Stick a Fork in the US Auto Industry

There are two things Ford Motor Company simply can not build. A transmission or a comfortable seat. The transmissions have an uncomfortable shift pattern. Every Crown Victoria/Mercury Grand Marquis/Lincoln Towncar I've ever been acquainted with has had at least one transmission change. In fairness though, I hear that the Police Dodge Chargers aren't fairing well in that department either. But, they're Dodges. Everyone knows they're garbage.

Also, a wooden plank would be more comfortable than a seat in an F-Series Pickup truck. I once drove from Dallas to Birmingham in a Ford Expedition. What would have been a nice comfortable drive in my GMC was a painful, arduous experience in that Ford. A Crown Victoria seat is comfortable for about an hour before it starts hurting the lower and middle parts of your back even with the lumbar support adjusted properly.

Oh, sweet Jebus, could I tell some stories about the bullshit engineering that Ford does. Like requiring the use of a hacksaw to fix the brakes or changing damned near every part out for a half-year model, without documenting it. Suffice it to say, that there are very few people on this planet I want to re-enact that scene in The Maltese Falcon where Bogey talks about using the ball peen hammer on a suspect. Mark Zuckerberg is one person, and every Ford engineer who's ever lived are the rest.

I want that like I want a three row MINI, which is not at all

My companie's new explorer's drivers seat automatically inches forward whenever you open the drivers side door, its an annoyance to have to move it back before climbing in.

That's an ... interesting feature ...

Intentional for some poorly-thought-out reason, or a fluke mistake?

Supposedly theres a software patch out for the vehicle

A friend of mine's boss had a BMW 7-series which was having a similar problem. After the dealer installed the software patch, the car began having "strokes," meaning that all the pre-sets for things like seat positions, radio stations, etc, would be erased and he'd have to reconfigure everything. (The seats would be all the way down and back after the car had been parked for a few hours.)

Yeah, you had me at "BMW 7 series", which is notorious for being the guinea pig for all of BMW's new features (like that fancy digital key) and shit like this is not unusual.

Let me see if I can squeeze out a tear for BMW owners.

Oh shit my eye balls shriveled up like raisins in the desert. I guess that is a no, and can someone get me some visene?

While K code "Hi-Po" 289-v8 Mustangs weren't introduced until June '64, a less powerful D code 289 V8 was available from the get-go (Hemmings). The standard 6 was a straight 170cube 6. I thought you were a car guy? Here's a nice unmolested '64 up for auction at BaT (made me think of this post).

Maybe you're thinking of Falcons (the Mustang was a tarted up Falcon).

Not a fan of Ford's. I was going by what Iaccoca said in his biography.

Mopar guys...

Care to guess where my name comes from? I don't think you'll find it to be related to a product by the Chrysler corporation. I also like Studebakers, Packards, Nashs, Hudsons, Jeeps, and a few GM models. Just don't like Fords. Too much squirrely engineering under the skin for my taste. YMMV.

I'm more of a Tatra guy. Nothing like good old Eastern-Block engineering.

That looks a lot like the 48 Tatra I got to ride in once.

What fuel efficiency standards, Trump did away with those.

Fiat Chrysler is in talks to merge with Renault and now there's talk that Ford and GM might merge. Blergh.

GM/Ford merger? That would be a, uh, big company.

I imagine there would be some significant anti-trust issues to overcome for it to even happen.

How would they brand it, I wonder? Would they consolidate product lines?

The Ford family has a controlling interest in FoMoCo. I have a hard time seeing them agreeing to a merger. In hard times in the past they have been been willing to put their own fortunes on the line for the company (see Ford not taking a bailout during Great Recession).

If anything I could see the family firing the current CEO, re-entrenching for a transitional period (03-06 with Mullaly) and then moving forward.

Something about that Blue Oval has kept the family invested (literally) for a long ass time.

Why the fuck would Ford want to merge with GM? What do they stand to gain from it? A ton of debt and a failing and bungled company? Ford is doing just fine on its own and made the changes it needed to to survive when Chrysler and GM shit the bed.

About the mid 1980's. The early 1990's Ford Probe (which was based on the Mazda midsized sedan of the time) was originally supposed to replace the Fox body Mustangs but people didn't like. Japanese front wheel drive car with no V-8 option being called a Mustang so instead it got named the Probe and the Fox body soldiered on.

I used to own a 1994 Ford Probe; it was the first car I ever bought from a dealership.

I believe the original 1963 and 1/2 mistangs only had a 260 cid V-8 which came from the Falcon.

Ford doesn't have near the market share in China that GM does, and that's the only place where sales growth can be expected to continue in large numbers. China's got over 1 billion people, most of whom don't own cars. The US has 330 million people, and roughly the same number of cars. The average age of a vehicle on the road is 10 years and cars aren't getting scrapped until they're around 20 years old.

The day of the US being the dominant global market are coming to an end, the sheer size of China's population makes that inevitable. India will be vying for second place before you know it.

And on top of that, young people aren't nearly as excited to pony up for a car here as they used to be between the gas, the insurance and the whole thing of barely having a livable wage to justify such an investment.

I thought this was city kid west coast bullshit, but a few older folks from another board I post at and Tumblr have shown me this attitude is prevalent in the rural areas too. So yeah, China's gonna outsell us by the end of this century, if even that long.

The projections I've seen are closer to 2030 at the latest.

Ah, but you people thought President Trump could never become President and 3% growth in GDP was an impossible thing of the past.

And China’s economy grew by almost 7%, India’s was at 6%. Thanks to the trade war, China’s buying products from places like Brazil and Russia that they used to buy from us.

Your point is interesting. But then I remember GM is the company that came up with Saturn to compete with Japan. The idea was, sell as many cars as you can at a $5,000 per car loss to keep the Japs from...I dunno, taking away our losses?

It wouldn't surprise me to find GM has a huge market share in China because they've given away all their IP and every car they sell there loses them $8,000. Market share only matters if it is making you money.

Man, Saturns are such pieces of shit.

Mine lasted me for quite a while.