Ford removing cars from the us

[griggs95]

I'm waiting for Ford to have a glut of F150's on lots.  They are literally $20k overpriced.  You can spec a F250 Superduty 6.2 for less than an F150 before rebates.

Most automakers produce a full line of vehicles.  Most offer SUV's, small cars, larger cars, and sometimes trucks.  The reason is because a lot of families stick with one brand at a time and, if the brand doesn't offer what they currently need, the family could jump ship as a whole.  Here's a fictitious example of what will happen when Ford drops cars.  Meet the Smith family.  John and Lisa have two kids.  Sara (15) and Bobby 10.

John and Lisa both drive Fords.  Lisa has an Explorer/Edge/Flex and John has a Fusion/Taurus/MKZ.  John drives cars because he drives 30k per year and likes the efficiency and driving style of a car.  It's time for John to replace his Ford car, but alas...Ford doesn't make cars.  He considers a small SUV, but decides that they just aren't for him.  This sends John into a whirlwind of shopping online until, one day, his neighbor comes home in a new Camry/Accord/Malibu.  He goes and test drives one and is sold.

This gives Lisa new car envy and the dealer that sold them the car treated them well.  They trade in her Explorer/Edge/Flex and get a 4Runner/Pilot/Acadia.  Guess what happens the next year.  Sara turns 16 and has been saving her baby sitting money.  They get her a Corolla/Fit/Sonic.

Ford has likely lost this family forever!

This may all sound far fetched, but most families in my neighborhood, my parents neighborhood and almost every other neighborhood in America have two cars or a car and an suv/truck in the driveway and often they are from the same brand.  Toyota, Chevy, and Ford have become the size they are because of their product assortment allowing them to capture entire families.  When Ford looses the car member of the family, they run the risk of loosing the other members as well.

What makes it even more likely to go that direction is that Ford products aren't that special in the marketplace.  I'm a Ford guy, but realistically Toyota, Honda, GM, etc build equally good products.  The last thing Ford needs is for people to venture onto the other car makers lots.  A good salesman or a good deal could put them into another brand and the reliability of the vehicle could sway the entire family into the replacement brand for generations to come.

A Lot of truth to John and Lisa Smith; I think that is what will happen but to what extent? A simple survey sent out to the masses would help this BIG decision Ford just made.

With this Blending of the Ford/GM  transmission (for example) there might be a much broader brush to this picture being painted. If this doesn't work out for Ford, they could just be merged or bought out by one of the other big shots. Kind of like a too big to fail kinda thing.

Regardless, the people are not liking this from what I've been seeing and I'm one of them. I think this has been in the planning for awhile now because I always see some kind of improvement in power (for example) in most models and nothing in the SHO, Fiesta ST or the Focus ST since intro. Especially with turbos, its so easy to just up it 20 hp by now. 385 hp in the SHO was no brainer by at least the 14 model year. C'mon....!

 

[bpd1151]

Yup.

With three kids (2 in college, and 3rd almost there) there's really no likelihood of us purchasing a Mustang for either of them, and the Focus..... meh. Maybe.

But even if they start out with that, they'll eventually want a mid size car and the Fusion would've been spot on.

But not now. Really no choice but to start looking elsewhere, as they'll most definitely not care for a SUV or Truck. Nor could they afford one either at the price points they're being sold at!

I still am left befuddled by their decision making. To pull out of the market entirely is ridiculous.

A more subtle approach would've been best IMHO. Lop off a model, or two, and curtail/limit production on the remaining product offerings. That would've been most ideal. But too pull out entirely....??? Tsk tsk tsk.

 

[Gjkrisa]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/01/porsche-jeep-subaru-toyota/569032002/


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[ShoBoat]

https://youtu.be/31SrVNtEut4

Interesting take on Ford pulling the cars. Funny I have 2 sedans now, one being the Fusion and we love that car. I went from having 2 Trucks, to 2 SUVs and now 2 sedans. I guess I am in the minority....


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[SilvererSHO]

I'm waiting for Ford to have a glut of F150's on lots.  They are literally $20k overpriced.  You can spec a F250 Superduty 6.2 for less than an F150 before rebates.

Most automakers produce a full line of vehicles.  Most offer SUV's, small cars, larger cars, and sometimes trucks.  The reason is because a lot of families stick with one brand at a time and, if the brand doesn't offer what they currently need, the family could jump ship as a whole.  Here's a fictitious example of what will happen when Ford drops cars.  Meet the Smith family.  John and Lisa have two kids.  Sara (15) and Bobby 10.

John and Lisa both drive Fords.  Lisa has an Explorer/Edge/Flex and John has a Fusion/Taurus/MKZ.  John drives cars because he drives 30k per year and likes the efficiency and driving style of a car.  It's time for John to replace his Ford car, but alas...Ford doesn't make cars.  He considers a small SUV, but decides that they just aren't for him.  This sends John into a whirlwind of shopping online until, one day, his neighbor comes home in a new Camry/Accord/Malibu.  He goes and test drives one and is sold.

This gives Lisa new car envy and the dealer that sold them the car treated them well.  They trade in her Explorer/Edge/Flex and get a 4Runner/Pilot/Acadia.  Guess what happens the next year.  Sara turns 16 and has been saving her baby sitting money.  They get her a Corolla/Fit/Sonic.

Ford has likely lost this family forever!

This may all sound far fetched, but most families in my neighborhood, my parents neighborhood and almost every other neighborhood in America have two cars or a car and an suv/truck in the driveway and often they are from the same brand.  Toyota, Chevy, and Ford have become the size they are because of their product assortment allowing them to capture entire families.  When Ford looses the car member of the family, they run the risk of loosing the other members as well.

What makes it even more likely to go that direction is that Ford products aren't that special in the marketplace.  I'm a Ford guy, but realistically Toyota, Honda, GM, etc build equally good products.  The last thing Ford needs is for people to venture onto the other car makers lots.  A good salesman or a good deal could put them into another brand and the reliability of the vehicle could sway the entire family into the replacement brand for generations to come.

A Lot of truth to John and Lisa Smith; I think that is what will happen but to what extent? A simple survey sent out to the masses would help this BIG decision Ford just made.

With this Blending of the Ford/GM  transmission (for example) there might be a much broader brush to this picture being painted. If this doesn't work out for Ford, they could just be merged or bought out by one of the other big shots. Kind of like a too big to fail kinda thing.

Regardless, the people are not liking this from what I've been seeing and I'm one of them. I think this has been in the planning for awhile now because I always see some kind of improvement in power (for example) in most models and nothing in the SHO, Fiesta ST or the Focus ST since intro. Especially with turbos, its so easy to just up it 20 hp by now. 385 hp in the SHO was no brainer by at least the 14 model year. C'mon....!

I believe there has always been a reason the SHO has been held to 365HP but I don't exactly remember why.  Someone here has mentioned it too.  Classifies car to performance sedan instead of high performance sedan or some such reason.  Maybe someone else can chime in.

 

[bpd1151]

It was the National Insurance Industry that set(s) the standard(s).

Anything over 400chp Ford would not be able to market/classify it as a "Family Sedan".

Still leaves 30 or so chp on the table if they really wanted to ride that line. But as we all know, they never have.

 

[Izzybird]

The loaner car Ford gave us is a C Max hybrid. I don’t know if they’re on the chopping block as well, but it’s the epitome of a small, European, crossover. To me anyway. It’s a wretched little box of thin steel and plastic and I wouldn’t have one up my rear if there was room for a sawmill. Having said that, I do see it’s appeal to certain people and those “types” seem to be everywhere. (I do live pretty close to one of the most disgraceful liberal cities on the planet). It’s pretty peppy oddly enough. Visibility is phenomenal, sure don’t get that in a Taurus. I can sit in it at 6’ 2” with a cowboy hat on. Of course gets pretty good mileage, but can’t touch a good old fashioned tuned TDI. Its labeled “green” so has a feel good idiot factor. Dead quiet and easy to drive. It even has a silly display of a tree and when you drive eco friendly, it grows leaves. If you hammer it everywhere, leaves fall off. How could you not feel good about how much your helping to save the planet!? Lol. If these are the ford cars of the future, I’ll stick with dropping new drive trains in to old iron classics.

 

[griggs95]

I picked 385 hp in my example because of exactly what BDP said about the 400 hp mark and insurance. Bump it just 20 measly hp is enough to sway the average buyer as well as all the other interior updates because this is the norm these days.

I just think this was on purpose all along to axe these platforms and to do it right as gas is going up is perplexing this noggin of mine. Taking away all these fuel efficient cars is just really really odd at this moment in time...???

This ecoboost thing (if you've read) really isn't all its cracked up to be as far as mpg are concerned. They only really shine on the highways. City streets where all the driving is really done for most people, the mpg's are not there. There are many complaints about this all over the place from Motor Trend to forums. I'm not complaining at all about it because I knew this going into one, but for me it was about the fun and bonus economy on a highway cruise to see relatives.

 

[SilvererSHO]

OK, I didn't know 400HP was the magic threshold.  I thought the stock HP of 365 was the threshold and that's why they held it to 365HP.  So ya, they could have at least bumped it up a bit when the 2013's came out.  I can't think of another higher performance car/engine that hasn't had a HP bump over it's lifespan now that I think about it and it's been around for nine models years now.  Makes no sense.

 

[FoMoCoSHO]

The loaner car Ford gave us is a C Max hybrid. I don’t know if they’re on the chopping block as well, but it’s the epitome of a small, European, crossover. To me anyway. It’s a wretched little box of thin steel and plastic and I wouldn’t have one up my rear if there was room for a sawmill. Having said that, I do see it’s appeal to certain people and those “types” seem to be everywhere. (I do live pretty close to one of the most disgraceful liberal cities on the planet). It’s pretty peppy oddly enough. Visibility is phenomenal, sure don’t get that in a Taurus. I can sit in it at 6’ 2” with a cowboy hat on. Of course gets pretty good mileage, but can’t touch a good old fashioned tuned TDI. Its labeled “green” so has a feel good idiot factor. Dead quiet and easy to drive. It even has a silly display of a tree and when you drive eco friendly, it grows leaves. If you hammer it everywhere, leaves fall off. How could you not feel good about how much your helping to save the planet!? Lol. If these are the ford cars of the future, I’ll stick with dropping new drive trains in to old iron classics.

Was it a Titanium?

I ask because I just bought a loaded Titanium and I absolutely love it.

I test drove an SE and was pretty meh about the whole thing...

When the Mrs delivered mine I was like holee ****.

1st day at work 47 MPG all city.

I'm never even considered a hybrid but life and job change required me to consider stepping outside of my normal box.

When I compared features with the other hybrids it wasn't even a contest with the current incentives.

No, its not a SHO/MKS but I had to give up nothing feature wise.

The Lincoln is still here for when I feel like terrorizing unsuspecting drivers of sports cars.

 

[Izzybird]

No, base model. Even though I called it every name in the book, I have to give it credit. Everyone that sat in/drove it, liked it. My mother in law even made hint of getting one for herself. I can honestly see how you would like a loaded edition, I was a little impressed with it. If it had a baby diesel in it and someone actually tuned it to run like it should, I’d let one sit in my driveway.

 

[SilvererSHO]

No, base model. Even though I called it every name in the book, I have to give it credit. Everyone that sat in/drove it, liked it. My mother in law even made hint of getting one for herself. I can honestly see how you would like a loaded edition, I was a little impressed with it. If it had a baby diesel in it and someone actually tuned it to run like it should, I’d let one sit in my driveway.

I'm not so sure you'd like it too well if you got t-boned by a truck similar to the one behind the stack of four tires you grabbed up in your other post.  Just sayin'....

 

[StealBlueSHO]

Eurotrash for everyone!!!!! There has been a Ford sedan in my family since 1989 when my father purchased his first SHO... since then between my folks and my family we have had

1989 SHO
1992 SHO
1994 SHO
1998 SHO
2008 Fusion SEL
2010 SHO
2011 Taurus SEL
2013 Fusion SEL
2016 SHO


Lots of four door sedans there..... sad to see Ford killing it off...


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[Izzybird]

No, base model. Even though I called it every name in the book, I have to give it credit. Everyone that sat in/drove it, liked it. My mother in law even made hint of getting one for herself. I can honestly see how you would like a loaded edition, I was a little impressed with it. If it had a baby diesel in it and someone actually tuned it to run like it should, I’d let one sit in my driveway.

I'm not so sure you'd like it too well if you got t-boned by a truck similar to the one behind the stack of four tires you grabbed up in your other post.  Just sayin'....

I agree, that car could easily scratch a nice trucks bumper. I might let it sit in the driveway, but I wouldn’t make the payments or drive it. Willingly anyway!

 

[FoMoCoSHO]

No, base model. Even though I called it every name in the book, I have to give it credit. Everyone that sat in/drove it, liked it. My mother in law even made hint of getting one for herself. I can honestly see how you would like a loaded edition, I was a little impressed with it. If it had a baby diesel in it and someone actually tuned it to run like it should, I’d let one sit in my driveway.

I'm not so sure you'd like it too well if you got t-boned by a truck similar to the one behind the stack of four tires you grabbed up in your other post.  Just sayin'....

I dunno, I didn't see anything troubling in crash testing....

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/ford/c-max-hybrid-4-door-wagon

 

[lamrith]

No, base model. Even though I called it every name in the book, I have to give it credit. Everyone that sat in/drove it, liked it. My mother in law even made hint of getting one for herself. I can honestly see how you would like a loaded edition, I was a little impressed with it. If it had a baby diesel in it and someone actually tuned it to run like it should, I’d let one sit in my driveway.

I'm not so sure you'd like it too well if you got t-boned by a truck similar to the one behind the stack of four tires you grabbed up in your other post.  Just sayin'....

I dunno, I didn't see anything troubling in crash testing....

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/ford/c-max-hybrid-4-door-wagon

While today's crash testing is light years ahead of what it used to be, it simply cannot simulate honest real world accidents.  Namely in this case as SilvererSHO eludes to is the vehicle height issue.  All the testing is done ground up obstacle.  So the car being tested hits whatever the obstacle is with it's bumper.

The simple fact is that these days a significant percentage of vehicles on the road are bigger, taller trucks.  So that trucks bumper is now window level rather than bumper when in a smaller car like the C-max.  Worse than that is a car like the Miata my wife just picked up, heck her roofline is just an inch higher than the bottom of the windows on my stock height SHO!  Honestly there really is nothing car makers can do to counter that sort of impact.  In the old days I remember a guy in HS getting ticketed a few times for his lifted truck because the bumper was too high off the ground.  These days though, it seems anything goes with height other than Semi trucks, there is no enforced limit on bumper height.  That puts smaller cars at higher risk in accidents.

 

[SilvererSHO]

No, base model. Even though I called it every name in the book, I have to give it credit. Everyone that sat in/drove it, liked it. My mother in law even made hint of getting one for herself. I can honestly see how you would like a loaded edition, I was a little impressed with it. If it had a baby diesel in it and someone actually tuned it to run like it should, I’d let one sit in my driveway.

I'm not so sure you'd like it too well if you got t-boned by a truck similar to the one behind the stack of four tires you grabbed up in your other post.  Just sayin'....

I dunno, I didn't see anything troubling in crash testing....

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/ford/c-max-hybrid-4-door-wagon

While today's crash testing is light years ahead of what it used to be, it simply cannot simulate honest real world accidents.  Namely in this case as SilvererSHO eludes to is the vehicle height issue.  All the testing is done ground up obstacle.  So the car being tested hits whatever the obstacle is with it's bumper.

The simple fact is that these days a significant percentage of vehicles on the road are bigger, taller trucks.  So that trucks bumper is now window level rather than bumper when in a smaller car like the C-max.  Worse than that is a car like the Miata my wife just picked up, heck her roofline is just an inch higher than the bottom of the windows on my stock height SHO!  Honestly there really is nothing car makers can do to counter that sort of impact.  In the old days I remember a guy in HS getting ticketed a few times for his lifted truck because the bumper was too high off the ground.  These days though, it seems anything goes with height other than Semi trucks, there is no enforced limit on bumper height.  That puts smaller cars at higher risk in accidents.

YES!  I'm very libertarian by nature but I don't know how the hell the very thing you speak of isn't enforced.  It's a safety issue and I've wondered this for years.  On top of it all, no vehicle inspections in my state.  You should see some of the rolling piles of $hit we see running down our roads in MN.  Meanwhile, anything commercial is harassed to no end.  More money to be gleaned by big brother there I guess.  Who cares if a family of five is taken out by a jacked up suburban running a red light....

 

[Izzybird]

No, base model. Even though I called it every name in the book, I have to give it credit. Everyone that sat in/drove it, liked it. My mother in law even made hint of getting one for herself. I can honestly see how you would like a loaded edition, I was a little impressed with it. If it had a baby diesel in it and someone actually tuned it to run like it should, I’d let one sit in my driveway.

I'm not so sure you'd like it too well if you got t-boned by a truck similar to the one behind the stack of four tires you grabbed up in your other post.  Just sayin'....

I dunno, I didn't see anything troubling in crash testing....

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/ratings/vehicle/v/ford/c-max-hybrid-4-door-wagon

While today's crash testing is light years ahead of what it used to be, it simply cannot simulate honest real world accidents.  Namely in this case as SilvererSHO eludes to is the vehicle height issue.  All the testing is done ground up obstacle.  So the car being tested hits whatever the obstacle is with it's bumper.

The simple fact is that these days a significant percentage of vehicles on the road are bigger, taller trucks.  So that trucks bumper is now window level rather than bumper when in a smaller car like the C-max.  Worse than that is a car like the Miata my wife just picked up, heck her roofline is just an inch higher than the bottom of the windows on my stock height SHO!  Honestly there really is nothing car makers can do to counter that sort of impact.  In the old days I remember a guy in HS getting ticketed a few times for his lifted truck because the bumper was too high off the ground.  These days though, it seems anything goes with height other than Semi trucks, there is no enforced limit on bumper height.  That puts smaller cars at higher risk in accidents.

YES!  I'm very libertarian by nature but I don't know how the hell the very thing you speak of isn't enforced.  It's a safety issue and I've wondered this for years.  On top of it all, no vehicle inspections in my state.  You should see some of the rolling piles of $hit we see running down our roads in MN.  Meanwhile, anything commercial is harassed to no end.  More money to be gleaned by big brother there I guess.  Who cares if a family of five is taken out by a jacked up suburban running a red light....

My truck is only up 2 1/2” which actually puts it about the same height as the new fords. But like you said, if I was unfortunate enough to have a car like that pull out in front of me it would be devastating for them. The 250 lbs of steel hanging off the front sheds deer and I’m sure would shed a hybrid as well. Plus there is either a winch or massive aluminum drop hitch hanging off the bumper right about the same height as their noggins. Whether your some mental midget trying to pimp 44’s on the street or normal height, the truck will win that battle. I stay on high alert when I take that thing in to the city, it takes a loong ways to shut it down.

 

[sholxgt]

No, its not a SHO/MKS but I had to give up nothing feature wise.

I've driven a Titanium C-Max and it's not bad, but I wouldn't say it has the same features.

Off the top of my head, the C-Max doesn't have:
Cooled seats
heated steering wheel
power adjusted steering wheel
adaptive cruise control
adaptive headlights

There are more, but that's a few differences. 

 

[Gjkrisa]

List of alternatives of Ford cars
https://clark.com/cars/6-best-ford-sedan-alternatives/

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