Sorry, I get confused sometimes, what with all these domestic automaker-sponsored surveys that surprise! reveal that their products' quality is nearasdammit as good as their competitions'. Initially. In some cases. If you're comparing a lack of defects– as opposed to some other, more consumercentric measure of quality. Anyway, once again Ford paid RDA Group of Bloomfield Hills to survey 31k car buyers who'd lived with their new whip for all of 90 days. The Detroit News (DTN) dutifully reports that "2007 model year Ford, Lincoln and Mercury cars and trucks had 1,395 quality issues per 1,000 vehicles, compared with 1,381 per 1,000 vehicles for 2007 Toyota, Lexus and Scion cars and trucks." (Honda came first.) Just in case you suspect that shock! Ford's patronage might have influenced the outcome, the DTN assures us that "The firm conducts similar studies for other automakers [Ed. with similar results?]," and "its findings have hewed close to those of the closely watched annual initial quality survey independently conducted by J.D. Power and Associates." Bennie Fowler, Ford's quality chief, told the DTN that Ford's "trying to listen to its customers and take their concern to heart." As Yoda would say, "Do… or do not. There is no try."
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RF: Ford still has a ways to go to consistently match Toyota / Honda in every vehicle. But you cannot dismiss that Ford has made significant progress against quality. An example of this progress is the Fusion trio—which gets an "A" from every quality ranking group including Consumer Reports (and not just the first 90 days !) Other newer vehicles inlcuding the 500 / Taurus, Edge / MKX seem to be following suit. In my mind, it is no longer a question of whether Ford can achieve good inital quality (0-3 years)—-but whether it is sustainable. Time will tell.
In all of my time here at TTAC, I have never seen ANYONE argue that the Big 2 haven’t made progress. They have made a lot of progress since the days of intentional obsolescence. Let me go out on a limb and proclaim: “EVERYONE agrees the Big 2 have made significant progress in initial quality, reliability, and maybe even longevity too.”
But they still aren’t Honda or Toyota, or even Nissan.
As products, maybe they have gotten closer, but they do not lead. As an organization, they are even further behind (dysfunctional), and the culture of beancounters compromising and undercutting the work of engineers will prevent them from ever regaining the lead.
Ironic how the ‘jap crap’ from the 1980’s has become the gold standard of the 21st Century.
This survey is more for internal use so it’s fairly reliable. The issue is that it’s for 3 months in. If your vehicle is not high quality 3 months in, you’re going to lose. Period. Having good quality 3 months in says you’re in the game and that’s it. It’s like saying well we have a 12 person roster now on our basketball team. It doesn’t mean that you still can’t be the clippers.
And to MgoBlue’s point, I think the Big 2’s reliability is definitely better than Nissan. Nissan gets a good rep because they’re Japanese but they’re not even close to Honda and Toyota in terms of reliability.
Ford, like the rest of the domestics have a credibilty problem with too many of the American consumers today. The majority of the so-called import bigots that will not purchase a Ford or other domestic automobile see the Big3 as big fat liars. All to this “self-sponsored” surveys and consumer satisfaction studies mean nothing if the cars that Ford built 3 to 5 years ago are of poor quality and are unreliable today. That is measure the most folks will use when considering a new Fusion today. If the neighbor’s 2003 Taruas or Focus is a heartbreaking POS this guy most likely will NOT buy that new Fusion.
One of the reasons I will not buy a car from these guys is simply the sheer arrogance they continue to display. Look the American consumer is NOT a stupid fool. Many of do work in complex jobs and understand that talk is cheap. Those silly exec in Detroit just refuse to accept the fact that they have been taking a cultural beating from those Japanese in terms of actually sweating the details that make a rock-solid reliable car.
In the USA the culture states that it is totally acceptable to cut-corners on your products until the point that they are half-a$$ and lack-luster as long as the shareholders make a profit at the end of the year. Who cares if you are selling middle class Americans absolute crap, you are a success because the shareholders made a profit.
Agree that Ford is not “there” yet.
However I will say that the data at CR and True Delta tend to indicate that they are noticably ahead of GM and 3puppy. The CR data on newer models seems to indicate they are launching their cars better (quality wise) than the others.
Some of their PR stuff does indicate that they know they have to keep going on quality and Big Al certainly “gets it” in this area. If they can survie the next three years they may have the best chance.
In contrast, every thing out of the Rick and Bob show says “we have totally arrived, objecting data must be contrived”. If they really aree that complacent no PR or VEBA deal will save them.
IMHO
TTFN
Bunter
90 days? Jeez.
Seriously, I could get over everything if they could make a car or truck I really wanted. I could buy a Tahoe or Wrangler. I have owned a Ford and had another as a company car. It wasn’t all that bad of an experience. There simply isn’t anything about what they are making that makes me want to go through the mildly worse reliability and drastically worse depreciation. The mustang looked good in the pictures, but up close it didn’t hold up.
Right now, I would suggest a new ranger and bronco that are light, economical, and fun. Make the bottom line engine really frugal, and the top one a torque monster. Diesel would be good also.
Oh Ya, and Ford should stop wasting time and money proving what they already know – that they are better than people think, but still not better than the japanese.
No one is going to buy the argument that they should buy a Ford, save a couple thousand, and go to the dealer once more a year. Well, a business might buy that line, but it doesn’t make for a good commercial. Go about building a better car, and improving service. Do it using leadership and common sense – not surveys.
Then you can get that extra couple thousand as profit, AND not pay the warranty claim!
headgaskets and transmissions, that is what I think of when I see a ford dealership. Big money repair bills long after 90 days. Ask a few owners of Taurus and Sables about their cars, most will tell you how gret they were until the head gasket went.
So today people are really pissed and made their mind up to not buy their cars. Did they all really think they could get away with screwing people for multi thousand dollar repair bills and not pay a price someday?
Why should we give them what hard earned money we manage to scrape together after taxes for transportation we depend on for our lives? So they can continue to overpay and coddle the Unions? Because it’s good for America? Because we enjoy getting raped on trade in value? Because repair shops need our business?
Toyota building plants in America is good for our country, it shows someone somewhere believed Americans can still build a car properly.
I hope Mike Rowe got a big check for prostituting himself in those Ford commercials.
GS650G :”headgaskets and transmissions, that is what I think of when I see a ford dealership”
Engine sludge is what I think of when I see a Toyota dealership—-so do 3 million other people.
I own an 06 Fusion SEL V6. It has 32K on it and has only seen the inside of a ford store once for it’s 30K service. Great car, not a squeek or rattle and the car is holding up to NYC traffic and roads beautifully.
My wife has on 07 Edge with 10K miles so far no issues at all.
The domestics have come a long way. From producing utter crap to world class cars. People should stop living in the previous century and get rid of the “imports are better” mentality. If they do that you will see resale values rise on domestics to the level of their japanese rivals.
It gonna take years before the momentum gained by Toyonda will turn back to the Blue Oval’s favor.
You can’t blame people for telling Detroit to go pound sand. If I had a $20k-ish Sable back in 1995 and the tranny/headgaskets failed around 80k, you can bet they won’t get my business again. That’s someone’s money we’re talkin’ about!
If Ford keeps the quality up (Toyota continues downhill) and creates a 1986 Taurus again, they might get that mass influx of buyers and keep the company solvent. Whether or not this scenario can happen soon enough (financially) is anyone’s guess.
New Flash:
If a Honda Accord and a Ford Tauras were just as reliable as each other the Accord would still be more popular and sell better today than the Tauras.
IT is high time to stop all of this thinking along the line that the domestics should somehow be someones first choice by default. With that said forget “imports are better” and change the statement to imports are DIFFERENT.
I have driven enough domestic iron to know that I don’t like the flavor. Whether it be a Ford, GM, or Chysler. Some are OK but none are at the level of DESIREABILITY that I would buy it over a Honda. The brand that I would buy if they got their act together would be VW in a quick minute.
Honestly folks, business fail everyday all over the world for failing to satify the consumer or offering products for sale that are just less desireable that those of the competition. Those products can be just a reliable but who care if no one wants one in the first place.
On another note I know several people who have been burnt badly by Ford products and service. Of these people 3 have had successful NY Lemon Laws Judgements in their favor (in the last 10 years). Ford sells folks junk and than refuses to stand behind their products.
Who wants to be treated like a fool by a dealer for buying one of their cars?
That is how Ford treats it costumers; “you were the dumb f–k that spent your hard earned money here NOT ME”.I know I do not so I will continue to avoid Ford dealers and cars.
It is all very simply and logical!
Ford may be as reliable as Toyota (given some metric of reliable). I actually believe that, I’m sure lots of the production of parts is automated enough, and there are smart enough engineers at both places that the “quality” of the parts and construction is probably about on par. BUT, here’s where the differences come in. One of the companies cuts corners on “the little things” and another doesn’t. Here’s my experience:
I just bought a new ’07 4Runner (to become my daily driver and relegate my ’89 4Runner to off road use). The reason I bought the new 4Runner was simple: 1) I currently own a 4Runner with 260,000 hard miles on it, and I can’t say anything bad about it, and 2) my brother (who will be reading this post) was considering a 4Runner for himself and did TONS of research on one, and I was lazy and just trusted his report. So I bought the car with going over it with a fine tooth comb (something I rarely do). Pretty much I just pointed at the truck and said “I’ll take it”. Now everyday when I’m driving it to work, I find some neat little feature that definately wasn’t a selling point for me (nor would it have been if I noticed it before I bought it), but makes me think that the engineers really thought about what they were doing when designing it.
For example: every Ford I see has a standard cup holder that we all expect in a car today. The kind I’m thinking of is just a single piece of molded plastic of decreasing diameter so that it sorta holds many different sizes of coffee cup. It probably costs 3 cents because it’s a single piece of plastic made from a 1-step mold process. I just discovered the _adjustable_ cup holders in my Toyota on the drive home last night. It’s a much more complicated design, there are at least 5 separate pieces of plastic, plus a bunch of different pieces of hardware to hold it all together. But I can now adjust the diameter of the cup holder (if I actually ever drank in the car) to match the cup. That piece is pretty expensive (relatively speaking) because there are many different pieces that are molded separately, and then they need to be put together, so there’s a bit of a labor cost too.
The key here, is that the Toyota engineers could have gotten away with a standard cup holder and I (and probably most other people) would never have noticed. But they went the extra mile (really just the extra few inches) and made something very useful. Now they have even a little bit more good will from me. It may seem like a silly thing, but I was honestly quite surprised when I noticed that yesterday. (Or maybe I’m just going to keep being surprised because I went from 1989 technology to 2007 technology in one step)
(There are a bunch of other little things I’ve noticed, and been pleasantly surprised – so unless the engine blows up or sludged, the Toyota engineers keep gaining more good will and I’ll probably end up buying a 2025 4Runner assuming we still have gas by then)
My company does this all the time. The only way to get good press about and win awards is really to buy them or pay for the research direcly or through massive advertising dollars.
It’s going to take about 7-8 years of continuous high quality before I would ever consider a domestic car. Think of it this way: when you apply for financing somewhere, they look at your credit history. If you’ve missed payments, been late, etc., they either won’t lend to you, or will charge you a higher interest rate because you are a bigger risk to not pay back your loan. After all, there is no return on their investment if you default.
Ford and the other 1.8 have a list of deficiencies a mile long on their “consumer credit rating” (if you like). They are applying to us for credit (that is, they want money from us). We want a return on our investment; in this case, a reliable car that holds a decent percentage of its purchase price over time, has good features for its class, and doesn’t fall apart or require thousands of dollars in repairs just after the warranty expires. After all, their is no return on our investment if the damn car is in the damn shop all the damn time.
If your credit rating is not-so-good, a few years of making your payments on time does wonders to show lenders that you have “turned over a new leaf”, and that you are now worthy of their attention. Ford’s quality the last couple of years is better than it was. If they keep it up for another 5 or so, they may once again be worthy of our attention. If they can do something about their abysmal dealer experience, it may happen even faster.
The other 1.8? Not so much, other than the Lucerne, about which I have heard very good things. Too bad it’s a Buick, so nobody buys it.
Anyone care to defend Chrysler? I just can’t seem to summon the energy…
When I think of Ford cars, last-gen Foci, Mexican Mazdas, and Volvos stripped of content and safety features come to mind.
What next, Chinese-built Verves?
Hmm, I could very well have had the head gasket AND tranny problems on my ’90 Mercury Sable. Luckily, my balking at the $125 “processing fee” (doc fee for most of you) made me back out of getting the 3.8-liter V6. I did buy another one with the Vulcan 3.0-liter V6, so I suffered “only” the indignity of tranny failure at 93K miles.
That car had lots of other maladies, which conveniently started just after the payments were all made (4 years and 65K miles). The engine itself was fine, just none of the accessories attached to it, such as the starter, alternator, a/c compressor, and water pump(s).
90 days — such a joke. I had an ’80 Volvo 240 bought used that went 245K miles. I had this car for 21 years! (It did have a manual tranny, and my only clutch replacement came at 220K miles.)
Oh, and when it was time to downsize my “fleet,” I sold the Sable instead of the 10-year-older Volvo.
Toyota sludge — such a joke also. I was part of the great debate on Edmunds about this because I had one of the potential sludgemasters, a ’97 Camry 4-cylinder. Well, mine never sludged after 111k miles of ownership, but I changed the oil and filter regularly (doing it myself, so I know they were done properly). The people on Edmunds who did have sludge problems tended to drive short distances but extended their oil changes AND they did not have the dealer change the oil.
Was there a problem? No doubt, but it was blown WAY out of proportion, especially after the class-action lawyers smelled blood.
I have a co-worker with a previous model Avalon that he brought used yet was able to get Toyota to install a brand new engine because of this sludge issue and the orginal engine was working fine with no damage at all.
So here is a man with car that had close to 40,000 miles on it when he brought it in 2005 and now has an engine with only 20,000 miles on it. Toyota is doing so well these days because of business practices like this. This aint rocket science, if you want to keep costumers you take care of them! Not only does Toyota keep its current costumers loyal, they attract even more with goodwill stories like this.
It is so easy to beat the Big 2.8 at this game that it aint funny!
210delray: Toyota sludge — such a joke also. I was part of the great debate on Edmunds about this because I had one of the potential sludgemasters, a ‘97 Camry 4-cylinder. Well, mine never sludged after 111k miles of ownership.
Party of 1 says no problem. Party of 3 million says there is. Now you know the rest of the story.
Not true.
3+ million Toyota engines were potentially affected. Before the class action lawsuit was “settled” early this year, about 3+ thousand engines were reported to have actually had a sludge problem.
I spent seven years of my life driving Fords, a ’97 Escort, ’97 Contour, ’00 Contour and an ’00 Taurus. I actually liked each of those cars very much, but with the exception of the Escort, which was a fine little car, things weren’t all that great when it came to how the cars held up. The ’97 Contour spent WAY too much time in the shop, and by 99700 miles I just didn’t want to deal with the failing transmission, broke AC, failing wipers, or the need for yet ANOTHER wheel bearing, so I traded for a slightly used ’00 Contour, which was somewhat better, but as the miles piled on, so did the problems. The Taurus was actually a nice car, in fact I liked the honesty of it, but like most Taurus’, the trannie needed rebuilt at 42000 miles, and it went through a couple of wheel bearings. But as much of a pain it was dealing with all of that, the biggest problem for me was dealing with the dealership, in particular the Ford dealer where I currently live in NE MI. (I won’t mention names, but the owner equates himself to being a college dean) Each time I would take either one of the Contours or the Taurus in for wheel bearing issues, they would constantly tell me “Oh, it’s not bad enough, drive it till it gets louder.” It would take almost a year of complaining to get them to do something about it. And the biggest problem of all was when we took the Taurus in for it’s second bearing, and Ford suddenly decided that it was no longer covered by the warranty, even though they covered the exact same part a year before!!! I called Ford and all they would say is “I’m sorry, that’s not a covered part.”
My parents drive an ’05 Sable, it’s a nice car. My best friend just bought a Fusion, and I’m looking forward to going for a ride with him in it. He just sold his ’04 Focus to another good friend of mine, I think it will serve him well. But even though there have been and still are, various Ford products that I admire for different reasons, I am very reluctant to ever consider another one of their cars, because I don’t want to be treated like crap again. Mr Mulally, if you are reading this, I have been very impressed by everything I have read about you, and I truly wish you the best, because it’s going to take a lot to get people like me back into another one of your cars again, other than flashy looks and great driving dynamics.
Ironically enough, flashy looks and a storied name swayed me into trading my last Ford for my Oldsmobile, thankfully it’s been a tremendous little car!!!
The domestics have come a long way. From producing utter crap to world class cars. People should stop living in the previous century and get rid of the “imports are better” mentality.
Ford (and by extension, GM and Chrysler) shot themselves in the foot time after time, and are paying for years, even decades, of customer neglect. My mom’s ’91 Sable had radically peeling paint after 2 years (yes, it was the metallic gray! How did you know that??). And warped rotors. And needed a new a/c compressor. With only 20,000 miles on it.
We found no solace from Ford. And to her 3 children, that sealed the deal. None of us have purchased a Ford product (and except for a work truck from Dodge, a domestic) since that time.
My wife is making noises about trading in her Highlander for a Ford Edge (admittedly a nice looking vehicle). I haven’t stopped laughing yet.
Farago (or maybe it was DeLorenzo) made the comment a couple of years ago (during the GM Everyone’s an Employee Sale) that the price the domestics were going to pay with huge discounts was steep – since now it is about the deal. Even if the new Chevy Malibu is as good as the Honda Accord….it will only sell to the sedan crowd if the car is steeply discounted, or the dealer has to work some credit magic. And those circumstance do not pave the road to financial stability.
Thus, the domestics are paying the price for the sins of the past. Fool me once, shame on you….
Bought a 90 Thunderbird Supercoupe used with 27,000 km on it in ’92. Second day I had the car another T-Bird pulls along side me and asks, “how many times the rear calipers have ceased on me?” Told him, “I just got the car.” He just laughed and drove off.
Thought it was an odd exchange until after I got rid of the car. In 14 months of ownership the car spent approx 5 in the shop. 3 rear calipers needed replacing, one engine, one tranny, one ecm a leaky power steering pump and a host of other issues. Needless to say I took a bath when selling it and haven’t bought Ford since even though I have family members working for FORD. My uncle always jokes around, or does he, when he tells me I’m not allowed to park in his driveway.
It was my favorite car and my worst headache all rolled into one.
Dave M and Rallybred, you reminded me: my Sable also had warped front rotors (started going bad around 17K miles), and I had a sticking left rear caliper that chewed up the rotor (on the inside surface, natch). The way I found out is that the alloy wheel was starting to discolor and when I touched it, it was VERY hot. Also I had to replace the outer tie rod ends, the wiper switch twice, and the headlight switch the day before I sold it.
I guess it’s all about “perception”. I had a Ford some time back, it’s the last one I’ll ever own. (Lots of issues, dealer and head office indifference).
Anyone got an F-150 with tie-rod end failures at around 60,000 KM?
The key to the article is “Ford paid RDA Group of Bloomfield Hills to survey…”
If you were Ford, would you pay someone to generate a report that said your stuff was crap? Maybe they could do up a report that details how many people thought the vehicle appeared to be really solid … in the showroom.
Delray210: “3+ million Toyota engines were potentially affected. Before the class action lawsuit was “settled” early this year, about 3+ thousand engines were REPORTED to have actually had a sludge problem.”
REPORTED by who….Toyota ? Toyota, the same company that had to be dragged into court to even recognize that they had an engine sludge problem. Prior to this court action—all Toyota did was blame the customer for the issue. Of course. Toyota gets a free pass for the blame the customer game while Ford (see above posts) and GM get plastered to the wall.
I don’t believe Toyota’s reports any more than some believe the internal quality surveys generated by Ford (even though Ford’s quality surveys have been validated by both JD Power and Consumer Reports).
the fusion ,milan and zyphers(?) are all based off the mazda 6–thats why there fun, i remember ford was going to base a cross over from the mazda 6 -think its the edge now or based off the cx-9 or 7—just had a 2007 rental taurus(not the 500) it handles like a school bus and the brakes lock up easy,the interior seating was like a living room sofa the steering wheel looked like fake plastic and i didn’t think that was possible. only thing is, i know the engines in those are good for well over 200,000 miles but i wouldn’t want to drive one every day.
Someone mentioned in this article about Ford Vehicles that even ConsumerReports liked Ford! They certainly did not like the “Edge” in a recent magazine
It’ll take Ford a long time to come back, if ever. They’ve burned too many people for too many years. Goodwill is very difficult for a company to accumulate but very easy to squander — once squandered it’s almost impossible to get back.
Ford had the right idea already to address this issue: warranty. The only problem is they didn’t go far enough (although this is actually a result of several problems). You want to change people’s perception immediately, easy 100K bumper to bumper fully transferrable warranty with free maintenance for the first 50K.
Prior to this court action—all Toyota did was blame the customer for the issue. Of course. Toyota gets a free pass for the blame the customer game while Ford (see above posts) and GM get plastered to the wall.
umterp: But GM and Ford have been getting it since the days of cracked Vega blocks and exploding Pintos. Only now is Toyota large enough to be on the losing end of product liability concerns.
My point is: Toyota is going down a slippery slope, but it takes decades to create the damage done to Detroit’s rep in the court of public opinion.
You can’t blame people here (and maybe even the media) for slamming Detroit for every wrong move. Payback is a bitch, ya know.