No Wonder Ford is Hurting!

[SVTdriver]

You guys are missing the point. Firstly, I think they should have replaced the part no matter where the car was purchased as it was brand new and cost over $32,000 dollars. IMHO, the part is badly designed as it is, and will always be, proned to falling off or having people rip them off as they are held on with tape only. Lastly, the fact that a .32 piece of plastic is being billed back to Ford at over $80.00 is a crying shame and perhaps reflective of why Ford is struggling right now.

For the record, the service department at the dealership was nothing but professional and I was quite pleased with them. The sales department and manager were quite laughable and lost a customer due to trying to rip me a new one when I was car shopping.

It seems you may not know eactly how much it cost to produce that part. I rather doubt that it is only $0.32 or possibly $0.37. Maybe the raw materials but more than likely not the final cost when considering production overhead costs. Now it might only be a few dollars. But I don't think anyone here has truly accurate manufacturing prices on that particular piece. Then of course we assume that the part would be recieved at a Ford warehouse somewhere. So some money has to go to that. Since there would be people worknig there. And it was likely handled more than once. Since someone had to ship it to the dealer. Do you knid of see where I am going with this? There are more costs than you think there might be.
Now as far as the bad design. So what other method would you have like it put on there? I would assume you would have to remove it when replacing the windshield (Mind you this is an assumption. Since I do not repair windshields). So permanently attaching it would mean possible damage to your car. In the event of a need to repair the windshield. Of course they could have used a bolt or screw. Which would have then upped the cost for engineering and producing the part (You have to add in the cost of the screw to that as well). And then you would have a rather ugly fastener head in the middle of a smooth trim piece. This is of course assuming you could get a screw small enough to go into the trim piece and not out through the corner of the windshield frame. Now of course there is also the popular plastic tabs method. But with a few years the plastic gets brittle. You repair the windshield and a tab breaks. Now you have to get a new trim piece anyway. You might be surprised at how tough tape can be made.

 

[StangCollecter]

THe truth of the matter is this, Ford made the part, and it cost them a few dollars to make (labor and tooling plus 8 cents of plastic) but I see your point. THe dealership charges ford 80 bucks to fix it.

SO if this happens 1000 times, that is 80,000 dollars. That's like giving away 3 mustang GTs.


IMHO, I think Dealerships charge way too much, and make too much in profits. I worked at one, so I know how it works. It made me sick to my stomach.

Ford will pay a dealer a certain percentage for warranty repairs, and it's not 100%.

However unionized mechanics make decent money, and they should, but the Service Manager and the Service Director make a lot more, and don't need to. THen the service writers work off commision, and the "good" ones make very good money. The dealership I worked at was a VW and Mazda dealer, and they made about 10,000 US dollars per employee in the service department including parts. And I was told that was a slow month. Do you think the average pay was 120k a year?

Dealerships are made to make money, and they do.

Unfortunately they make a big part of their money charging you to fix a car you just spent a lot of money on to buy.

 

[06GTVERT4DE]

It seems you may not know eactly how much it cost to produce that part. I rather doubt that it is only $0.32 or possibly $0.37. Maybe the raw materials but more than likely not the final cost when considering production overhead costs. Now it might only be a few dollars. But I don't think anyone here has truly accurate manufacturing prices on that particular piece. Then of course we assume that the part would be recieved at a Ford warehouse somewhere. So some money has to go to that. Since there would be people worknig there. And it was likely handled more than once. Since someone had to ship it to the dealer. Do you knid of see where I am going with this? There are more costs than you think there might be.
Now as far as the bad design. So what other method would you have like it put on there? I would assume you would have to remove it when replacing the windshield (Mind you this is an assumption. Since I do not repair windshields). So permanently attaching it would mean possible damage to your car. In the event of a need to repair the windshield. Of course they could have used a bolt or screw. Which would have then upped the cost for engineering and producing the part (You have to add in the cost of the screw to that as well). And then you would have a rather ugly fastener head in the middle of a smooth trim piece. This is of course assuming you could get a screw small enough to go into the trim piece and not out through the corner of the windshield frame. Now of course there is also the popular plastic tabs method. But with a few years the plastic gets brittle. You repair the windshield and a tab breaks. Now you have to get a new trim piece anyway. You might be surprised at how tough tape can be made.

You are correct in that nobody really knows the true cost of that part and how much it does actually cost Ford. However, I am quite certain that the $32.00 retail cost has quite a large profit margin as my brother and best friend work for Toyota in the parts department and I get to see first-hand how Joe Consumer pays a pretty penny when walking in off of the street to purchase parts. Now, let's talk about $50.00 to install a part that will take approximately 1 minute to prep (alcohol swab), and install by removing the liner from the doublesided tape. How does that make any sense?
As far as designing the part goes, there are many engineering flaws and fixes I could propose here as I work in the patent industry and see several automotive patents on a daily basis. I won't go in to specifics, but the trim piece I am describing has several design flaws and Ford could have done a better job engineering it. Just my .02!

 

[351CJ]

The GT line is so small I'd bet they could move it to a number of locations. I doubt that closing Wixom is the reason for ending GT production. I haven't heard of plans to stop producing the Town Car.

The last I saw was that the Lincoln LS stops production in April 06, the Ford GT ends its run in Sept 06 and Wixom closes in Feb 07, obviusly ending TC production @ Wixom.

The missing piece of information is what happens to the TC after Wixom closes. Logically it could move to STAP, since there is plenty of production capacity @ STAP since the Panther trio is now selling at about 1/2 the volume they did 5 years ago.

The MKS and possibly a follow on stretch version of the MKS are going to replace the Lincoln LS & TC, but the earliest the MKS starts production is Jan - Mar 2008, so I have to think that Ford will somehow keep the TC in production through the end of 2008. There have been rumors that the Panthers will go away in 2009 rather than be upgraded to meet the new safety regulations.

 

[SVTdriver]

If you really think Ford is the only one getting charged too much on small pieces. You really haven't looked around at other car companies. Sure it doesn't help them. But it effects them just as much as it does every other car company. For example my Audi. The battery died. I looked in the owners manual. It says to take it to the dealer. If a light bulb anywhere goes out. Same thing take it to the dealer. It's so more money can be made off you. I truly fear the price for the foglight trim piece I am missing. I've heard it could be as high as $112. For a relatively small piece of plastic.
Now as far as the labor charge. Well let's look at it. Sure it only took a couple minutes to prep and install. Then you have the time it took to drive it in and out of the bay. And do whatever paperwork needed to be done. Then figure that most shops have a minimum time they will charge for any job. And I can see where the $50 charge would come from. Do I think it's right. No not at all. But when you can find shops charging $100 per hour. Think about it as a 1/2 hour minimum charge. And in all likelihood the mechanic only spent 10 -15 minutes. But they aren't going to just charge the actual time. Cellphone companies don't round down for the seconds you use of each minute. They round it up.

 

[Dyoct]

...
Dealerships are made to make money, and they do.

Unfortunately they make a big part of their money charging you to fix a car you just spent a lot of money on to buy.

Isn't that why businesses are in business? I just found out my house in Michigan developed a toilet leak. $35 for the plumber to just show up, another $60 an hour, then parts marked up "cost plus 30." Gimmie a break, this guys making money charging me to fix a house I spend alot of money to buy. Where does this insanity end?