Doesn't Anybody Drive A Ford

[lka]

For the foreign car lovers the irony is an American company ( Ford ) has the best hybrid available that beats out the Lexus & the Honda which were ranked #2 & #3.
You dont stay in business for over 100 years by making junk.

http://www.kbb.com/new-cars/best-res...brid-car-2013/


http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com...s/Hybrid-Cars/

I have never owned a foreign Vehicle, the Toyota trucks seem to last and are nice, I wouldn't buy a hybrid, if I did I wold need to buy an Obama sticker and that's not going to happen anytime soon,,,

[alamogunr]

I'm on both sides of this discussion. Our car is a Toyota Avalon(our 2nd) and we have had no trouble at all from it. We tend to keep a vehicle for at least 10 years since we started with Toyota's. My pickup is a 15 year old F150. Also no trouble. I'm in the market now for a new pickup and really like the Toyota's. I won't go near the Ford dealership. The one time I had this truck there for repair they left it in worse shape than before. When I took it back for correction, I was told it would cost over $600 to fix. It just brought back memories of all the times over 50 years that I got the shaft from American automobile dealers.

[cal50]

http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com...Pickup-Trucks/


Looks like the American truck market is pretty solid.

[HangFireW8]

One of my biggest pet peeves is several of my neighbors are teachers ( 8 ) and all of them drive Honda's or Toyota's. A LOT of autoworkers (Ford) live in my community, have good paying jobs and pay large amounts of property taxes. The same teachers that want me to vote for all levy increases never bat an eye about how they spent their money and most of it leaving the community by choosing a foreign vehicle. I know most of them feel autoworkers are overpaid and I feel the same way about some teachers and they are on the public dime. All autoworkers wages and benefits come form the retail sale of the items they build and market.

My pet peeve is people who don't understand the benefit to our economy of domestically made "import" marques while driving around Canadian made cars and Mexican made pickup trucks running Japanese designed engines.

[Boondocker]

I have

2 rangers
1 f150
1 f250
1 Expedition
1 cobra


I am a big ford guy, I have had many rangers explorers and f series and they are pretty good. the little rangers make great company trucks they keep rolling as long as you keep a little oil in them

I won't buy gmc they took the handout! And I have to have American trucks (I'm sure a large portion of ford is over seas now-and-days)

Myself likewise, I will patronize an American company that takes care of itself, one I don'nt have to get buy off votes with my tax dollars. That said I am still following the atf debate. Ford tough baby!!!!!!!!!!!! As a mechanic for 30 years I love chevies and dodges, they made me alot of mulla with the same repeat problems year after year. Just sayin! Just like you like winnies and I like remmies the debate goes on, to each there own.

[cal50]

Ford did not cost the taxpayers (us) a single cent for the bailout BS if that matters.

Not a lot of American companies still in business over +100 years and still going.

[HangFireW8]

For the foreign car lovers the irony is an American company ( Ford ) has the best hybrid available that beats out the Lexus & the Honda which were ranked #2 & #3.
You dont stay in business for over 100 years by making junk.

http://www.kbb.com/new-cars/best-res...brid-car-2013/


http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com...s/Hybrid-Cars/

Ford used that EPA data for this smaller lighter vehicle...

http://consumerist.com/2013/08/15/ep...-reports-test/

[AviatorTroy]

Now this stuff always makes someone mad...

[AviatorTroy]

And as for Fords, its always been in my DNA to avoid GM products like the plague. I was always a Ford guy, had a 78 F100, several Mustangs, a T-Bird, and a Ranger. That being said, my brother currently has a Focus which he bought new is less than 5 years old, and has blown up a radiator, eaten a water pump, gone through 2 wheel bearings, eats rear tires (due to the fact that it was designed with not enough range in the rear toe in adjustment to properly align the rear end). Oh and to top it off neither door latch works from the outside because the mechanism on both doors disintegrated inside and he has to either leave a window down for crawl through the back hatch cause none of us have had time to work in it.

That car is a true turd and my wife has forbidden me forever owning another Ford, its that bad.

Oh well, really loving my '10 Ram 1500 Quad Cab.

[Petrol & Powder]

Ok. so I'll admit that I skipped from the first page of this thread to the last (which gives one an unusual perspective) but I did turn wrenches for a living for a little while in a previous life. Back in the old days there was Dexron, Dexron II and the Ford stuff like type CJ or ATF type F. If you had a GM, AMC or Chrysler it was Dexron II. If you had a Ford, well it depended on what year, tranny and sometimes moon phase but... the Ford ATF stuff was considered better by a lot of transmission guys because of the way it shifted. I think the bands in the Ford transmissions used a different type of friction material. After the late 70's most American stuff was just Dexron II or Dexron III. Then came the wonky Chrysler ATF +4 and the imports with the other synthetics.
The GM Turbo 400 used Dexron II and was totally bullet proof. The Chrysler A727 Torqueflite could take any abuse as long as the fluid was clean. I saw Ford C6's that would outlast the car they were in and I saw C6's that disintegrated for no apparent reason. I never understood that Ford stuff. So, for the OP, it depends on which tranny you're talking about.

[alamogunr]

I just bought a Toyota Tundra and my 15 YO F150 is for sale. Granted I never put much strain on the F150, but it never gave me any trouble. The only problems I had were those covered by recall. One of those recalls left me with more of a problem than the recall covered. I returned to the dealer and they wanted to charge me over $500 to correct. The mechanic that checked the problem disconnected the warning buzzer that indicated leaving the key in the ignition and I decided to live with it. Obviously, I never returned to that dealer again.

My experience with Toyota's has been nothing but good. We kept the first, an Avalon for over 10 years and the second Avalon is 7 years old on its way to 10 or 11. This influenced my purchase of the Tundra. I'm retired so this is probably my last truck. Looking forward to at least 15 years.

[jmort]

Japanese car/trucks work well. I'm sure you will like the Japanese Tundra. I have never purchased a Japanese car/truck and never will. At least the Korean cars are giving the Japs a run for their $$$. I'll stick with Ford from now on.

[Airman Basic]

As the man said, " I don't know whether to buy a Ford made in Tokyo or a Toyota made in Tenn."

[jmort]

You want the profits to go to an American Company or to Japan?

[Airman Basic]

You want the profits to go to an American Company or to Japan?

I think I like American jobs.

[jmort]

"I think I like American jobs"

Thank you Captain obvious. The "My Rice Burner was made in the USA" drones are clueless. Not in terms of buying what they want and expecting a good product, I respect that. But this idiotic nonsense, "made in America" ignores the fact that the real $$$ is going to Japan or wherever. It is foolish to rationalize buying the Jap car on the grounds that it was made "here." How many line workers does it take to equal the pay of the CEO's of Honda, Toyota, Nissan, et al ? Just keep it real, don't play pretend. Be proud of your Jap car/truck for what is is and not what it is not, an American car/truck.

http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2...s-workers.html

[Kull]

I worked for Ford for a little over a decade, probably why I drive a 30 something year old Volkswagen. All kidding aside though me personally I'd pick a Ford over anything from GM or Chrysler, mostly out of familiarity. Between myself, my wife, and my daughter the number one make of vehicle that keeps showing up in the driveway are Toyota's.

Every manufacturer has their issues though, some are just better at keeping the general public in the dark about whatever issues they do have. For example take the Toyota unintended acceleration recall. Seemed to me like Toyota caught a lot of flak for coming out about a problem that wasn't that big of a deal honestly. If it does take off like a bat out of hell I can always turn the key off, slam on the brake, whatever. Compare that to the early Focus spindle nut recall. Left rear wheel, spindle nut is right hand thread....no keeper, cotter pin, nothing. Not much you can do when the thing comes off and passes you going down the highway. I don't remember seeing that all over the news.

As far as buying American vs buying Imports the lines are so blurred it's not even funny. You could make a full time job out of figuring out who owns what and how much. Lots of models are the exact same vehicle with a different badge. Mercury Villager and Nissan Quest comes to mind.

[AviatorTroy]

"I think I like American jobs"

Thank you Captain obvious. The "My Rice Burner was made in the USA" drones are clueless. Not in terms of buying what they want and expecting a good product, I respect that. But this idiotic nonsense, "made in America" ignores the fact that the real $$$ is going to Japan or wherever. It is foolish to rationalize buying the Jap car on the grounds that it was made "here." How many line workers does it take to equal the pay of the CEO's of Honda, Toyota, Nissan, et al ? Just keep it real, don't play pretend. Be proud of your Jap car/truck for what is is and not what it is not, an American car/truck.

http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2...s-workers.html

But CEOs in Japan don't make 10,000 times the salary that their workers do, like US CEOs.

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/20...otive-ceo-pay/

So one could argue that the profit of Japanese car companies is much better distributed throughout the company than the UAW jobs that American companies create. Of course don't even get me started on the high cost of doing business with the UAW due to highly inefficient labor, legacy health costs, etc, etc. Do you know why most of the Japanese factories are non union? Because they pay their employees well and treat them with respect.

Additionally I am pleased to see the Japanese outsourcing jobs to the US instead of the other way around, like Detroit auto companies outsource the assembly jobs to Canada, Mexico, and South America.

So, who's really clueless? I think your ideas are firmly rooted in the 1970s.

[jmort]

"Do you know why most of the Japanese factories are non union?"

Yes, because they are located in Right to Work States and save them a bundle. If you read the article/blog I linked, then you would understand my "ideas" - aka facts - are rooted in reality. When you buy the Jap car/truck all of the profits go to Japan. The numbers of "US" workers for the Jap auto makers are low compared to Ford and GM. Personally if I were buying a Toyota or BMW, I would rather have the real deal, from Japan or "Bavaria." I'll stick with Ford or even GM and do not dispute the quality issue. Toyotas make sense, especially for the Japanese.

[popper]

All auto manufacturers are world wide makers. Have been for > 50 yrs. The ones we call American made are just designed for the silly US buyers. Who knows where all the actual parts come from.