And probably all the good people took buyouts and just the dregs are left. Sayonara Ford. Hello ... I dunno, where do I go from here?
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Replying to: jchan2 (Feb 07, 2007 5:36 pm) |
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Replying to: heyjewel (Feb 08, 2007 7:40 am) |
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Ford is maybe 2 years behind GM's curve on returning to profitability so they are shuffling deck chairs until their plans reach the point where we see them. This name business is just a way for them to buy time with the generic car buying public. GM did a little of that trick a few years back when they kept making the previous generation Malibu for rental fleets and naming it the Classic while supplying newer generation Malibus to the dealers. They don't have to worry about alienating 500 customers because there weren't any. It's a desperate shot but I don't think they have that much to lose on it. It will certainly drop the price of a used 500! |
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Replying to: fezo (Feb 08, 2007 8:49 am) Changing a cars name is like playing the shell game. Customers today are much too educated to now buy the same car because its moniker is different. You might get a few Taurus purists but not enough to change Fords bottom line which is getting more red every day. GM, Ford & D/C get what they deserve. Second best products year after year. As time goes on the big three will eventually be #3, #4 & #5. |
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Replying to: fezo (Feb 08, 2007 8:49 am) Sable is also more recognized (it actually used to be a force in the midsize market, if you go back enough years). I prefer Montego--it is a better "Mercury" name, but so be it. They won't sell gobs more of them with the new names, but they will sell a few more than if they had left the names as Montego. Mullaly knew right from the beginning how stupid it was to dump an iconic name like Taurus. It is one of the top ten most recognized car names. I cannot see where this will make either model a best seller, but I cannot see any downside to this move at all. None. It won't affect resale of 500/Montego in any appreciable way (except possibly favorably...but that is a long shot), since resale is not their strong suit anyway, being fairly unpopular models. It may speed up the redesign of Taurus/Sable too. Even if it doesn't, it is a brilliant move. It gets the cars more notice than they would have gotten with the relatively minor 08 changes alone. Also, that the company can now clean up bad moves so quickly gives me hope.
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Replying to: gregg_vw (Feb 08, 2007 9:30 am) The *original* Taurus was a fresh, new car that pretty much turned the family sedan on it's head. At least that's what folks say. I never liked it, but that's just MHO. The Sable of course was just a Taurus with a light bar and a name to appeal to the market that the marketers decided that Mercury (the God of Speed!) should appeal to - women. The original Taurus went on to be leading selling family sedan. Only Camry and Accord were close. Chevy had nothing to compete for about 20 years. Then came two redesigns, each less attractive than the one before. Sales dropped off due to that and probably also due to Consumer Reports and others saying reliability was not equal to the Japanese. Duh. Meanwhile, Camry and Accord just got better and better. Mechanical/reliable wise anyway. Looks etc is only opinion, though if one looks at the interiors in the last couple gens of CamCords, they are heads above even the present day 500Tau. Now, Ford has a bland family sedan that noone notices, one that cant even beat a Subaru in a comparison, let alone a Camry or Accord. And they want to sell more. So what do they do - the rename it after a car that became a shadow of it's former self and most people now know the name only as the mid-priced rental at Hertz. And those that owned a Taurus - are they pining for another one? I dunno. I have only one frioend who had a Taurus - it was a wagon. She hated it becaue the brakes wore out every couple of weeks and she was always torqued that there was no inside release or even fob release for the trunk hatch. She drives an Odyssey now. I think Ford is doomed. Sorry, that's MHO is all. The vehicles they have are second rate. The names are stupid. The marketing is pathetic. How many millions have they spent on those Edge commercials yet not one that actually shows what the car is and why people would want it, unless they have a Spiderman urge. The thing has bad brakes anyway. Wait til more comparos come out. The Edge is going to finish dead last. It already did against about 20 other crossovers. And Ford has had ONE successful vehicle in the past, what, decade? The Fusion. SO now, EVERY freakin Ford has to look like a Fusion cause heck - the idiots are buying that one, so they'll buy this one too if it looks like that one. Also, I must've seen 10,000 commercials for the emm kay exx and navigaotor and emm kay zee in December. And what happens - sales DROPPED. I'm just disgusted with Ford, tell the truth. Dismayed and disgusted. And even worse, the 500 not only cant compete with Subaru, the Accord or the Camry but Chrysler has huge winner with the 300 and the Chevy Impala is actually a very very nice car these days WITH options to make it either an econo gas sipper (cant get a 500 that sips gas) OR an SS model that's a speed demon (the 500 has been woefully underpowered. The 3.5 might help a bit, but it aint gonna remind anyone of the Galaxie 500 XL.) And Chevy is going back to RWD for the Impala, which IS a brilliant move. And if they do an interior for it like they've done for the new Malibu - even CamCord buyers may notice it. The Ford is the bottom of the heap. It's a nice, bland car with a questionable reliability future. Why anyone would buy one over the competition, whether they call it the 500 or the Taurus, is a question for the ages. Sorry, that's MHO.
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