1.) Are you kidding me you are getting WAY of topic here. First of all if you want to talk politcs by all means enlighten me. Because I can place every penny I own that shows you don't have **** on me. I didn't take countless number of hours over american foregin policy, along with UN history, and Middle Eastern foregin policy as well not to have creadibilty in my arugements in highschool and nuemorous colleges.
2.) And about The wal-mart thing, I NEVER said that I never bought things from wal-mart because they wern't american goods otherwise my converstation would of been a contridiction, but I guess you never saw that. ****, I could name 20 things in the room I'm sitting in the was made by a 3 world/communistic country. I really don't care I just really don't like how the wal mart corp treats it's employees and its customers. Not to mention they are one of the top most audited companys in america for scamming the "books" and cheating employees on taxes. The article is in my accounting book, I just bought a scanner when i hook it up ill scan it and place a link for it.
3.) You're telling me I'm baised ok, at least I'm telling you which cars you have and have not driven either.
4.) I never raged on the shelby or the mustang about performance either. Nor are then even remotely in the same class as these 4 bangers. Last time I checked No one was comparing a civic to a trans-am and aruging the fact that the Civic will out perfom the trans-am. Get the point?
5.) Yes, I realize that have the same frame but the suspenison is totally different from each other and yes, I driven both and was not happy with the ford. Btw i wouldn't hardly call the frame "world-class"
6.) No **** they left the AWD drive off of the eclipse in the past couple of years just look at the target market for them? Do they really need it to with hold the mitusbishi name? NO, i didn't think so. So maybe then you can tell me while the abandon it? You line up 10 eclipse owners I can lay good money to say that 6-7 of thoes are teenage girls. Do you think they even know what AWD is or even "use" the feature to its extent. I bet not. Mitsubishi saw that the target market converted back to FWD to keep costs down.

7.) "Bush isn't shipping jobs overseas, the American consumer is....by always wanting the cheapest, not necessarily the best product they can buy."
Really - that line is a total contridiction as well compared to rest of your arugement. IF this is the case the amenican auto market would totally be crushing the foregin market into an oblivion. Generally, as a whole, american cars are priced significantly cheaper than the forgein and american cars are not, again i say generally as a whole (so don't go off some rampage that i think that every american car ****ing sucks and every foregin car is god) not comparable to reliabiltiy. So he were go every man in america should want an american car because like you said it is the cheapest and not the best product they can buy.

 

And Don't even get me started about cars are investements and thats why people turn to the foregin auto mareket because I will chew you up and spit you out

 

[quote]

Buy American? The "American" Ford Mustang has 35% foreign content (only 65% of the parts originate in Canada or the USA), a lower % than many Asian nameplate vehicles. This and other interesting facts in the article linked below.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article...od=tff_article

 

#1) I didn't bring Bush into the thread, so let's go ahead and drop it. If you want to talk about politics, let's start a different thread.

#2) Buying things from outside of this country contributes to the problem and bolsters economies outside of this country. The low costs enjoyed by Americans on most goods is directly tied to the labor pool that produces those goods.

#3) I never said you didn't have problems with vehicles in the past, all I'm saying is that we (Ford) as a company can't do anything about the vehicles produced in the past and that holding the 1976 Pinto against Ford in 2007 is absurd.

#4/6) I wasn't the one whomade the statements that Mitsubishi AWD is the greatest, and you raged on how the Fusion isn't a performance car. And I quote......"Sports cars need AWD or RWD...these new fords are feakin family sedans. Im sorry I dont picture a family mad driving a fusion E- braking it around a tight corner doing 40-45MPH with his wife and two toddlers straped in car seats in the back."

I merely stated facts that Mitsubishi has abandoned AWD (I would assume because they lost money on the vehicle in that segment & the AWD isn't justified as you are correct, the target market for that vehicle would be roughly 18-34 year old women), and that yes, the Fusion/500 aren'tperformance cars,they're not supposed to be, and that Ford does offer performance vehicles if that is what you are desiring.

#5) The Fusion suspension isn't totally different from the Mazda6. that's a fact.

As far as "buy American & why" I've got a great article at work I'll post a link to tomorrow....


#7) American cars are priced slightly cheaper than the foreign vehicles, but we make significantly less profit/vehicle than they do....That is a huge reason why we sold more cars than they did (Toyota), yet they made massive profits while we lost money. There is no contradiction in that statement. The vehicles produced completely overseas are produced at a much lower cost than those here in the states (take just labor rate, UAW workers, once benefits and everything else are added in are ~$70/hour, assume 40 hours in a week and you're talking $2800 per person per week. In Mexico (more expensive than SE Asia), the average assembly worked makes ~1000 pesos/week, or roughly $100. Typical SE Asian markets pay a fraction of what the workers in Mexico see. Let's estimate $50/week.

US Auto Worker - $2800/week
Mex worker - $100/week (97% reduction in labor costs)
Asia $50/week (probably very high estimate) - (99% reduction in labor costs)

Let's estimate that ~20 hours labor goes into a vehicle (probably higher once you factor in all of the assembly of the subcomponents) - @ $70/hour, that's $1400/vehicle just for assembly, @ $2.50/hr (mex) - that's $50, in SE Asia, it's $25.

Take just the $1300 savings in labor cost and multiply that by the 2,000,000 vehicles produced by Toyota, and they have a $2.6 Billion dollar advantage.

I don't see how this is so hard to grasp.

Cars aren't investments, in fact, they are one of the biggest wastes of money in this country. Especially leases which are much more common in the US as people want to be able to afford more car than they can buy....

Yes, certain Mustangs are a 65% domestic content (I believe the V6 automatic, V8's and sticks are higher.), and yes there are a couple of Japanese models that do have a fairly high domestic content, but they are more the exception than the rule. But when you look at the industry overall, for every 1 job supported by domestically produced Japanesevehicle, there are 2.5 jobs supported by the American produceddomestic vehicle.

 

One other fact I forgot to mention is the negative impact Federal CAFE standards have on the US Auto industry....It's true, for years we have sold millions of trucks, but for us to meet CAFE requirements, we had to make a certain number of high mileage cars to offset the poor mileage of the trucks. Even if we sold those vehicles at a financial loss, we had to produce them in order to be able to maintain the sales volume of our trucks. Personally (my opinion), Ford would have changed over to just a truck manufacturer a long time ago if it weren't for CAFE.

The Japanese Mfg don't have this problem. They are very car heavy in their product mix, and as such, they don't have any problems meeting CAFE requirements, and they can easily afford to have a few gas-guzzling trucks added to their product line. The difference is that they can make just the right # of vehicles (cars/trucks) to keep all product lines profitable, rather than produce cars at a loss to protect the profit from trucks..

 

To paraphrase, the Japanese don't havea CAFEproblem, because they can build fuel efficient cars, and sell them at a profit, whereas Ford cannot. I can agree with that.

This being the case, don't the Japanese deserve to be successful versus Ford? You bring a better product to the market that you can sell at a profit - you deserve to win.

When one looks at the up and down roller coaster ride oil prices have traced over the past 30+ years, the power that OPEC asserts just often enough to make the world chaotic, isn't it completely obvious that in order to be a successful automobile company, youmust have quality small to medium sized, fuel efficient vehicles in your product offering?

Maybe the root of the problem is that Ford is basically a monarchy ... the leadersare chosen based on, is your last name "Ford"?

 

My name isn't Ford, but I take my job very seriously, and yes, putting food on my family's table does currently depend on Ford being successful...I plan on being with Ford for a long time, and I want the company to succeed. Not just for myself, but for all of the other people also employed by Ford, or employed by the many parts suppliers for Ford.

If you had a product that people wanted, and that you could sell at a good profit, wouldn't you do it? We can build fuel-efficient cars, and sell them at a profit, but if we can sell 300,000 cars, but need to produce 500,000 to offset the poor mileage of the 1,000,000 trucks we sell (a success in anyone's books.), and we have to put cash on the hood of those extra 200,000 units, we then don't make any money.

The Japanese don't have a CAFE problem because they aren't full-line vehicle manufacturers. They don't produce vehicles in the higher GVWR classes that all get lumped together into CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards.

To illustrate this, we'll use some theoretical numbers (I'm not sure what the actual current CAFE #'s are, but you'll get the point.)

Say Ford sells 1,000,000 F-series trucks (which we do, over 10 times the # of fullsize trucks sold by Toyota.), and they get on average 15 mpg, but CAFE requires an average of 22.5 mpg. In order to get our CAFE to the required 20 mpg, we would also have to sell 1,000,000 cars that get30 mpg or more, whether we can actually sell those units doesn't matter, we have to produce them in order to sell the 1,000,000 F-series that we do sell every year to people that need full-size trucks for work/recreation, etc...

The Japanese companies (which have always focused on cars.) don't have full-size trucks, in fact, most of their vehicles are small fuel-efficient vehicles, so if they want to sell 100,000 trucks in their line-up, it doesn't negatively impact their bottom-line, as they can produce exactly the number of vehicles they can sell, as opposed to the number of vehicles needed to balance CAFE.

It's possible for CAFE to be fair, just not in it's current state. To equalize this where it wouldn't penalize the American mfg for being very good at trucks, and selling lots of trucks, CAFE could be segmented into vehicle types....i.e. Compact cars should get 40 mpg, mid-size 30, trucks 25 mpg,....This would level the playing field and allow us to right-size our production to match what all of our customers are buying. We currently end up pushing product onto the market that won't sell in order to sell the product that does.

Get it?

 

If I was in charge at Ford, I would say, we need to be able to make a profit selling every size of vehicle that the consumers are buying. Volvo and Mazda, now part of the Ford family, make fine engines, and cars with great handling. Bring their engineers in, and have them teach us how to do it in North America. It's not stealing to copy ideas from within your own company.

Should CAFE be modified to allow more trucks to be sold? I would disagree with that. We need to be engineering quality vehicles that get 40 or 50 mpg, not changing the rules to allow continued sale of less efficient vehicles.

I agree with you, better to have the high skill jobs in North America versus elsewhere, but the only good way for this to happen is for Ford, GM and Dodge to make better cars.

 

You're not getting the point. We are engineering great cars, the reviews are showing that. We wouldn't have gotten a Consumer Reports recommended buy on the Fusion if it wasn't a great car. It beat out the Camry and Accord, the known segment leaders for that class of car. We intend to have the best vehicle in each class of car/truck/SUV. This is a product led turnaround, and so far, I like the product I see and the feedback from the industry has been positive. Engineering is shared across all of the Ford brands, Mazda and Volvo included. That is why the Fusion/Milan/MKZ are based off of the Mazda6 platform, there is other shared engineering elsewhere.

And I'm not saying CAFE should be modified to allow more trucks to be sold. All I'm saying is that all automakets should be able to compete on a even playing field....trucks vs. trucks, cars vs. cars....why should that be wrong?

Trucks have a very specific use in this country. People haul boats, RV's, car trailers, work trailers, etc. behind these trucks. You can't do those things with a car. There is a need and a market for trucks.

By averaging the fuel economy across the entire vehicle line, you penalize a company that fills a specific requirement within the total auto industry. Trucks and SUV's currently make up approximately 50% of the 17,000,000 vehicles sold each year in the US. A vast majority of those trucks/SUV's are sold by US manufacturers, but they are bought by consumers that make a choice to buy those vehicles. If they can afford the gas costs and have a need for that type of vehicle, why shouldn't they have it?

As far as mileage is concerned I think that diesels are the way to go, but the clean air laws in the US are preventing the use of the widely available diesel powertrains available in Europe. I'm not personally big on hybrids or electric cars. E85 is another technology that Ford is widely expanding within our product line.

I think it's funny that this thread got started because you thought your "piece of crap Ford dipstick" was manufactured incorrectly, and it turned out to be perfectly fine.

 

The Mazda6 has racked upat least113 International Awards since launch in 2003, I'd say the experts disagree with you. Here's a quote I found....

http://www.topspeed.com/cars/mazda-6/ke346.html
When Mazda launched the MAZDA 6 four years ago, it set new standards in the mid-size sports sedan segment. As a vehicle that married sports performance with refinement and practicality, it has proven to be a huge sales success and picked up nearly 100 awards globally for automotive excellence. Its unparalleled performance, reliable handling, sleek look and affordability also made it a favorite with consumers.