Isn’t the ceo of ford Chris Farleys cousin?

 

He is... lol.

 

I can run Ford Motor Company just like my Cuz can....

 

Dear Frustrated Superduty Owner,

I don't agree with your assessment or proposed solutions. I've worked for the Japanese auto manufacturers and now I'm working for American auto manufacturers. It's true that there are inefficiencies and policies that seem counter productive. There are culture differences, that is true. There are inefficient and not qualified personnel at all levels and all manufacturers regardless of country of origin. There is no need to punish all, but there is a need for improvement for many.

Bashing unions isn't the solution either as they still do good for many. I don't have all of the solutions by any means, but there are dedicated and hard working folks in all companies and industries. Excellence should be rewarded and inadequate personnel should be retrained or replaced.

I am proud of my contribution and grateful to my employer for the opportunity they have given me to be a productive team member. I do my very best to support the local economy and keep the money in the USA where it benefits my friends, family and coworkers.

Imperfect beings cannot create perfection no matter how hard we try, but that doesn't mean we should give up and become subservient to a foreign nation. On a personal note, the Japanese culture, language and diet dont appeal to me and I've seen Toyota, Nissan and Subaru make blunders just the same as Ford, Chysler and General Motors.

In summary, your proposed solutions are simply blowing off steam and not valid.

 

They need to truly adopt Dr. Demmings teachings in the Auto world. The Japanese did...the first demming award went to mr. Toyoda. I had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours with Mr. Toyoda and his wife. Great and extremely warm, knowledgeable people (rest his soul). We live in a land where the saying, let the buyer beware, it is true today as it was 120 years ago when milk was sold made of chalk dust and water.

 

Interesting paragraph. You start by defending the unions but then it's the unions standing in the way of the second half of the last sentence.

 

In all truth, the Unions do need to review their personnel as do the manufacturers. When the system fails, everybody needs to be evaluated and training, support or replacement is in order to achive improvement.

A good portion of the "old world" union labor jobs are being preformed by robots now and much more of the assembly process can be automated. Humans need to step up their game if they don't want automation to be implemented. I don't believe there is any threat of robots being unionized in my lifetime.

The vehicle quality issues are mostly human error. As imperfect beings, we are prone to failure and mistakes. From the questionanle management decisions, to the engineering blunders to the assembly mistakes, humans are the weakest link in the vehicle manufacturing process. Humans are also the driving force of innovation and inspiration. Ying and Yang.

I automate systems on a daily basis to circumvent repeated human errors, and to improve efficiency and quality. As long as humans are in the loop, then there will be failures to correct and learn from. It's our nature.

With respect to vehicle diagnostics and repair, the diagnosis are mostly performed by the vehicles onboard computer systems. These trucks are damned near self aware. (Lol) The repair technician is mostly a repair tool following machine instruction. ASE certification training needs to modernize the technical workforce through education.

 

A company only gets as much union as it deserves.

 

wow that was a happy rant. Thank you!

 

Japan isn't the answer to anything other than effing up the infotainment center from a logical/convenience standpoint. The Americans engineer better vehicles, the problem is that they don't stand by what they've built, and they don't rectify issues that occur. The Americans make a better sedan, truck, sports car, engines, transmissions, and infotainment centers than the Japanese.

GM has a plethora of issues, Ford a few, and Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge some.

 

But humans program and install the robots so by your logic the robots themselves are fallible because of the imperfect human designing, programming and installing the robots...

 

I find if you stick to basic models, they all make a decent vehicle. As far as Japanese engineered vehicles and equipment I find them to be easily superior to the rest of the competition aside from some German companies. The Japanese have absolutely dominated the construction equipment industry and the majority of manufacturers including John Deere and Caterpillar have strong partnerships with Japanese companies and use their technology. Hitachi has just about made John Deer's entire construction lineup for the past 3 decades, nothing American about John Deere construction equipment. Caterpillar purchased a controlling stake of Mitsubishi's construction division and incorporated their technology into the Caterpillar line. Then there are Sumitomo, Kobelco, and Komatsu who have partnerships with other large name brands and go as far as to completely make their equipment for them.

I wish they would get into the HD truck market in the U.S. as id gladly buy a Toyota, Nissan, or Mitsubishi 3/4 or 1 ton truck over the Ford, GM, or Ram offering.

 

the Japanese don't make a superior v6, or v8.

The germans don't make superior engines either. They're too busy trying to rube golberg the engine. That zf8 speed is an absolute marvel of a tranny though.

I remember back in the day the m3 with it's inline 6, it was heavier, more complex, larger in envelope, cost more, and made less horsepower and torque than the v8 in the corvettes and Camaros. And in the end bmw recalled every last one of them for rod bearings or crank bearing.

Not only are Japanese vehicles not superior, they are wanting for many things, things like common sense easy to use infotainment systems and control layouts. Room for large and tall Americans, and they nearly all put a little time bomb in their engines. Prescribing a trip to the dealer to change a rubber timing belt at 80-120k miles is old tech. Very old tech. The pentastar v6 is a far superior v6 to anything the Japanese make in v6 flavor.

What I don't understand is why so many idolize a Japanese engine when they are built with rubber timing belts. That's garbage engineering and Americans seem to eat it up. It ain't the 80's anymore. American cars are not cheap junk. Not all of them anyway.

 

The Japanese do indeed make a superior V6, you can find it in the 4Runner/Tacomas for over the past decade. Having worked on engines and torn them down they go 200k with ease on just oil changes (using "water" for oil) and no repairs. The Japanese happen to make fewer mistakes and their culture deems they rectify any mistakes rather quickly. Toyota believes in refining something older for the sake of reliability, instead of bringing something cutting edge to market and then dealing with gremlins for the next couple of years. Just look at all the recent issues with the Eco Boost motors, even Ford techs are bashing them. Currently there are cam phaser issues on some Broncos, that is on top of the valvetrain failures in the past...neither of these are 'minor.' The Mach E and Bronco Sport got dropped by Consumer Reports recently for below average reliability. Farley is sinking Ford like the Titanic due to his unnecessary 'redesign' of the company.

Also all those cool safety/convenience features come on a $28K Toyota that aren't included in $60K trucks...features like adaptive cruise control, cross traffic alert, etc. I was driving a family member's budget RAV4 recently and it even asked me if I wanted to stop for a coffee break after driving 200 miles...all at 34 mpg. That $28K RAV4 had every electronic safety/convenience feature in the book, I was impressed.

The RAM CEO recently stated that RAM will not focus on electrification or hybrids, they instead will focus on where the demand is (ICE trucks). RAM has improved quality dramatically and positioned themselves well. That guy gets it, Farley could learn a lot from him.

 

Ford doesn't have to be the perfect company, but it could at least try