Believe me, for the non-"american" (i guess i must be from some other continent's south side) this is mighty funny. In my house we have a Crysler, 2 Fords and 2 Toyotas, they all have a purpose (apparently for the 69 Thunderbird it will be to rot away forgotten), and all of them have served very well, and gave us no troubles at all (appart from the usual wear and spares).

Why the brands won't build anything they're asked to? well, even considering it could costs them millions, and devoting resources to some products might delay the release of other more profitable products. That they are letting aside the customization and user choices? yes they are, their lose, as there is a potential for a lot of profit there (in my country is even worse, you either buy what is available, probably no even picking a color, or you wait at least 3-4 more months).

 

ive had a 97 F-250 HD with reg cab 4x4 5.8W auto 4.10 that truck was an animal. it rode like a dump truck but it had power to tow whatever i wanted and it played hard on the weekends. Then i have my new 2004 F350 in my sig and its nice, it needs the V10 badly or a diesel if it wasnt so expensive to own. but the ext cab doors suck, power steering sucks, front springs sagged out at 60k, plus the ball joints. The best trucks i EVER owned were my two mud trucks a 1979 bronco and my current hunting rig a 1978 F150. Put new bushings in both trucks with new tires and shocks and the are the best riding most fun best built trucks ive had so far. I drive them to work during the wiunter and hunt and offroad them almost ever weekend with no problems what so ever. if i tried that with my 2004 i would blow the front unit bearings in a week, tranny would go in a month probally...... enough said

 

Why do you say that? Have you blown or broke anything in your 04?

 

It now seems to only apply to us North Americans, basing this opinion on the fact that the new 4 door diesel Ranger is available in 180 Countries, Canada and the U.S.A. are not on that list because it is rumoured that Ford feels the F150 would lose sales to the 10% smaller Ranger.(smaller than the new F150)
I say poppycock I think selling the small Ranger would open up whole new markets for them just like the Tansit Van has in Canada.

I can't believe this thread is still going strong.

 

All I care for is rust proofing! Rust ruins any vehicle around here before mechanicals do.

 

For my personal wants/needs the current F-150 is sized just about right.

But I for life of me I cannot understand why Ford killed off the Ranger without replacement...I mean yeah I know that Ford is afraid of a compact/midsize truck canabalizing sales from the F-Series trucks which are without question Ford's cash cow model line. But there must be another reason Ford isn't giving us a smaller truck...Because I mean honestly, how hard would it be to re-name the Ranger the F-050? Or even the F-100? That way it would still apply to (F-Series) sales figures.

I know that the F-150's are now more efficent than ever, But it just seems logical that with the econmy being in bad shape and gas price's being so unstable and uncertian, a small realtivly cheap truck would fit alot of peoples agenda. I know of quite a few people who have already jumped ship for a Toyota Tacoma or Nissan Frontier simply because Ford let the Ranger die an uneventful death.

 

Remember when Ford killed off the Taurus and renamed it the Ford 500? It fell flat on it's face because people wanted a Taurus. They didn't care that it was the very same car, it was named differently. If the Ranger comes back to North America and the sales manager at my dealer thinks it will, it should still be called the Ranger if it will sell at all.

 

That a mid sized four door truck with a 7,000lb tow rating with a diesel engine suits my life style. I have even gone so far as checking out the Nissan and the Toyota as well as the Avalanche.
The fact that Toyota and Nissan both have a truck in this market segment as well as GMC having the short lived Canyon(not a well built truck by all accounts) means there has to be a clientele for them.
Ford seems to be (pun intended) hitching their hopes on a one trick pony(F150) instead of letting their customers decide what they will buy and drive.


The sad part is the fellow who was responsible for the building of the new Ranger is making special arrangement to bring one back for himself to drive around because he likes it so much

 

I can some 3 years later . What does Ford have in the line-up for me ?

Nothing.

 

I am a sales consultant in the lower mainland of B.C. Canada right now i have about 6 Rangers in Standard shift left on the lot along with a couple of automatics. Ford keeps reinventing itself constantly if a product does not work or sell try something different simple really. The new f150 ECOBOOST is quiet simply one awesome machine twin turbo well the forum knows the rest.I have sold for Toyota as well and there PR machine does one heck of a job remember the lawsuits and recalls? IMO Ford is a progressive company always looking to raise the bar.I look forward to a long career with the Ford Motor Company and will do my best to look after with due diligence any guests that may come and see me.Thank you for your time and if i may leave you with when in North America BUY North American.

 

Yeah toyota had recalls, everyone has them, When I hear of a company having a recall it makes me look at that company as though they are helping their customers and ARE standing behind their product.

In order for ford, chevy, or dodge to have a recall the vehicle has to be burning buildings down and killing people in masses before they are pretty much forced to do something about it. Otherwise they could care less about their customers.

Toyota offered 150% buy back on their trucks that had rust problems. Never have and never will see an "American" company do something like that. All of our fords have rotted frames, do you think ford cares? NO, they just tell you to buy another one.

 

Sure, rotted frames suck.
But when they recalled my wife's Windstar for the rotted front sub-frame, they bought it back for $1500 more than we paid for it, 50,000 miles and 4 1/2 years later.

In all that time it cost me $35 in non wear related repairs, for a DPFE sensor.
The wear related repairs were 1 set of brakes all around, shocks & struts (after the factory originals had gone 100K miles) and 1 ball joint.
The maintenance records I got from the previous owner showed nothing unusual either.

Sure we aren't happy that we now have a car payment we didn't plan for, but we now have a Taurus X that we both like better than the Windstar except on the rare occaision that we have more than 5 people going somewhere.

That was the first Ford we have ever owned that we didn't put at least 100K of our own miles on.

We have owned 9 Fords over the last 30 years and have put over 100K on every one except the Windstar, the Taurus X and a 1990 T-Bird that I have, which had about 85K on it when I bought it.
A 1991 F250 that I had, had 113K on it when I bought it and I sold it with 253K on the clock to a guy who made a tow/plow truck out of it and is still running it with the original motor. In the 140K miles that I ran it, the only motor work I ever had to do besides tune ups was 2 alternators and a water pump.

My Ford fleet has included the following;
73 LTD Coupe, 84 Mustang GT, 85 ranger XL , 94 Taurus LX wagon, 91 F250 XLT Lariat 4X4, 90 Thunderbird, 01 Windstar LX, 97 F150 XLT 4X4, 08 Taurus X SE.

I've had good service and reliability from all of them except maybe the Windstar and I am satisfied with Ford's effort to make things right with that one.

 

That is actually the first time I have ever heard of ford buying back a vehicle.

We have 7 trucks in total right now, 4 are fords, all are rusty pigs besides the chevys for some reason... From my experience over the years I should be seeing the chevys rot out just as fast if not faster than the fords but that doesn't seem to be the case. It seems to me that ford has taken over chevys rep for being rust buckets.

 

I don't think they had a choice. The problem affected so many vehicles.

It started with the rear axle rust issue. Water intrusion inside the hollow rear axle. It was on the national news, the rear axles were breaking in half....
Ours passed the initial rear axle recall. A couple of moths later we got a letter about the front subframe. Same issue, water intrusion into hollow structural members causing rust and subsequent failure.

Since we passed the rear axle inspection, I didn't move on the front recall right away. About 4 months later, our van failed state safety inspection due to rust on the front subframe.

By that point, Ford had appearantly made the decision to buy back vehicles that failed. They seemed to have no plans from the get-go to make parts available for repairs.
That would have entailed manufacturing sub-frames and axles for a vehicle that was no longer in production by then.

The sheer number of vehicles involved forced their hand.

I made out very well, others were not so lucky. Most people got well under blue book value, I was at least close, but still under.

We bought our from a private owner for $6k with 80some thousand miles on it. It had around 130K on it when it failed and they gave us $7500.

I was hoping for at least full book value which was still over $8k since it was a loaded SE. The only thing that it didn't have was the memory seat/pedals and a sunroof......

Looking at the big picture, they should probably be buying every single Windstar they ever made, but the recall/buyback was limited to the salt belt states.
Considering the massive number of them they built, that would surely bankrupt them.

We loved our Windstar and it was reliable right to the end.
Others may have differing opinions......

 

Really?

What about Toyotas habit of hiding or ignoring issues or only issuing recalls in their home market for extremely dangerous issues like the steering linkage failing in their trucks that resulted in deaths in the U.S. but was an open safety recall in Japan?

From what I've seen Ford has done an exceptionally good job at standing behind their vehicles and issuing TSBs and recalls to fix known issues.

Are Fords perfect? No, nothing is.


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