Public companies are not required by any law to do an earnings call after releasing financial documents, but many seem to find it a helpful way to augment dull spreadsheets with… equally dull answers to analyst questions. You have to be a real nerd to enjoy them. Thankfully, I am a real nerd.
But you don’t need to be much of a geek to find Ford’s earnings call interesting yesterday because CEO Jim Farley said something kinda amazing and slightly scary.
Toyota caught up on supply last year by building a ton of cars. Stellantis isn’t building as many cars because the ongoing supplier drama has resulted in a supplier strike. Workers at Stellantis plants aren’t striking, but they are getting laid off, and that’s pissed off the UAW.
Thursday Dump incoming…
Ford’s Earnings Mixed As F-150 Delays Hit Bottom Line
If GM’s earnings call was triumphant, and Tesla’s earnings call was lethargic, I suppose you could call Ford’s call cathartic? The automaker is in a weird transition point where its EV business is still losing money (development costs money), its commercial business is taking off, and its traditional gas-hybrid business was hit by ongoing quality issues.
The top line numbers are mixed: Overall revenue was up 3% from Q1 of last year, but earnings were down 24% to $1.3 billion. Ford revised its guidance upward as the company plans to spend a little less and end up with a little more cash flow in 2024.
What’s happening? The story of 2023 for Ford was a seemingly never-ending series of recalls, defects, and quality issues. Ford has long led other automakers in this category, and the Maverick has been recalled more times than Lynn Frazier.
Ford did come up with a plan to fix this, and part of that meant simply slowing down its processes, reviewing products closely before delivery, and not shipping vehicles it knew might have defects.
This means that Ford had to delay the shipment of about 60,000 new 2024 F-150s, representing a huge hit to the bottom line (that’s more than $2 billion worth of trucks).
Was this the right move? Let’s check the transcript of yesterday’s earnings call. Here’s CEO Jim Farley:
We’ve taken a lot of new testing regimens. Actually, we ended the quarter with 60,000 units in our plant stock, which hurt our first quarter, but we’ll benefit because we’re shipping those now in our second quarter for all those quality processes. And what we’re so far seeing is we avoided about 12 recalls on F-150, and we’re seeing the best performance on three MIS after launch in a long time. And I’d like to be specific here.
Twelve! TWELVE! Damn. There’s more.
Normally, after a launch, we’ve seen about — in the last five years, about a 70% spike in our defects. The industry average is about 20%. In the Super Duty and Mustang launches, we’re about that industry average 20% spike. And now, we’re seeing with the F-150 even better performance at industry average.
And boy, do we have a lot of launches in the second half to prove out this new launch process. What we’re going to see long term is fewer recalls and lower warranty costs because of this new process.
Ultimately, it’s good that Ford is dealing with this and it should benefit the company and its customers long-term if the company sticks with it.
Toyota Builds Record Number Of Cars In 2023
Toyota, like most Japanese automakers, is on a fiscal year that ends on March 31st, so we’re starting to get more info from Toyota.
For the year ended March, Toyota said its parent-only global sales rose 7.3% to 10.31 million units year-on-year, surpassing the 10 million mark for the first time, while its output came to 9.97 million units, up 9.2% on the year.
The world’s largest automaker by volume, however, saw its sales and production fall in March amid fierce competition in China, the world’s largest auto market.
The automaker did slow down a bit in March and Toyota is also delaying its EV production in the United States, so we’ll see if this holds this year.
European Stellantis Plants Shut Down As Supplier Goes On Strike
I’ve been focused on Stellantis and its quixotic plan to apparently make all of its suppliers in the United States hate the company, but things aren’t great in Europe either. Two plants in France and one in Britain are shut down as workers there go on strike.
From Reuters again:
MA France produces components on a site in the northeastern suburbs of Paris previously used by PSA until it was shut in 2014. PSA has since become Stellantis through its merger with FCA.
Workers at the plant are worried about plans to move production to Poland, said Brahim Aitathmane, head of the Force Ouvriere union at Stellantis.
What could the workers possibly be worried about?
UAW Calls Stellantis Layoffs ‘Disgusting’
Earlier this week, Stellantis laid off approximately 199 workers at the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant outside of Detroit. This is part of the company’s ongoing plans to cut costs at, seemingly, any cost.
Unsurprisingly, The Detroit News has a response from the head of the local UAW chapter and he was not happy:
Michael Spencer, president of United Auto Workers Local 1700, which represents workers at the plant, said in an email that the layoffs were “disappointing, disgusting and a disservice” to employees.
The maker of Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and other vehicles also is planning to lay off an unspecified number of additional workers at its U.S. factories in the coming months to deal with a rapidly changing global auto market, the company said in a statement Tuesday.
“Trust me, the leadership here is going to fight like hell with the membership and make sure that they honor their commitments,” UAW President Shawn Fain said of Stellantis during a Facebook Live on Tuesday evening in response to member comments about the automaker. “And you know what? Stellantis is pathetic. Honestly, the leadership is pathetic. You got a CEO over there across the pond that wants to talk about how they need to cut costs and all this stuff, but it didn’t stop him from giving himself a 56% pay increase.”
Yes, all of that, but also Stellantis isn’t building particularly competitive cars and until it does so it doesn’t make a ton of sense to keep production where it is.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Let’s tie it all together this Thursday. Two days ago we had Caroline Polacheck and yesterday we had Chromeo. Today we’ve got bassist/singer Blu DeTiger, who was Caroline Polacheck’s bassist and has recorded with Chromeo.
The Big Question
How long will it take for Ford to turn around its quality issues? Is this a one-year project? A five-year project? Does it impact your purchasing decisions?
Regarding Ford and their quality processes… “but we’ll benefit because we’re shipping those now in our second quarter for all those quality processes”
Which is to say they STOPPED following quality processes that were initiated under Allan Mullaly.
And this isn’t the first time in memory that Ford did the stop-start-stop thing when it came to quality.
I recall that in the 1990s, Ford had quite decent quality… better than Ford or GM because of quality policies instituted by management starting in the 1980s and through the 1990s… all to be undone by Jac “the Knife” Nasser.
“How long will it take for Ford to turn around its quality issues? Is this a one-year project?”
I predict things will get better in a year or two now that they are following pre-launch vehicle quality processes again instead of taking shortcuts to make a quick profit at the expense of higher warranty costs, recalls and tarnishing their brand image.
And really it should be an on-going INDEFINITE project. And that’s the problem with Ford. The vacillate between taking quality seriously, then some idiot in management decides that “now that the quality issues are fixed, we can take shortcuts again”… or something like that.
“Does it impact your purchasing decisions?”
Damn right it does. Over the years, there have been several Ford models or powertrain configs I wouldn’t think about touching.
For example, I would never any of their FWD automatic vehicles EXCEPT for the Escape/Fusion hybrid of the 2000s. The (usually) Mazda-made manual transmission was the way to go. I woudln’t touch any vehicle with the ‘headgasket failure’ 3.8L V6. I would never touch any of the ‘3-valve’ V8 engines. And I definitely wouldn’t buy any vehicle with the PowerShift/PowerSHIT transmission. And I won’t touch any of the ‘wet rubber belt’ Ford engines like the 1.0L Ecoboost 3 cyl after seeing teardowns of those.
So what does that leave? I would get an Escort or Focus with the manual transmission. I would get an Escape or Fusion in hybrid form. I would get a C-max hybrid… but only a 2015+ one as they managed to fuck up the transmission design of the earlier ones.
And for new Fords, if it’s FWD, then it has to be a 4 cyl hybrid. Their FWD V6 models have a stupid water pump design that has often caused problems with coolant mixing with oil and causing premature failure.
And if it’s RWD, then it can be the Duratec V6, certain version of the Ecoboost that has a chain driven oil pump, and the V8. And in the case of the Mustang, If I wanted the manual, I would only get a model that does NOT have the Chinese made Getrag MT-82 transmission. That means going with a higher performance model with one of the Tremec transmissions found in the Shelby models, Mach 1 or GT350.
And in general, I wouldn’t pay as much for a Ford as I would for a used or new Honda or Toyota.
The Maverick has been recalled more than times then Lynn Frazier?
What does this mean?
Probably means Autopian needs more editors. Even awrite would have caught this. Matt can we get a rewrite on aisle 6?
Lynn Frazier was the Governor of North Dakota and the first governor in history to be recalled by voters.
Thanks but the wording in the article was completely illiterate. It needs an editor if the writer doesn’t check their work
It was a minor mistake. Your reaction is unnecessary. Especially for a daily roundup like this, the priority is going to be readability, accuracy, and maintaining the site voice. Minor typographical errors will slip through occasionally.
What my desire to understand what was written? Why shouldn’t I be able to understand what was written?
Calling the writing illiterate for an extra word is not asking for clarification. I suspect you can understand that. I’m not judging your initial comment, just the one that was unnecessarily hostile.
I believe Mr. Sarcastic is referring to the wording more than the meaning: “and the Maverick has been recalled more than times than Lynn Frazier.”
I hate to side with Mr S, and I didn’t even notice it when I read it through, but it is worded incorrectly.
Meanwhile, I always find it hilarious when someone complains about grammar and spelling while their own is just as bad: “Even awrite would have caught this.”
Lol, it took me like three reads to parse what was wrong with that. Fixed. Thanks.
So i was right and the people who just attacked me because I am me are wrong?
Actually I didn’t understand the writing. Check it out? But I appreciate the open minded consideration
If they stopped making engineering changes right before mass production, a lot of changes create issues not tested before. Look at Toyota or Honda, they have less complexity on their part numbers, they don’t make changes just because they feel they want to make adjustments all the time. Freeze the design, validate it and move forward launching if all is good.
Just people who shouldn’t have jobs trying to justify their jobs. I have NO PROOF but I am willing to bet huge money, about $3.50, if research was done on why these recalls occurred and who was responsible most would have the last name Ford and the rest would be married to women who used to have the last name Ford. Attention people trusting a family name is wrong.
I seriously considered a Fusion Sport (V6, twin turbo, AWD) back in 2017, but out of the 4 examples on the dealer’s lot, NONE of them would start. Only one they could get jump started. Evidently there was a parasitic battery drain that took Ford over a year to fix.
Earlier this year I thought about an F-150 Hybrid, but even with the $7K off MSRP + $3K added back on through dealer value adds (snicker), I couldn’t get past all the negative quality talk. Just as well since they were still $15K more than what I budgeted for a vehicle.
It will be quite a while till I believe Ford reaches a good quality level. Maybe never if their QC inituatives get quashed by launch dates and sales number demands.
I had a Fusion Sport back in 2017 that experienced that issue. Once Ford finally figured out the problem, the car was perfectly reliable. However, that doesn’t negate the annoyance of having to jump my car every few days before going to work.
That car was a hoot to drive, and I drove it like I stole it, returning around 12mpg on my short blast to the office.
Well Mr E cars are people too. Just cause you bought a car doesn’t mean you can jump it anytime you like.
Frankly if you posted this on FB I bet it would ban you.
Oh, c’mon! I can’t help it if I watched The Dukes of Hazzard when I was a kid!
True I am being blocked from responding to notifications. But I thought it was funny and made a comment on modern societies belief that everything was open.
I really liked the short test drive I was allowed. Smooth with lots of power that it can put down. By the time they sorted out the issue months later, I’d already bought another car.
I looked on some car shopping sites and there are only a handful of them in the lower half of the US for sale. I know they had a low take rate, but I still expected more to be available on the used market 7 years later. Either people aren’t parting with them or people gave up on them already.
I was wondering how long it was going to take till Ford had enough of self-inflicted recall wounds to decide to take a different tract. Fixing issues on the customer’s time never seemed like a good idea to me, but volume and money in the pocket today and recalls tomorrow must have worked at some point in time.
Middle level management bonuses.
Going on strike because you’re worried your job may move from a country known for striking to one where it rarely happens seems like an own goal to me.
edit – https://www.statista.com/chart/20167/the-countries-which-go-on-strike-the-most/
I seem to remember Paris taxi drivers going on strike to protest Uber. The problem was that the people who would have taken a taxi couldn’t so Uber had its biggest signup day to date.
Idiots being idiots.
You are 100% correct. Don’t be surprised if you are attacked, and people want you banned because you actually think as opposed to following the borg collective
Day drinking for the NFL Draft, eh? Fun 🙂
I think many of us forget how many recalls are for emissions and other things than safety of driving related.
I have ’23 Sierra that has had four or five recalls. Included in them:
– fuel injector timing during warmup impacting emissions.
– automatic headlights taking a few seconds too long to come on (two separate recalls).
The only truly safety related one is for the tailgate switch is susceptible to water intrusion and may release the gate while you’re in park.
So, without a breakdown of what Ford found, the F150 potentiel recalls might not all be safety related.
Headlight issue is a safety recall FWIW.
usually I’d agree, but this on was literally as very small delay as the sun was setting, but well before you’d need extra light.
One of the two (IIRC) recalls I had on my ST was for the hatch possibly opening at speeds above when it was supposed to be locked out from opening, which is something that would have required holding the button for a couple seconds while driving. I checked it out of curiosity and it didn’t unlatch, but if it had, I still wouldn’t have bothered bringing it in. I guess it was technically a safety issue, but GMAFB.
As bad as Ford’s quality control is, I’ve been really happy with the Fords I have purchased. Yes, there are too many recalls, but the rear window in my pickup doesn’t leak like the one in my friend’s Ram. The Toyota Tacoma I owned had plenty of problems, like the radio that sometimes turned itself off or on. I have owned a couple Hyundais and they had plenty of issues too, from ABS reprogramming, to wheel speed sensors, to engines to being too easy to steal.
I don’t give Ford a free pass, but please find me a manufacturer that releases a car without defects.
I’ve bought a couple of current-gen Explorers, and anecdotally, both have been as reliable as my Toyota. Regular maintenance and rock-solid otherwise, without a single issue. I’m also knocking on wood right now, to avoid angering the car spirits.
My Focus SE manual was Toyota-reliable and as essentially maintenance free as their reputation would claim while being cheaper to buy and better to drive, with better mileage, performance, and handling until it got totaled with over 200k miles on it. My ST was just as good, but the damn Ford Ecoboom coolant leaking into the combustion chamber issue hit at 180k. Both cars drove practically like new until their ends.
Anecdotes are fine, but Ford has well-documented quality issues with their new vehicles, to the point where they accepted a huge hit to the bottom line last quarter in order to address them. That tells you everything you need to know about where they’re at quality-wise.
I understand my experience is anecdotal, but the question was whether or not Ford’s admission influences my decision whether to buy a Ford or not. It doesn’t, because my experience with other manufacturers is no better than my experience with Ford. I wasn’t defending Ford’s well-documented quality issues. Just saying others have them too.
Since I am a GM baby, I am not allowing myself to comment on Ford. It’d be derivative and biased, anyway. lol.
Matt, have you heard of Laufey? I just discovered her yesterday and she’s pretty cool! I won’t link both, but her wiki bio is wild. Anyway, here’s her Tiny Desk. Soothing…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avjI3_GIZBw
Aww heck, I’ll link it anyway. Not too many Icelandic Chinese jazz singers in the world…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laufey_(singer)
So, Michael Keaton is going to be playing the part of Jim Farley in all TMD’s from now on?
Johnny Dangerously Michael, not Batman Michael.
I really think we need consistent celebrity stand-ins for each of the major auto CEOs.
I changed my mind. Sally Field in her This Is Us era as Mary Barra
Julia-Louis Dreyfus would be a good Mary Barra stand-in. Just for the many available screenshots of Selena Meyer looking disgusted at the incompetence surrounding her.
Yes, I think that would work.
Michael Keaton as Jim Farley
Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Mary Barra
Gerry Dee as Martin Lundstedt
John Lovitz as Carlos Tavares
And introducing Ke Huy Quan as Koji Sato
Oliver Blume (VAG CEO) has big Christoph Waltz energy.
VAG CEO. lol.
Rowan Atkinson as Carlos Ghosn.
If the cello case fits…
I mean… I think we have to, right?
As a general rule I avoid all American manufacturers. It’s easy to do these days since they pretty much only make pickup trucks, SUVs and crossovers that really don’t appeal to me in any way.
Preach. I was at a Ford dealership recently waiting for my husband to pick up his truck. I love cars, but walking the lot was SO BORING. Truck. Truck. Escape. Explorer. Truck.
Ford is a massive bureaucracy, said bureaucracy needs the Javier Milei treatment which is get rid of all the bureaucratic money sucks that do nothing but suck money and make things worse.
Did the Ford Maverick really need Ford branded screws for the interior during a time of massive supply chain issues? No. Did they help Ford at all? No. Did they cost more money? Yes.
To be clear, engineers, production specialists, etc. should not be cut, but there are a ton of jobs at Ford that can and should be cut first.
Well they can’t cut management jobs! Who else is going to set up the pre-pre-meeting to discuss prep for the pre-meeting, which is necessary to get ready for the meeting with the director, who will then summarize the information from his/her various meetings, and then clumsily summarize it for their VPs (removing any information that makes the director look bad) who will then use said summaries to make ill-informed decisions?!
My god man. Those powerpoint decks won’t make (and remake) themselves.
Of course the “Milei treatment” involves paying most of your board in kibble…
https://time.com/6337474/javier-milei-argentina-president-cloned-dogs-advice/
I’ve really liked a lot of what Ford has been producing lately but their QC has always kept me from ever really buying something from them. If they realized moving fast and breaking things is a very bad thing to do and are truly fixing it maybe I can try their stuff out. I saw new Powerboost F150s finally under $60k with decent options and I can finally start to see myself being able to get one. They are still a bit too expensive but are getting there.
Well Ford’s quality issues started about December 1st, 1913. Should take them a good 18 months to turn things around. They need to bring in Dan Campell. If you can coach the Motor City Kitties to the top of the NFC North, you can manage the River Rouge Complex.
What’s amazing about Farley’s comment is that he officially verified what owners have talked about for decades.
Ford’s first year of a new vehicle has ALWAYS been festooned with defects.
Customers do the final shakedown at Ford.
Oooh, I like “festooned.”
I have my thesaurus out right next to my old Mad Magazine.
Yeah, I would have used saddled, but festooned is more festive—and maybe a bit more biting. Well done
They had to work their way up to “festooned”. They used to be “lightly sprinkled”.
WOTD
I grew up in a Ford family. Uncle worked for Ford, so we always got the “friends and family” prices or whatever they called it. We had a first gen Explorer, the first model year of the second gen Explorer, the first year of that Explorer pickup thing, the first model year Lincoln LS, etc. All of them spent a ridiculous amount of time at the dealership for repairs and recalls. I remember that first gen Explorer in particular was just an absolute fuckin basket case. Because of this, I’ve never purchased or even considered purchasing a Ford product. I’m not interested in beta testing their products for them.
Anyone else notice Ford quietly changed their marketing from “Built Ford TOUGH” to “Built Ford Proud”? It’s almost like they knew the press would circle them like vultures for using “tough” when their vehicles are demonstrably the opposite of that.
The level of pride seems to be that of a parent looking at their 9 year old’s finger painting, to everyone else, it’s an incomprehensible, jumbled mess, but to them, flawless.
Other conveniently (and aptly) abandoned slogans include:
Going Further (on a tow truck than other brands perhaps)
If you haven’t looked at Ford lately, look again (You probably should! You’ll see bits falling apart on the showroom)
Feel the Difference (of low rent interiors and your wallet lightening as the car falls apart)
Kinda weird how “pride” went from being one of the 7 deadly sins to an advertising line.
I cringe whenever I hear someone say they are “proud of themselves”…it just makes me want to barf and usually accompanies doing something totally meaningless.
I wasn’t raised in the “self esteem generation” though so it’s likely just me.
IDK, Gluttony is a deadly sin and we have an entire generation trying to Ozempic their way out of that one.
Part of the reason pride was labeled a “sin” is because it meant people were attributing success to themselves personally and not to god. And that’s a problem with passing around the donation basket at mass. If people don’t believe that a god gave them something, then they are less likely to pay for it.
I think pride, to an extent, is a good thing. Because people are recognizing that something good came from them and their own effort and not the divine grace of whatever deity they worship. So they know good things come from effort and not hopes and prayers.
My version of pride is to feel less like a heap of shit..beyond that is just bragging.
The deadly sin of pride isn’t one of just thinking you did well at something. Its pride to the level of hubris. It’s hard to imagine someone being down on the simple “I did a good job here” which is all I hear out of Ford’s tag line.
Should have just added some punctuation: Built Ford? Tough!
Mustn’t forget “Quality Is Job One.”
Rewritten more accurately….
I always take it as they state it. It’s job one, then it gets screwed up when they complete the rest of the jobs. It should be the first, last, and a couple of the middle jobs.
Or, if you’re in the Quality org: “Is anyone listening?”
I used to have an elderly lady customer who always wore a gold lamè hat. Her 80s T-bird had QLTYJB1 on the tag as she used to work for Ford.
-having dealt with a couple of those alleged vehicles, I found this quite ironic
I’ve bought 3 Fords new in the last 12 years and while none of them has had any major issues, I have to say they have more small, annoying failures than most other brands I’ve owned. Stuff like blurry backup cameras, malfunctioning infotainment/Bluetooth, and poorly designed components leading to early failures.
Ultimately, as long as they’re the only ones making aluminum trucks, I’ll keep buying them. I can forgive a lot of minor recalls more than I can forgive rust.
Are the superduty trucks aluminum now too? I do like the idea of a body what won’t rust out.
Yes, since 2017. It’s the #1 reason I bought mine.
Is the paint staying on? I had a Mustang with two aluminum body panels where the paint blistered and peeled off after 3 years, Ford wouldn’t pay to fix it.
Also had that happen to the aluminum hood of my company Escape, the aluminum hood of my Town Car, and the aluminum tailgate of my dad’s company Expedition.
No issues for me yet and coming up on 6 years old.
Re: The Big Question:
https://youtu.be/lHytjEj7B9g?si=gRa3W6xvOhE7fHRQ
Ford soured me on their transmission in that they knew there was a problem and never really fixed it. I’ve never owned a Ford product and I doubt I ever will. That said, we have a company Exploder and it’s not too bad to drive.
To all those at Stellantis’ plants in UK: tune up your CV, learn an EU language, and start looking for a new job now.
This won’t end well for you.
12 down, 30 to go 😛
Fuck Stellantis. Let them go POOF! Nobody will miss them.
Pickup trucks and Jeeps (specifically Grand Cherokees and Wranglers) are basically all they sell right?
In the US at least, and with a lot of cash on the hood at that (at least for gladiators, Wagoneers, Grand Wagoneers, non-TRX Rams, Compass, Hornet, etc)
You know Stellantis is the 4th largest manufacturer in the world right? While often derided here in the States for their limited offerings, they are a huge player worldwide. Bigger than GM or FoMoCo.
Yeah but their cars are so shitty! I really don’t know how they actually sell that much.
They’re derided for their poor quality no matter where they make them! Dodge/Chrysler, Fiat/Alfa/Maserati, Pug/Citroen, they’re all shitty cars LOL. Stellantis is basically a dump for all the shittiest cars (just add something British)
The products themselves, the way they treat their employees, the way they treat their customers, and the way they treat their suppliers are all garbage! There is NO redeeming quality to them at ALL!
I’m here for the Stellantis hate.
They could turn around their quality issues in a year or two if they really put in the time, effort, and money (they won’t, but they could). But it’ll take longer to repair their reputation.
I suspect they’ve decided that they can make enough sales without actually doing the work to improve. They’ll continue to pay lip service to the idea and try to keep their reputation from getting worse. It’s probably less expensive in the short term and they clearly don’t need to prioritize quality control to make sales. An investment in quality could take a decade to really pay off.
It does impact my purchasing decisions, though not as much as it maybe should. I’ll consider a Ford product as long as the current generation has been on the market for a bit.
This isn’t a new development. As one of the linked articles says, they’ve been botching new releases for a while now.
I find some Ford products interesting enough to consider buying, but their persistent inability to get QC makes it questionable if I’d actually plunk down my money.
Every year I read how Quality is Job 1 at Ford or that Ford is addressing it quality issues or Ford is in the midst of restructuring to address quality. This has been going on through 3 or 4 CEO’s going back to Bill Ford. I’m not sure they’ll ever get there.
Someone in marketing once told me that whatever a company is pushing as their key strength is usually their actual weakness. Ford claiming that quality is job 1 is the example they used to make their point. That lesson taught me to always look deeper into all advertising.
The best part is that Farley has Toyota on his resume but learned absolutely NOTHING from them.
Detroit would do well by scouring Linkedin and other places for laid-off or other former Honda and Toyota engineers. Hire them and put the most experienced of them on the executive board.
If Toyota ran GMC/Chevrolet, these are there several things they would do:
1) Kill off the 2500/3500 models- they simply do not understand large trucks.
2) Increase the prices of ALL cars in their lineups with higher QC, so sales will likely suffer compared to competitors.
3) Customization will suffer in the end- certain things needed will be deleted by Toyota since the Japanese think it is unnecessary (eg: storage bins).
4)Convert them to twin turbo when regulations come around. Now the brand has no image, because all that hold them are V8s.
Thankfully, NONE of this has happened, and the lineup has changed, but is fine where it is. They NEED not hire former engineers of those brands to help their strategy, since it likely will increase price as well..and can cause sales to suffer.
Ford’s quality issues have always swayed me from even looking at their vehicles. This is a forever plan, they have had quality issues for as long as I can remember.
Seconded. A lot of models that I was interested in always had a glaring known defect that Ford would haphazardly rush a fix out for. I hope this is a proper step in the right direction for them, I’d love to be a Ford fan.
MY24 trucks have glaring QC issues- I WILL NEVER touch a Ford unless it is a CVPI, a GM, or a Town Car…