Assembled in the USA...big difference...they still get parts shipped over from Japan and claim ridiculously low prices to screw the USA out of import fees....and there are ignorant Americans that think everytning is "peachy". Go figure...

 

F series trucks SUVs. In a nutshell Ford isnt selling trucks like there used to. Thats where the profit is. Not cars or small SUVs. Big trucks an SUVs. So far this year Ford has sold 300,000 trucks. At this point in time they should have had closer to 500,000 sold. That really hurts the bottom line. Money makers are trucks not cars.

 

Check this out about US part contents.

Cars.com: Top 10s and More | American-Made Index

Everyone is making more parts overseas, including Ford, GM, and Dodge. The 2002 Solara I have is more than 70% US parts.

Everyone can blame domestic automakers fall on the easy target of the "evil" foreign automakers, but the truth is that each is reaping what they have sown. Domestics gave the big FU to quality for decades and hung onto truck sales while handing foreign automakers the US car market.

Guess what? Nobody wants trucks now and everyone is really comfortable with foreign cars. I can't blame them given my personal comparison from a lot of left seat time in Ford, Chevy, Dodge, and Toyota.

Mike

 

Ford has cars that beat foreign jobs now in quality an dependability. Hopefully people will see the light. The idea that foreign cars are invincible is hog wash.

 

I wouldn't say invincible, but very reliable. Our Solara had a water pump go at 58,000, but it was fixed under warranty.

The thing is that some domestics are just now equal with foreign cars. They have been beating the pants off of domestics for years now and why change to something that is just equal if you're happy with what you have?

Another thing that I've noticed is that for the same price, the foreign cars seem much nicer. For example the materials, fit and finish, and layout in our 02 is much better than any of the 08 Escapes (high end) or 06+ Explorer EBs that we've been looking at.

Mike

 

I have respect for the Japanesse as far as quality goes. In my field (Machinist) some of the most precise and toughest built CNC machines in the world come from Japan. They will spend over 800hours hand scraping the box ways of some machines to a .00004" flatness over the etire stroke of the machine. Since Evinrude was sold over to BRP I bought all Yamaha outboards all made in Japan. The quality of the Yamahas are superb and run flawlessly. I will keep my Fords but I'm strongly thinking about buying a small Tacoma instead of the ranger because I feel the Tacoma has an edge over the ranger. I buy as much from us manufactuers as possible for my business and personal use however I can't look away from some of the fine products coming from Japan. In smaller engines I feel Japan has had the edge for many years.

 

Which cars? Take a look at the quality of foreigns vs domestics(cars) as a whole. Foreign cars arent invincible by any means, but the track record of lots of fords cars over the years kinda follow a pattern.

Take the honda civic, its been around for how long now? How about the toyota corolla? (two cars that are fairly high in terms of reliability and longevity)How long has ford had the focus? escort?

 

The reason the escorts and focus are such high quality is they have to be if they want to compete in that niche. Not because they want to but because they have to.

 

That makes no sense whatsoever....

 

Not only do they have the points that you made, but they also have name recognition. Civic, Corolla, and Camry are long lived, well trusted names and people like familiar things. Domestic automakers play the name game all the time to make vehicles seem new.

The domestic automakers confuse people with all the new names like 500, Cobalt, Magnum, Fusion, Focus, Taurus and then not then again.

Mike

 

Toyotas quality has gone down alot, i believe in 2006 they had the most recalls of any manufacturer. I mean look at the Tacoma's rusty frames, shoot my truck is 30+ years old and it doesn't look like that. What i'm trying to say is that, they aren't all what they seem, If you compare a new domestic car say, the new malibu, and the camry, the malibu is hands down better. The quality is as good or better in some occasions.

And if you say that Domestics only made trucks, its because its true, thats what Americans wanted and demanded, thats why they're was such a boom in truck sales. But now everyone wants cars with mpg, so thats what they are focusing on, GM has more cars with over 30 mpg, they just don't advertise it as much. They also have the Volt and hybrid systems for suv's and trucks that extend they're mileage into the 20 mpg in the city.

I figure that with domestic quality going up, that i should support them because they in turn affect our US economy which affects me, whereas supporting a Japanese company does nothing for me in the long run

 

Here's a prime example of that. In 1999, Oldsmobile changed the name Cutlass (which was the 4th or 5th best selling nameplate for years), to Intrigue.

No one knew what the hell that car was...sales fell to nothing. Olds, once the second oldest American automaker (Olds: 1897 ~ Duryea was first in 1896), has now gone to auto heaven.

Another example...Buick dropped both the LeSabre & Park Avenue in 2003, replacing it with the Lucerne.

Sales of the former two were 353,000 units in 2003. Lucerne has never even come close to selling 100,000 units in a year, and sales are falling now....like a stone.

btw: Ford wanted to call the 500 a Futura, a name Ford had used off and on since 1955. But they let the name expire after 1983.

Pep Boys brought out a line of tires called Futura and wouldn't allow Ford to use the name.

The first Futura was a 1955 Lincoln Dream Car, which Ford built for the autoshow circuit. It still exists.

The Batmobile from the TV series is that same car! George Barris acquired it in the early 1960's.

For the TV show, Barris removed the Futura's plexiglass roof, repainted the car and added a lotta gizmo's...that's it. Everything else is pure 1955 Lincoln Futura.

 

If You do a little research, You'll find that most of the Japanese dependability is mostly hype these days.
It seems that they've found out the hard way, that manufacturing in the volume that the big three have been doing for years means that there is a lot more room for things to go wrong.

What about all the Toyota trucks being bought back because the frames rust thru? What about the sludge problems with Toyota V6??? Ect, Ect.

 

Lots of japanese companies have plants right there in the states. Anything built in the states would employ an american worker. I think that helps the economy, even if all the profits dont stay there.

Also sure toyotas quality has gone down compared to what they used to have, they have got into a different truck market. Look at the quality as a whole though.

I mean ford and gm have had lots of oppurtunity in all classes of vehicles, and they cant even come close to the foreigns in the car market. As a whole. Im not saying they dont make SOME good cars, but generally, they have been flops over the years.

 

What about fords 6 liter fiasco? What about the crap reputation that the focus's got from 2000ish? (I have known lots of guys with those years of focus's and they were garbage) Anyone remember the tempo/topaz's? What about the areostars? (Just think, im a ford guy and I could play this game all night)

If you start looking at problems well sure every company has them, ford included. In the car aspect, you do all the research you want, and youll find out what i found out when I was searching for a car. If you want a good quality car, get a honda, or a toyota. Yes it costs more, but you get a better car.

I once read something by fte's very own big dog Ken, and it went something kinda like this.

How do we expect to improve our favorite product(or company), if we cant seriously look at what they are doing wrong, and criticize it?

(not word for word, but it went something like that)

Do you believe that a couple of the foreign car companies have the top sales right now, because of people that buy them believe the hype, and there is no credibilty behind that? That people pay more of their hard earned money for that hype? Cmon.....