Ford in trouble???

[IAmTodd]

Originally posted by DonM
They are gaining ground rather quickly.

Yea, That happened to Gateway. They grew waaay to fast. Sales went up, quality went down.

I'll stick with my Blue Oval. But I do like the new sliding rear window in the trucks.

Blue Oval pride baby!!!

 

[DonM]

Originally posted by IAmTodd
Yea, That happened to Gateway. They grew waaay to fast. Sales went up, quality went down.

I'll stick with my Blue Oval. But I do like the new sliding rear window in the trucks.

Blue Oval pride baby!!!

I really dont see that happening to Toyota. Just because it happend to gateway doesnt mean it will happen to Toyota.

Toyota's has been building reliable cars and trucks for years and Ive yet to see quality go down. It's only going to go up from hear.

 

[DonM]

More truth to the matter...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ft/20040123/bs_ft/1073281261243

I found this last night and read it this morning. So um yeah, I guess Ford isnt in trouble.

 

[HR57]

Dang Another Old Thread

 

[LOGJOCKY]

NO way will the Toyota Tundra will ever beat any of the big 3 auto makers in sales, thats a chick truck, I have driven em more than once and they are very unmanly...if i recall dodge was in big trouble years ago too but then daimler stepped in and they are back up there, everyone has downtimes, but i know i see many many more ford explorers or F-150's than the chevy or dodge counterparts...so long as that remains Ford will never fall

 

[huskyfan23]

I like this quote: "If that costs us leadership, I guess I will be willing to congratulate Chevrolet on becoming the largest seller of rental cars in the world." Ford Division president, Steve Lyons commenting on the possibility of Chevy becoming the best selling brand.

 

[5.0_Cowgirl]

From just coming back from a Ford interview and listening to what they had to say.... Ford is worried, they have not been as on the ball in new manufacturing technologies and working towards the new gizmos as the other foreign manufacturers have been. They are worried about the products that they are producing because while they are still quality vehicles people perceive them as not being so and just your dad's old Ford. They are focused on coming back though and that was the theme for the interviews and info sessions that I could attend. Stocks are up and they plan to keep them there, but need to work to keep the top spot.

GM on the other hand is having plenty of problems especially with the fleet car market. They're expected to really nose dive shortly.

 

[Doug]

This is the most recent best seller for 2004 I could find but ford is on there 6 times, more than any one else.

DETROIT, July 1, 2004; Reuters reported a list of the
U.S.top-20 selling vehicles, ranked by total units.

1 Ford F-Series pickup 432,969 402,072 1 +7.7
2 Chevy Silverado-C/K pickup 322,907 321,992 2 +0.3
3 Dodge Ram pickup 218,369 218,301 5 +0.0
4 Toyota Camry 197,798 184,848 4 +7.0
5 Honda Accord 192,106 193,876 3 -0.9
6 Ford Explorer 168,059 179,341 6 -6.3
7 Toyota Corolla/Matrix 167,894 171,062 9 -1.9
8 Honda Civic 162,483 153,009 8 +6.2
9 Ford Taurus 144,035 170,393 7 -15.5
10 Chevrolet Impala 139,460 133,948 13 +4.1
11 Dodge Caravan 131,367 133,411 19 -1.5
12 Chevrolet TrailBlazer 122,832 124,780 14 -1.6
13 Ford Focus 118,807 122,095 15 -2.7
14 Nissan Altima 116,699 100,685 12 +15.9
15 Chevrolet Cavalier 103,918 128,346 11 -19.0
16 Ford Escape 98,532 78,768 N/A +25.1
17 GMC Sierra pickup 98,370 91,510 17 +7.5
18 Jeep Grand Cherokee 95,118 89,728 18 +6.0
19 Ford Econoline 92,118 85,561 N/A +7.7
20 Chevrolet Tahoe 89,089 88,794 13 +0.3


So intead he said/she said BS I'll let the numbers do the talking.

 

[JohnnyO]

I read in the paper not long ago that Bill Ford's new philosophy is to make individual car lines profitable and not rely on volume, which has the effect of driving prices down (I got a $3500 rebate on the ST ). Then let the sales numbers come out where they may. They're also going whack models that don't sell well, like the 2 door Explorer for example.

 

[LOGJOCKY]

if they dont sell get rid of em, id rather pay less for the ones that do sell

 

[00sport4x4]

Ford posted profits over 3 billion have 3 top ten sellers and is cutting tons of jobs by out-sourcing So profits will continue to go up as heads go down. Myself being one of those heads cut soooo this long time Ford owner has bought his last vehicle from them. :thumbdwn:

 

[LOGJOCKY]

if i was screwed by my boss id be outta there as well.

 

[kfkodiak]

I like this quote: "If that costs us leadership, I guess I will be willing to congratulate Chevrolet on becoming the largest seller of rental cars in the world." Ford Division president, Steve Lyons commenting on the possibility of Chevy becoming the best selling brand.

They can have it. Rental fleets tend to be a drain on the resale value for a given model.

Also, it's interesting that the only imports on that Top-10 list are cars. No trucks or SUVs.

 

[Stephen]

If the renaissance that happens at Ford actually happens then you'll see something very interesting happen to that list, the Fords will dissapear.

Most of those numbers are entirely generated by fleets. Look at the Cavalier, and the Econoline, and the Taurus thats probably 40% fleet sales. Same with the Escape, Explorer, F-series, Chevy Impala, Dodge Ram... Rental car fleets and corporate fleet purchasers buy them because they get them very very cheap. Think about it, whens the last time you saw a 4 Runner or even a Grand Cherokee on the lot of a rental car company? Probably never. I know of one company that rents Grand Cherokees, Dollar.

SO, it'll be interesting to see that list for 2006.

 

[NaplesBill]

The fact is the F150 sold more last year than any other year in history. Toyota is not even in the top 3 in truck sales. The Explorer is also still the #1 selling mid-size SUV. Ford is having some trouble with it's cars but the trucks are still strong.

 

[off-road97Xplor]

I just saw on the news that Ford just recalled over 400,000 Focus's because of quick deterioration around the door or something...

 

[JGAMBLE]

been a lot of discussion about this on ford-trucks.com. While ford is still ahead of the game they haven't been doing well for the past few years. Yes the F150 is the best selling truck, but most of the sales are fleet sales and they don't make as much money off each sale as the competition. They have recently halted any further testing of the triton engine replacement also. The cobra is gonna decease soon, the lightning is already gone, they're having more recalls than any other manufacturer right now. I seem to remember that ford was actually poised to take #1 from chevy in the mid-nineties and now this Personally I think a lot of this can be attributed to the triton engine series, poor performers, but not all of it. Ford needs to get on the ball, there's talk of Toyota buying em out.

 

[LOGJOCKY]

oh god, a toyota ford...well atleast they may make something decent for offroading

 

[Stephen]

The fact is the F150 sold more last year than any other year in history. Toyota is not even in the top 3 in truck sales. The Explorer is also still the #1 selling mid-size SUV. Ford is having some trouble with it's cars but the trucks are still strong.

Did you read my post lol? Thats because Ford has much more fleet sales than Toyota, or anyone else. Most of those F150s are sold to fleets, and the only reason is because they're cheap. As for the Explorer it used to do over 400,000 units a year...

Thats what Bill Ford is saying, selling cars at a loss and doing extensive fleet sales just to be "the best selling..." isn't profitable for the company nor does it grow brand image.

 

[blichy]

Did you read my post lol? Thats because Ford has much more fleet sales than Toyota, or anyone else. Most of those F150s are sold to fleets, and the only reason is because they're cheap.

I don't really think that there is a huge percentage of F150s sold to fleets (probably less than 30%, but I don't remember the numbers from when I was there). The thing to remember is that F150s only account for somewhere around 40% of F-Series sales--most are Superduties, which will have a lot sent to upfitters for work (dump beds, ambulance boxes, etc.).

I was at a confernce this past fall where Toyota was saying they are going to be lowering their already low number of fleet sales to protect values (and because they are gaining market share without the fleet portion), while the guy from GM next to him said that they were going to be increasing fleet sales because it doesn't hurt their values. It was almost funny listening to the denial from the GM guy...