How do you honestly feel about ford.

[Roert42]

Most auto makers have realized that most of the people who buy new cars are only interested in a couple of things. 1. Standard features and tech. 2. Cost. They also noted that they will be buying new vehicles every few years.

So how can we increase the amount of “tech” and “standard features” while keeping the cost down for people who only plan to own a vehicle for the length of their loan?

I can tell you it doesn’t involve building a bare bones, reliable, and robust vehicle that can provide decades of trouble free service.

 

[1990RangerinSK]

Ford has always gone the other way with recalls- they announce them as soon as the problem is discovered, as they're legally required to do- whether they have a fix or parts. A recall isn't a negative thing, it's a car company offering to fix a potential problem free. We did thousands of recalls over my 42 years at the dealer and saw darn few examples of parts that had actually failed. Fixing it before it fails is a successful recall- see above note about Honda.

*Cough* Pinto *Cough*

When Ford learned that there was a serious design flaw with the Pinto's gas tank being too close to the rear differential, allowing the tank to be punctured in a rear end collision, reportedly they said that it was cheaper to pay out lawsuits than to fix the problem.

 

[Dirtman]

Fun fact, more than 4 times the number of people were killed by faulty GM ignition switches than in Pinto fires before they were recalled. It took 8 years before Ford issued a recall because there simply were not as many incidents of issues as was later reported by the media. While they knew they could have made them safer, they were not just rolling death traps. In actual numbers of fatalities vs cars produced the Pinto was actually quite safe compared to other cars of the same era. And it was just as much the American Governments fault as it was Lee Iacoccas for them not having better fuel tank safety. They passed U.S crash test standards at the time, they failed Canadian standards so all the Pintos built and sold in Canada had recieved the neccesary improvements before production. The U.S goverment shrugged this off until people started suing. They were revolutionary cars and the safety concerns were blown way out of proportion.

 

[broncc]

I'm not loyal to brands. I'm loyal to models... Bet you can't guess what models I like.

 

[Dirtman]

Bet you can't guess what models I like.

The kind with D cups?

 

[cschannuth]

I live in a small town and the only dealership is Ford so there are lots of Fords where I live. That’s how I grew up. I still have my dad‘s 74 grand Torino and it’s still all stock and still looks and runs like new. Even has the original shocks on it. In our family we have a 73, 74, 83, 90, 94, 2003, 2014, and a 2019. They all run and look like new but we’ve taken very good care of them. We have not had a single major repair needed for any of them. So I guess that makes me biased. I love to drive the older stuff, but the newer stuff is so much nicer and better in every way other than being overly complicated. The 2014 is an eco-boost in a truck and it has 200,000 miles on it and it has never had anything done to it and still looks new. It will absolutely obliterate any of my big block trucks when towing and I love that. The 2019 is also an eco-boost which I bought for work because the 2014 turned over 200,000 miles. I will say that I prefer the six speed of the 2014 over the 10 speed of the 2019. But it runs like a scalded dog and is a ton of fun to drive(once broken in gently and properly of course, that’s the key to the longevity of all of our vehicles that we buy new). I did buy a used 1995 suburban and I really like that vehicle but it at 75,000 miles it needed a new transmission. That left a sour taste in my mouth since none of my other vehicles have ever required a transmission repair of any kind. I apologize for my miscellaneous ramblings here.

 

[19Walt93]

*Cough* Pinto *Cough*

When Ford learned that there was a serious design flaw with the Pinto's gas tank being too close to the rear differential, allowing the tank to be punctured in a rear end collision, reportedly they said that it was cheaper to pay out lawsuits than to fix the problem.

That's not true. Pinto tanks passed the federal standards at the time, I think the spec was 30 mph, the problem came when Ford hit them at a higher speed during testing and one burst into flames. The ABC show, 20-20 got hold of the video and blew it out of proportion. At the time pickup trucks had the tank behind the drivers seat, Beetles had it mounted in the drivers lap, and Jeeps had it under the seat. I was a mechanic and drove a wrecker from 1972 until 1982 and never saw a wrecked vehicle catch fire. There have probably been more Tesla's spontaneously combust than Pintos burn in accidents in the 50 years Pinto's have existed.

 

[19Walt93]

Toyota and Honda aren't what they used to be for sure but then, it doesn't seem many auto makers are. Ford seems to have declined the least but as I noted elsewhere, I've only had experience Rangers (we'll just ignore the 1980 Mercury Lynx P.O.S. I owned well before them).

Toyota and Honda have always been crap, it's just been fashionable to praise anything foreign and bash American products. My neighbor took the engine in his beetle apart and couldn't put it back together so he gave it to me(I was 14) and bought a new 68 Toyota Corona(Camry today). In two years it was so rusty the rockers buckled and the doors wouldn't close. When I started at the Sunoco in 1972 we had a customer with a 66 Toyota Crown( 4 cylinder, 3 speed sedan), at 20,000 miles the right lower ball joint was so worn out it pulled out and the car skidded down the road on the lower control arm. We took a bunch of 2-3 year old Toyota trucks in trade on early Rangers with rust holes in the floors and shifters pulling out of the transmission. Everyone knows about the never-covered-by-the-media 1995-2009 Tacoma frame "problem".
We took a 2 year old Honda sedan( I forget the model) in trade with gaping rust holes in it and clouds of oil smoke from the exhaust.

 

[19Walt93]

I think Ford builds high quality vehicles for the most part but their transmissions are shit.
Certainly the best of the domestic producers, if you can count Chrysler as domestic.
Here and there in Ranger FB groups and Ranger5G.com I see people complaining about issues with the new ones but my new 2020 is fine so far.
It's not like Toyotas are really that good, heck I read about the frames rusting enough to break in half.
I put 212,000 miles on my old '08 Sport Trac and it ran fine until the end when a head gasket let go. Had the trans rebuilt at 132k which was typical.

In my 11 tech crew I had one transmission tech who also did driveability and other diag because we didn't have enough transmission work for him. We also did drain and refill services every 30,000 to 60,000 miles as part of our maintenance. I don't think I ever saw a transmission failure on a vehicle we serviced. We had a Jiffy Lube nearby so my trans tech kept his experience fresh.

 

[Dirtman]

If the media wasn't so hard on the Pinto there's a good chance American companies would have ended up crushing the foreign car market instead of letting them become the norm for compact cars. The Pinto was designed with the sole purpose of competing with the influx of japanese cars dominating the small car market. The Pinto was an American made, American designed car that got 20mpg in 1971 which was amazing for the time. They were also vastly more reliable than the Japanese cars but the bad press made everyone cringe at the idea of any domestic compact car and the Japanese brands soared in popularity.

 

[19Walt93]

If the media wasn't so hard on the Pinto there's a good chance American companies would have ended up crushing the foreign car market instead of letting them become the norm for compact cars. The Pinto was designed with the sole purpose of competing with the influx of japanese cars dominating the small car market. The Pinto was an American made, American designed car that got 20mpg in 1971 which was amazing for the time. They were also vastly more reliable than the Japanese cars but the bad press made everyone cringe at the idea of any domestic compact car and the Japanese brands soared in popularity.

You hit the nail no the head. I had 3 Pintos, had great luck with them and sold all 3 for a profit after putting 30,000 to 60,000 miles on each one.

 

[Dirtman]

I've owned 2 and they were goofy looking but they were great cars. How many other engine designs have lasted 50 years? There are still TONS of Pinto powered rangers on the roads today. The engines are still popular in dirt track racing as well, companies still manafacture Pinto race engines. The Pinto rack and pinion setup was also so good you can still buy brand new variants today for custom/race cars. Pretty amazing for such a horrible death trap...

 

[racsan]

I always thought the pinto issue was overblown, My mom had a 78 pinto wagon and her only issue was she had couldnt steer it very well in low-speed (parallel parking mostly) situations. ( why you would order a car with a automatic but not power steering?, Ive seen a 65 mustang convertible set up that way too ). I did have a aunt with a mustang 2 (basically a rebodied pinto) that caught fire but it was parked behind the mall at the time, not hit by another car. I think the vega was a bigger hazzard with all the rust everywhere. I think ford started going downhill when they dropped the 300/302/351/460 engines for the engine offerings they now have. I do like the 2011 escape I have now but I daily drive a 94 ranger. Ive only had a couple of chevrolets, never had any mopars. I had 1 honda once, owned it a month and had the chance to double my $ so down the road it went. My best vehicle was the 93 ranger, the worst was a 85 jeep cj-7. my first car was a 79 amc concord, what a hodgepodge it was, motorcraft ignition, gm charging system, chrysler automatic transmission.
GM just shoots itself in the foot repeatedly. Remember the “its not your fathers oldsmoblie” ad campaign from the late ‘80’s? that was the beginning of the end for olds, we WANTED the “fathers oldsmobile”, the 442 and the cutlass, not that front drive crap with a 4cyl. Theres just too many models too, once upon a time there was for each year THE chevy, THE buick, THE olds , ect. now each division has 20+ submodels. And there were so many similar models across division lines, the nova/skylark/ventura from the 70’s were all the same base body. Im not sure what killed off pontiac, what once was the “performance division” lost its power. The t/a- firebirds got ugly and all I remember being left was the grand am and models that looked like a stretched grand am they called the g-6.
Chrysler. In their day they had some awesome engines but terrible ignition and electrical systems. unless it was a muscle car the stlye was more of a lack of style. The minivan probably saved them from extinction when it first came out, seems like every commercial vehicle you saw was a dodge, when the phone company tried to use minivans though they didnt last long. While the newer challengers look cool they are way overpriced. I do think dodge has the better full size truck now of the big 3.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I wanted a Pinto wagon for a daily driver, but they're expensive right now... a turbo 2.3L would probably be fun! Then the right deal and good reasoning kicked in and I got the '97 Ranger... no ragerts...

I'm not one to buy new, and not being in the rust belt I get all sorts of options. I'm not brand loyal, I drive Ford's, the wife has had two Toyotas at this point, I've had a Geo (suzuki, japanese design made in Canada), heck I work on GM engines at work, and have mopar and GM friends but no one is too brand loyal anymore, they see through that BS.

I'm used to certain platforms (obviously RBV) so I obviously know the good and bad for the most part... that's why I stuck with the Ranger for a daily driver, I'm not afraid of anything on a '97 2.3L powered Ranger, plus I have like 4 backup vehicles so it doesn't matter

I don't really trust anything new, plus I don't like depreciation, I do NOT need the bells and whistles that are on everything new. If I had a barebones manual transmission manual windows vehicle with a bluetooth stereo and vinyl flooring I'd be a happy camper, but that's not what Joe Blow wants...

All of the automakers have their ups and downs, Older Fords have good overall reliability other than auto transmissions and TFI ignition, Dodge has decent older engines that get worse fuel mileage on average and auto trans issues, as Dirtman eluded to the truck quality went down in '94 with the frills they added, seats and interior durability went down at least (have friends with that era), and the great engine (Cummins) they wrapped around a mediocre truck, I think the newer ones are better but have electrical gremlins. GM has always been pretty good but they do odd things, engines are pretty good and reliable (The TBI era were reliable but gutless and don't live long life though), good auto transmissions (try to find a manual, hens teeth...) but on the newer models with LS's the interior has too many bells and whistles so too much electronic nonsense and stuff to break. Toyotas are reliable but have issues, when the wife wanted something with better MPG that was my go to, Toyotas aren't as over priced as Hondas and are better than Hondas (Toyota doesn't make ATV's, so I can say that...)... so '04 Camry it is, should have 100k life left at least at 225k.

On the Triton engines, I've heard the 3V has issues but 4V are good, spark plug issues went away with the 4V... have a friend that's a general mechanic, he knows the drill...

 

[Uncle Gump]

I wanted one of these when they first came out... of course portal windows were pretty popular then too