Quality woes may force loyal Ford customers to switch brands

[Stephen]

Quality woes may force loyal Ford customers to switch brands


By Daniel Howes / The Detroit News

FRANKFURT, Germany--The Firestone Wilderness AT tires on mom's 2000 Ford Explorer Limited are being replaced today, the latest annoyance with the best-selling sport-ute that she says "is the worst one" of the three Explorers she's owned.
The door trim on my sister Sarah's 2000 Ford Focus SE popped off the other day when she closed the door. The seat-back adjustment lever fell off. And the rubber moulding between the door sill and the right-rear window won't stay put.
This isn't what my family back in the States -- a loyal Ford family -- expects from an automaker that's been providing them with wheels for 15 years or so. But if their gripes, anecdotes from other Ford owners and industry surveys of declining product quality are any indication, it's what they and other Ford customers too often are getting.
That should trouble Ford Chief Executive Jacques Nasser and his leadership team, beset with the tangled morass of tire recalls, quality problems and battered image. In an age when brand loyalty is only as strong as the promise it delivers, it won't take much for many loyal Ford customers to look elsewhere for their next vehicles.
Recalls don't help. My sister, Sarah Howes-McIntosh, is a private banker in North Canton, Ohio. By her count, she's had four recalls on her Focus -- more than with either the Ford Contour or the Ford Probe she previously owned. She didn't expect that from the car touted by Ford as a global best seller.
"It's kind of falling apart now," she says, musing about what she'll do when her lease is up in about 18 months. "I don't know. I don't want to keep it."
By one measure, most recalls aren't necessarily an accurate indicator of the quality in today's cars and trucks. The industry's recall rage -- of which Ford's recall of 13 million Firestone tires is only the largest -- is driven more by trial lawyers looking to make a buck than a rash of junk issuing from auto plants around the world (not just Detroit).
"We are concerned because of the number of recalls we see on these vehicles," says Brad Black, vice-president of Downtown Ford Inc., the Canton dealer that has sold Fords to my family since the mid-1980s. "But I do think Ford is being overly sensitive recalling the vehicles because of the Firestone situation."
Probably true. But recalls also suggest that an automaker may have trouble getting things right the first time. Ford recalled its all-new 2002 Explorer twice before it hit dealers -- once for a faulty rear window installation and then because tires were being cut on the assembly line. Such inattention to detail can alienate customers, be they car buyers or restaurant patrons.
For years, my mother, Carolyn Howes, raved about her Explorers. She liked riding high. She liked feeling safe. She liked the image of driving an Explorer. But she didn't like it when the electrical system shut down on Interstate 77 in a driving rain, killing her windshield wipers.
"The car was brand-new when all that started," she says, recounting five separate trips to the dealer to fix the problem. The brake light on the instrument panel stayed lit after starting the engine, initially cutting power to the stereo and wipers.
The net effect: A customer willing to try something new. That may be the most enduring legacy of today's Ford.