Ford to Only sell two cars other than their pickup's/suv

[Rob Hall]

Sedan sales have been slumping for a while now, CUV sales in all size categories has been where the market growth has been in recent years, trucks and SUVs remain strong...Ford definitely seems to be reacting to the market. 

[PARTSMARTY]

10 hours ago, mike 51 said:

Fine with me.

X2-NOT A BIG FORD GUY-SORRY.

[peter31a]

There was an article a few months back where Ford's new president said he was going to phase out all car lines. It seems he pretty much got his way.

[slusher]

When my wife bought her G6 in 2007,people was trading SUVs for cars for better mileage I thin gas in the 4 dollar range. Now it's backwards now if gas goes back up you have stuck with what you have. I bought a program Dode van last spring because of my MS and it gets the same gas mileage as my Sebring did and the van has a bigger engine and is larger than the Sebring.

[Rob Hall]

I've been driving SUVs for almost 25 years, never paid much attention to gas prices.   My new Jeep does get better mileage than my old one did, despite being heavier and having 100 hp more. 

Edited April 26, 2018 by Rob Hall

[youpey]

i only paid attention to gas prices when i had my GMC and the tank was so big that the 100 max fill limit that gas stations have wasnt enough to fill the tank.of course, that was when gas was over 4 dollars per gallon.

now that i have a regular car again and it costs me 30 dollars to fill up a 10 gallon tank, it still irks me because i remember when it would have cost me 10 dollars to fill it. 

 

too much corporate greed these days, keeps people in debt. 

[Matt Bacon]

I dare say there’ll be an opportunity for European entrepreneurs shipping Focus RS and Fiesta ST’s to the US, just as there was the other way round before the Mustang was officially sold over here. All the UK auto mags really love the new Focus, both in regular spec and “hot” versions. Mind you, if American drivers are flocking to buy bloated, jacked-up, vaguely industrial lumps powered by high capacity, low power V8 mills, then maybe only a few cognoscenti are equipped to appreciate the Focus RS for the “peak Ford” that it is... ;-P

Best,

M.

 

[iamsuperdan]

So here's the actual press release, attached here in pdf if you want to read it.

And the relevant fun part.

 

So from what I'm reading, even the Focus will be replaced with this new Focus Active crossover, whatever that is.

I get it, but it still surprsies me to see them kill off the Fusion, especially when they recently announced the new 2019 changes and revamp of the car. And with all the lack of apparent profitability, I find it hard to believe that the Mustang is any better than the Focus. Really? Are Mustang sales vs the cost to produce and market really that profitable? Compared to the Focus? I find that odd. If anything, I would think the Mustang would be on the chopping block.

 

Personally, I'm glad Ford is having a problem and needs to restructure. FRom my business point of view, Ford are a serious pain to deal with. Their entire fleet operation, allocation procedures...everything is far more difficult and convoluted than any other manufacturer I deal with. It's gotten to the point where I will not recommend a Ford product or quote a Ford product at all unelss I have a sepcific request from a client. It's just too much work for a vehicle that can be replaced by pretty much anything else on the market. There is nothing uniques or special.

Combine that with some awful experiences of warranty and repair, and that seals the deal for me. 2017 F350 Platinum, two warranty issues in first 7500km. 2015 F150 Platinum, 4 warranty issues and two tows in the first 4500km, 2012 F250 XLT, two warranty issues, 2010 F150 King Ranch, three warranty issues, two tows in the first 5000km. Warranty issues included, rear diff failure, transmission failure, tailgate microswitch stopped working, rendering tailgate unuseable, door lock failuire, front upper door hinge not attached to the truck, instrument cluster failure, turbo failure, ongoing ABS warning lights. 2017 F150 XLT Sport, over $800 CDN to repair a door ding from a shopping cart. Gotta love that aluminum body. By comparison, I've had light duty and heavy duty trucks from all four of the other manufacturers, plus a couple of SUVs, probably 20 vehicles total, and compined those had no warranty issues or trips to the dealer.

Won't sadden me at all to see Ford have to restructure, or disappear entirely.

1q18-financials.pdf

[randyc]

2 hours ago, Eshaver said:

NOPE!!!!!!!!

 

THEY don't have to learn anymore.   They sell it, American consumers buy it.  Gas?   Consumers have to have it, doesn't matter how they price it, really.   We build our lives around cars and gas.  If we cant afford vacation because of gas and car expense, we stay at home.   But we will have our cars.   I love cars.   But am disgusted by my dependence on it.  

I have a CUV - not my favorite.  Made sense for us.  Haul kids, haul trash to dump, vacations, etc.  Car worked, but only barely.  I would rather have me a big old American sedan.  Buick Park Avenue or my old Olds Aurora (one of my favorites of all I've owned).   The olds averaged 27 mpg, which isn't bad compared to the 2007 Ford Edge.  I'll probably gete my motorcycle out this weekend and start riding it some.   1995 Honda CB 250 Nighthawk.   Gets in the mid 50's mpg.   I'm a big guy.   Makes a perfect commuter bike.  

I live 11 miles from work - can't ride a bicycle.  Have to drive.   Dependent on gas any way I go.  I do buy used cars, so I am not particularly important to the current mfrs.   

Won't be long til we're all driving CUV/SUV pods.  They are the station wagons of the present day.  Self-fulfilling prophecy - we drive them because they make them and they make them because we buy them.  

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

3 hours ago, Matt Bacon said:

 Mind you, if American drivers are flocking to buy bloated, jacked-up, vaguely industrial lumps powered by high capacity, low power V8 mills, then maybe only a few cognoscenti are equipped to appreciate the Focus RS for the “peak Ford” that it is... 

This is the problem.

Americans, in general, don't give a bad-word about fuel economy, as long as gas is relatively cheap here. They're mostly fat now, and they buy big fat vehicles. They are very short-sighted in general, and the ones who DO get on the environmental bandwagon usually do it with virtue-signalling vehicles in the Prius genre (never mind that an older Neon or Toyota or Honda is vastly more efficient in overall life-cycle-energy-cost and true environmental impact).

Remember...less than 20% of US drivers are now capable of driving a manual gearbox. This hardly bodes well for the "cognoscenti" getting any really cool little cars over the long haul.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[Oldmopars]

Something else to consider, with this new younger group of car buyer, they like to have, or project an active life style. Go look at small car and then at small SUVs. The difference in gas mileage is 1-3 MPG. They choose the SUV of the small little compact car. In return they get a SUV that fits the active life style they want, get higher seating position and the cost for the purchase and the cost of gas is only slightly higher.

We own a 2017 Ford Escape, and we get 30mpg. The Focus only got slightly more, that what we traded in so we know.

[OldTrucker]

I've got my eye on a 1973 4 door Ford Maverick with 79,000 actual miles on the clock.

If I get it I will dump my 2006 HHR and use the Maverick as my daily.

We put less than 4000 miles a year on our car.(way less most years) so that old Ford will last me for as long as I will be driving!LOL

Just buy up and shelve enough tuneup and repair parts to make sure I can keep it on the road!

Just what we need, more "tanks" out on the road in the hands of inept drivers. Can't see around over or through them in traffic they are so monserous and all needless to be that large!

Just look at a 70's through 90's pickups and note how small they are next to these new things they make.

[Maindrian Pace]

That's nuts. I see Fusions absolutely everywhere, how can they be losing money on them.

[Ace-Garageguy]

10 minutes ago, Maindrian Pace said:

That's nuts. I see Fusions absolutely everywhere, how can they be losing money on them.

If it costs a penny more to build than Ford makes on each one, they're losing money.

[Ace-Garageguy]

35 minutes ago, OldTrucker said:

I've got my eye on a 1973 4 door Ford Maverick with 79,000 actual miles on the clock.

If I get it I will dump my 2006 HHR and use the Maverick as my daily.

We put less than 4000 miles a year on our car.(way less most years) so that old Ford will last me for as long as I will be driving!LOL

Just buy up and shelve enough tuneup and repair parts to make sure I can keep it on the road!

Just what we need, more "tanks" out on the road in the hands of inept drivers. Can't see around over or through them in traffic they are so monserous and all needless to be that large!

Just look at a 70's through 90's pickups and note how small they are next to these new things they make.

The old Maverick should still be running happily at 300K, with relatively minor expenditures up to that point.

Both My '90s GM trucks are still going strong at 250,000+, with only electronics having been significant failures. Even the clutch and universal joints are original in the manual-gearbox truck. If they were entirely old-school, they would have been fine...other than the abuse they both suffered at the hands of previous owners and chimp "mechanics".

The American public has been effectively brainwashed to see large vehicles as "safe", small, nimble and efficient vehicles as "unsafe", and the whole truck/road-crusher SUV thing is mostly a personality-deficit projection, rather than an actual NEED for a hauling vehicle. (I'm NOT talking about people who actually USE their trucks...whether for offroading, camping, or hauling; I'm talking about shiny clean mine-is-bigger truck owners.)

But logic, knowledge and wisdom will never overcome the power of marketing.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Ace-Garageguy

[Motor City]

I see lots of Fusions around here (Dearborn & Detroit).  People quit buying cars because the rear seats barely fit two adults (uncomfortably, I might add) and you hope your head doesn't hit the ceiling when going over a bump since the sloping roofs aren't tall enough, creating huge blind spots (buy our expensive blind spot alert system) and the trunk openings are totally worthless.  Thanks, but I won't be buying a Chinese-made Focus.  I'll keep my fleet of old GM cars.       

[Xingu]

Don't worry, two years after there are phased out there will be the "All New (insert make and model here)". It will only be $5000 more expensive than they are now. You will be able to go up to the self-serve kiosk at your local dealership and select - Light Gray Sedan. Someone will promptly bring your vehicle around to you.

[Jim N]

Most people want SUV's and crossovers.  They do not want cars.  The SUV's and particularly the crossovers get gas mileage that rivals their car counterparts.  The car companies are merely responding to consumer demand.

[Ace-Garageguy]

52 minutes ago, Jim N said:

Most people want SUV's and crossovers.  They do not want cars.  The SUV's and particularly the crossovers get gas mileage that rivals their car counterparts.  The car companies are merely responding to consumer demand.

For the most part, consumers know nothing about cars. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Marketing has created whatever "demands" the consumers are credited (or blamed) for.

Neat little fun-to-drive cars that get great mileage aren't pushed.

"Lifestyle" is what's marketed, and the lifestyle people are buying into when they opt for tanklike trucks and SUVs is largely imaginary.

Showing tough guys driving trucks and cool-hip-hot-happening young people having great adventures in SUVs and crossovers implants a desire for that vision, and the boobs buy the vehicles thinking (well, not really thinking, but with a vague subliminal expectation) that's that's what comes with them. Just like cigarette advertising used to do. Smoking Marlboros made you an instant cowboy: tough, independent and self-reliant. Yeah, right.

Manufacturers make the fattest profits on trucks and SUVs, so those are the vehicles that are marketed most heavily.

Marketing works very well on a vast audience that would rather follow the Kardashians than actually THINK.

[Bill J]

I think, and it is just my opinion not based on any data from anywhere, that front wheel drive cars are the real problem. It can be a so called crossover, or a SUV or a passenger sedan, if it is front wheel drive it is a self destructive vehicle. I know that FWD has some advantages in certain conditions. Overall though, I think FWD is rough riding, steers weird and the biggest problem of all, FWD vehicles are too expensive to maintain and repair. You hardly ever see a FWD vehicle last very many years. Something breaks and they get scrapped.

It's the repair costs that people can't afford. A friend had a Dodge and the tranny went out after the warranty was expired, car was about 6 years old and the repair estimate was way more than the car was worth in running order. Scrapped.

Unfortunately, some so called SUV's and about all "crossover's" are FWD. Maybe they are cheaper to build when you just drop all the running gear into the front end. Whatever the reason, it ends up being a pain to repair and costly. It is not a surprise to see trucks sell so well. Most of the larger SUV's are based on the trucks and have RWD, full frames and are sturdy. Their downside is poor mileage and purchase prices that are becoming too costly for the average buyer.

To my tastes, most of the SUV's and all of the crossovers are too car like, too cushy and not very capable except as grocery getters. Basically, they are high roofed station wagons. The old days of heavy duty Blazers, Broncos and Scouts are over and replaced with vehicles that are more like cars than tough trucks.

Ford has so many SUV style vehicles and they are all basically the same except for size. Maybe the new Bronco will be more of a realistic utility vehicle. GM is basically the same. Both makers offer some heavy duty SUV options as long as you have over $50K to spend on a Tahoe/Suburban or Expedition. The average buyer is stuck with an Equinox or Escape at $30K, FWD pavement loving wagons.

So for Ford and GM to drop cars makes sense because not many buyers than have been around awhile really want to spend $30K+ on a disposable FWD vehicle. Those same manufacturers should not be surprised when their disposable FWD wagons don't sell all that well in the future.

For the record, I drive a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, still complex but more basic than most offerings around today.

[Atmobil]

17 hours ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Hmmmmm...I'd really be surprised if they pulled the plug on all those lines.

But...GM has let it be known they're not really interested in selling cars in the not-too-distant future. Apparently they'd rather provide driverless "transportation-on-demand" modules to a totally tech-dependent, safety-obsessed, physically inept, testosterone-free futureworld.

Glad I'll be elsewhere.

Wow, then they will sell a lot (or atleast like 150 000 units a year) here in Norway where it is decided that from 2030 we will no longer be allowed to drive our self. There will be these driverless "transportation-on-demand" modules available 24-7 trough an app on a phone (will we have phones with apps in 12 years?) that will take anyone everywhere at speeds of a 100mph at all times all year round and it will never brake down because politicians have made it illigal for them to to so. And these are some examples of the roads we will be travelling on at a 100mph with no control on in 12 years time:





But atleast you will be elsewhere

[Ace-Garageguy]

5 minutes ago, Atmobil said:

... here in Norway where it is decided that from 2030 we will no longer be allowed to drive our self...

PLEASE tell me you're kidding.  

[Atmobil]

7 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

PLEASE tell me you're kidding.  

Nope, it was one of the biggest things in the election last year. Almost all political parties are have decided that the only way to reduce deaths related to caraccidents is to ban driving and from 2025 all  new cars will have to be electric and by 2030 all cars that are controlled by a human driver will only be allowed on closed tracks organised events. One party was playing big on making it illegal to even own a car in the future as they read an american study that said that by 2030 80% of americans would not own their own car and since the USA is big-bad-daddy over here we will make it a full 100%.

Luckily for the rest of us that actually have a life in a normal world, the political system is far to slow to be able to implement such rules in 12 years. Just like the future year 2000 was portraid in the 1950s it is a question of technology that needs to be developed (by scientists that are always lacking funding) and that the future never really becomes what one thinks it should be. 12 years is not a long time.

Oh, BTW and more on-topic. Why you guys are not getting the Ford Ranger must be a mistake. They sell loads of them over here.

[Bill J]

Don't even get me started on self driving cars!! What a neat concept that may be workable someday but not today. We had a lady killed recently in our state, she was walking across the street with a bicycle and the self driving car hit her without even slowing down. It was also going over the posted speed limit and the person that was supposed to override the system in an emergency was not even paying attention. Our governor has welcomed, invited and begged for these self driven technologies to come to our state. There are just too many variables involved in safe vehicle operation for a computer with a few sensors to be able to safely negotiate current roads and traffic. Oh, and you and I have to demonstrate our driving ability and our knowledge of traffic laws before we can earn a license to drive, but they'll let someone say that their computer controlled vehicle is ready for the road? Wrong!!!

[Xingu]

2 minutes ago, Atmobil said:

Oh, BTW and more on-topic. Why you guys are not getting the Ford Ranger must be a mistake. They sell loads of them over here.

I believe we are getting the "All New Ford Ranger" starting next year. It is decidedly larger (and more expensive) than it's predecessor.