Do you think Ford survives this restructuring?

[Thump]

i heard someone say they had more recalls last year than cars made. impressive...

Link?

 

[Buckin' A]

I've had problems with every kind of car at one point or another. When you buy, it's just a guess of which foreign country worker was the least pissed off that day.

 

[Mike80]

The biggest piece of shit that I ever drove was a 1974 Chevy Nova. It was the first and last American car that I have ever bought.

I just bought my first ever foreign car (a Kia) this past weekend....

It's an SUV but it really drives more like a car IMO.

Wifey is already calling it "her" car....

 

[fourteenandoh]

Three things will happen, UAW will unionize the Japanese, the big three will break the union, or UAW will break the big three.
.

odds of each...
1) zero
2) 80
3) 20

thats obviously just my opinion. why in the world would asian car companies unionize after seeing what they've done to the US manufacturers? Option 2 is the most viable IMO. If the UAW was going to break the big 3 I think it would have happened already (by no means are they out of the woods thus the 20%). Slowly but surely the big 3 will be able to phase out the unions. It will take awhile, but I think in the end they will prove that in order to survive they will have to do so without unions.

 

[jimotis4heisman]

Link?

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=2043

In 2003, the automaker recalled 200k American vehicles. In 2004, the number increased fivefold, to a little over one million vehicles. In the following year, the number leaped again, more than doubling to 2.2 million. So far this year, Toyota has announced five recalls affecting approximately 900K vehicles.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/04/business/recall.php

In Japan, the number of recalled vehicles has jumped 41-fold since 2001, to 1.9 million last year. And because many of the recalls are for vehicles that are more than 10 years old, analysts fear that another wave of bad quality news may be in store.

The damage has been slow to emerge - in fact, most recent recalls involve cars produced in the 1990s. But that means potential problems from hectic growth years in the early 2000s have yet to appear. As a result, analysts warn, Toyota's quality woes may only become worse before they get better.

for japan only

1.9 million in 2005. That compares with 199,000 at No. 2 Nissan and 205,000 at Honda in 2005, according to the Transportation Ministry.

In June, Toyota assigned a second executive vice president to its quality control division, and created a new senior managing director spot dedicated to improving quality

those were all just first page google things. i read the WSJ and thats where i get that kind of stuff typically. i dont have online subscriptions to go into the archives and what not...

 

[SanAntonioBuck]

AP

Ford sells major stake in Aston Martin

By TOM KRISHER
AP Business Writer

DETROIT (AP) -- Ford Motor Co. is selling a controlling stake in Aston Martin, creator of exotic $100,000-plus sports cars made famous in James Bond movies. Aston Martin now will be run by a consortium of investors, including racing mogul David Richards, car collector John Sinders and the Kuwaiti companies Investment Dar and Adeem Investment Co.

Continued...

 

[sandgk]

Sad but needed - though I guess you can argue that the price they received was depressed. It is arguably less than total sales receipts for last year, and this year was expected to have similar sales (say 7.000 units at approximately $150,000 per unit).

The saddest part is that Ford had actually done a great job of revitalizing the Aston-Martin brand.

 

[fourteenandoh]

Sad but needed - though I guess you can argue that the price they received was depressed. It is arguably less than total sales receipts for last year, and this year was expected to have similar sales (say 7.000 units at approximately $150,000 per unit).

The saddest part is that Ford had actually done a great job of revitalizing the Aston-Martin brand.

it doesn't seem very sad to me. it actually seems to make sense for both. as far as the price goes, i'm no accountant but isn't profit better for valuing a unit than sales? for instance, if it costs them 150G to make each car then the price seems great. I'm sure that's not the case, i was using that as an extreme example.

 

[sandgk]

It is quite common to talk of a corporate sale in terms of both factors. The net profit data is hidden, while the sales data is easily estimated. That is why I chose to use the sales data. What it costs to make each car is not so easily divined. Perhaps someone with a good inside info contact can flesh that out. My guess FWIW is a lower number (a lot lower) than $150K per unit.

EDIT - the best reference I could get to describe the profitability of Aston Martin suggests around a 12:1 profit to business sale ratio, with AM expected to provide $74 Million in positive cash flow to the Ford Premier Division. Which might actually see black ink as a whole for the first time in a long while this year. The biggest drag on the Premier Group is the Jaguar brand, which alone lost as much as a Billion dollars in 2005, and the Premier Group overall lost $344 Million in 2006. Much of which loss was attributable to Jaguar and Land Rover.

 

[Golferdow01]

The problem with American automakers is they relied on nationalism to sell cars. Today's buyers weren't alive during WWII and demand auto quality, not American automaking. These dealers has it way too easy for way too long...see ya Detroit...

 

[fourteenandoh]

Jaguar is shit. It was shit when they bought it, and i think Ford succeeded in making it even worse.

 

[Pheasant]

I've had 6 Fords (1 was a Mercury- same thing), 1 Olds, 1 BMW and 4 Toyotas in my short driving career (I get bored of cars very easily). Of the six Fords, I have fond memories of one- a 1995 Ranger that I had not one problem with (I had it less than a year, though).

The Fords I had from 1994-1996 only.
The Toyotas I have been driving since 1998.

1994 Sable- had some alternator issues, battery ended up exploding all over the engine compartment- that was nice.
3 Explorers, one I only had a few months, it was ok, 1 I had for a year, it was ok. 1996 Explorer, piece of shit. It would randomly turn itself off at stoplights, while idling away from them and while approaching them. Maybe it was allergic. Dealer said there was nothing wrong with it.
1995 (or 96) Contour, piece of shit. The cupholders broke within a month. The transmission went out within 3. Spent probably 5 weeks sitting at the dealership in the first 5 months.

I've had 3 Camrys, 1994- drove it to 185000 miles and sold it to my sister, it's still on the road with over 250,000- and I got the oil changed roughly every 25,000 miles.
1999- Drove it to about 110,000- beat the shit out of it- traded it in for my current 2006. Boring, but rock solid so far. I've put around 30,000 miles on it in 13 months and all it needs is gas and oil every 5000 miles (usually gets it about every 7000).

I will never buy a Ford again, unless someone offers me a mint GT for less than $20,000.

All that being said, Ford will not go away, and who would buy them? Someday America will figure out that unions had their place before OSHA and child labor laws, but they are ridiculous in today's world. Unions serve no purposes other than to perpetuate themselves and put a huge strain on the Big 3.

Ford will survive and continue building shitty trucks and shittier cars, and Americans will continue to buy them because they can get $10,000 off sticker on a brand new car.

 

[BrianO]

With continued global competition it is foreseeable that we could be down to a single American car company in my lifetime. China is going to add a lot of low cost capacity into the market before too long. In the near term Ford should survive however.

 

[Thump]

Sign of deeper problems?