The study can have its opinion. My opinion after being a tech for over 5 years now at a lincoln mercury dealership is that a majority of fords vehicle are low quality POS. Main problem is they keep getting worse, I think ford built better cars in the 80s and mid 90s compared today. Just my 10 cents
Since you see them everyday, your view is biased. Just as mine is for GM. Since I've been a GM parts counterman for over 11 years.
ford is building quality cars again they slacked for a few years but there back....its time we start taxing the imports and give Americans an incentive to buy American...
That was made public about a week ago. I personally think a lot of problems with the domestic car industry is related to the UAW
True it is my job to work on fords everyday but its not like i am making this stuff up. I wish ford would get their act together, sales would go up, the customer would keep the vehicle longer and I would make more money instead of just a ton of warranty repairs.
Imports are taxed, its around 2% for cars and 20% for trucks, however this tax is only for vehicles produced outside of the US. That is the reason that have all come to america and built trans plants, there is no longer a tax because it is an american product.
i agree. im a ford tech as well and i really feel that ford has been gettin away for several years now with making a low quality product and people are sick of it. people are sick of freakin paying 40k for a new explorer and having lots of problems with low miles. the union auto workers jus make more and more demands and jus try and bury it up everones ass any chance they get. then what happens is dealers get screwed cause we get raped with warranty work all day. uaw....
I hear the same complaints from my GM techs every day. Your lack of customer pay jobs is due to dealer's $90+ an hour labor rate. And then techs padding their times doesn't help either. Most of the techs I know use Chilton time plus 2-3 tenths. No one, including myself, wants to spend that kind of money on a 5-10 year old vehicle.
I'm guessing, but I'm sure your dealership is very similar as mine in that most of your work is repeat customers. Every manufacturer makes junk from time to time. And those are the vehicles you are seeing. Here's the list of Ford's I've owned over the last 10 years. All had high mileage when sold and I had only minimal problems with each. 1994 Mustang GT 1995 Thunderbird 4.6 - almost broke 200K miles before sold 1996 Cobra 1999 Grand Marquis And my newest is a 2006 F350 Powerstroke that since I bought in January has already been across 5 states towing 10K+ pounds and has 20K miles to show for it. And it has only been to the dealer for LOF's.
keep an eye on the quality of the fuel you use and hope you dont have an injector go bad. yes we see the same junk come in from time to time. daily. this low production quality junk is across the entire line. entire cars themselves might not be junk but theres things where you can blatantly see the car was cut corners on. does the factory wanna pay? hell no. the sun gear shell on an 02 to current year explorer. **** they might as well have made it out of plastic. the console lid on a 500? total piece of crap. the rear brakes on 500 and freestyles? they routinely go out in around 15 k give or take. rear ends making noise. wheel bearings going bad early. i could go on and on and on. you know how often an 02 and up explorer has wheel bearings serviced and rear r and r'ed at my dealer? freakin constantly. auto transmissions? still waitin for ford to buckle down and make a good one. yet they crack down on labor rates more and more and more. they wanna weasel out of paying a warranty claim any possible way they can. we have claims where we get ford saying they have paid all they are "willing" to pay. meanwhile the dealer has to eat it on the rest of it. honestly with exclusion of my beloved mustangs at this point i could really give a flying **** wat happens to ford anymore. its all their own fault. and the damn uaw.between the suits being greedy and the guys building the cars. they buried themselves.with this being said youll still never find a non american car in my driveway. why? cause im an american. and american cars need american support. but the big 3 realy need to wake up. the problem is ur quality. not the offerings even. although whoever looked at *** sedans and still thought the 500 was a good idea smoked some **** i wish was legal cause i would be smoking it constantly.
**** that, lol, I love mustangs and all, but i would NEVER buy any american car for a daily driver. All that import vs domestic crap, import hands down for daily driver, such better quality.
I seem to have better luck with a american car for a daily driver than a import. Ive had Honda Toyota and they just where crap but they looked nice. Just didn't run like they looked. All the mustangs capri's beretta's and cavalier's ive owned.Ive been getting to work with minum problems. Guess its different with everyone
I'm sure our labor rate of $95 an hour isn't helping out but when these independent shops are charging around $70+ themselves is not too much more to ask. The reason we lack customer pay jobs is who wants to hang on to a vehicle that was nothing but problems for you all through out the warranty period. Also would you end up buying another ford if all you had was problem after problem on the brand new one you bought, no. We have customers that will not get rid of their 97 and older town cars because they have been such great cars for them. I still see cars built in the early 80s come in just for maintenance. My dad is the same way with his 91 5.0 t-bird. It has over a 160k miles on it. The only things I have done to is refreshed the AOD at 120k, one window motor, and replaced an ac line. The vehicles ford builds now couldn't even come close to be this reliable. Consider yourself lucky that your have not had to do any repairs to your 6.0 diesel, our diesel guy is constantly slammed with warranty work.
fords going back to there roots.. they basically had corruption and alot of crap jobs to just.. give jobs.. but its come to the point where they cant do it.. they need to cut there over head in half to survive.. and fight back.. im fairly certain ford and chevrolet have a few tricks up there sleeves to run the imports out of the country.. i will never drive a import as long as i am alive.. ruining our country.. all there doing is dividing this country in half.. and we need to be united into one again.. which that hasnt happened since WWII.. damn hippies in the 60's..
