Are these new Fords going to sea? Don't you guys think Ford has thought about all these different conditions? Ford spends Billions of dollars on R&D as do other manufactures. The last junk Ford frames appeared in 1980 on the F150 (big holes in frames behind the cab for weight reduction) they were changed pretty quickly.

 

Even the best engineers can make mistakes. The years of using an absurd hydraulic cruise control switch design mounted to the master cylinder is one example. Variable geometry turbos which stop "varying" and cost big bucks to replace are another.

I like Fords, but I buy them used and read FTE and elsewhere HEAVILY when I'm interested in a particular model.

 

It's funny that you mentioned the use of plastic frames. Because back in the 80' GM was experimenting and developing an all plastic car. This is true and is not made up. The only reason they have not made it to production yet is because GM could not get the plastic framed cars to react in a collision the same way a metal car would react. And as a result the plastic was either not strong enough to be used or when made strong enough the plastic car would completely annihilate the metal cars which proved to be fatal to the occupants of the metal cars. I swear I did NOT make that up. A good friend of mine was and is a GM technician at that time. He told me about those cars and tests years ago. Said he was told about them by an engineer at one of GMs training facilities when he was there for training. The engineer said it was only a matter of time till the car made production. And originally that was the whole idea behind the Saturn brand.