ProtegeMaster

I think you’ll not find numbers even close to those that Ford recalls each year, compared to Toyota. It is quite true that it’s normal for a certain amount of recalls to happen for any particular make-- What I’m saying is Ford has a disproportionately high number of them.

And, no, no, no! Don’t listen to me! Listen to this:

http://www.autonews.com/news.cms?newsId=3833

http://www.autonews.com/news.cms?newsId=3823

Sing it with me now: “Ele-ven safety recalls… Yeah, yeah… Ele-ven, baby…”

Here’s the Toyota campaign noted in the above post:

http://www.auto.com/industry/iwirc2_20021002.htm

Any other Toyota recalls?

http://www.underhoodservice.com/us/toyota.htm

Let’s also check out Ford’s other recall campaigns by the numbers!

http://www.underhoodservice.com/us/ford.htm

So if Toyota is guilty, and thereby not honorable, of recall campaigns numbering 2-10 vs. Ford, what does that make Ford? The Devil incarnate? Super duper, extra special dishonorable guys? I see no comparison whatsoever. Ford is so stunningly far ahead of Toyota that anyone attempting to draw similar conclusions is clearly nonsensical.

By all means, I strongly encourage ALL to listen to Consumer Union, NOT me. Pick up a copy of the 2002 Cars issue of CR. In it, you’ll see quite clearly that my sentiments for Ford are quite well supported by the factual data on hand. Don’t EVEN try to compare Ford to Toyota… or Honda… or Mazda (for those models not touched/screwed up by Ford). Across the board these other auto makers built and sell vehicles leagues above Ford in reliability. Do you see a single vehicle that Ford builds that’s tops in reliability? Common, just one? Any? Just a single car? I thought not.

Thank you. Drive through!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...tc/script.html

And why I haven’t yet bought a Toyota? That’s irrelevant, but I’ll answer. I’m only old enough to have bought a Nissan first, in ’91, because the Corolla I wanted back then was too expensive for what I could afford (I *really* wanted an Integra, but that too was beyond affordability). I then bought a Protégé, because Toyota’s current designs, AS I already said <sigh> are too boring. Protégé has stellar reliability AND awesome appearance, so I bought it (although I quite admittedly have issues with the Pro, also).

Notice, however, that I haven’t bought a Ford. And my maintenance costs have been accordingly, and intelligently, lower.

Community service. I applaud this from any organization and am glad you’re involved. I respect that and thank you. However, want to bet Toyota has similar policy for their North American operations? There's nothing about that that makes Ford special.

September 11: Ford, GM and (rip) Chrysler have, or had, direct roots in this country. If the attack had happened in Japan who do you think would have been most involved? The WTC was, by definition, a United States issue and it was accordingly handled with greater U.S. assistance from corporate entities. This is an irrelevant comparison.

Environment: GM or Ford DO NOT do as much as Toyota does for the environment. Ford and GM have no hybrid vehicle in mass production. That alone amounts for far greater positive environmental impact by Toyota than the others. And it’s quite safe to say that Toyota does at least as much for environmental stewardship as the others in their manufacturing facilities as GM and Ford do, domestically. And in any event, do you really think getting your information from an official corporate web site (like from Ford’s) is going to present a complete picture of a company’s environmental practices? Hell no! It’ll be all polished up and perfect, per the way they want you to think.

So here’s my theme song for this thread: “Momma said knock you out! I’m gonna knock you ouuut! …Don’t you ever compare.. me to the rest that’ll all get sliced and diced, competition’s payin the price.. I’m gonna knock you out! Momma said knock you ouuut!...”

Your rebuttal?

kc5zom

Enough about the frickin hybrids. GM and Ford both have fuel cell vehicles in development with production not too far off. And if you want you can buy your F-150 designed to run on alternative fuels. Toyota still has a crappy environmental record and is THE ONLY Japanese car company to follow GM and Ford with ever larger and more worthless SUV's. You want a car company to fawn over why not pick someone worthwhile like BMW, Mercedes, VW, or (dare I say it) pre-Ford Volvo with the awesome S80!

Ooops.... I forget to mention that companies actually BUY those alternative fuel vehicles Ford sells (I'm not sure if GM makes any at the moment). Instead of a couple of environazis buying hybrids.

Mustang

PRotegeMASter... good reply.. finally something which makes me think... you must have spent some time researching the info... anyhow... I'm tired tonight, but I'll have a rebuttal for you tomorrow!

kc5zom

Sorry to burst your bubble but a couple of interesting points. As an economist:

Ford does not care about you! Toyota does not care about you! They care about one evil dirty thing:

MAKING MONEY!

Now away from the blinding flashes of the obvious to the more interesting stuff:

1. Consumer Reports - CR is full of crap. They cannot provide statistically useful data with their polling methods. The currently only send out surveys to their subscribers. This causes two things. First they are only sampling a small sample of a small sample of the population (their subscriber base is only a small percent of the US population). Second since they only poll subscribers they are commiting another sin. This is like me asking members of the NRA whether they favor gun control. I'm pulling data meant to represent a whole population from a homogenous subset of the population. Or how about a third? Only a small portion of those polled will actually respond. So they narrow their subset down even more considerably. Basically all of this together indicates that CR is useless and is about as worthwhile as me pulling reliability data from my butt.

2. Ford Pinto - I recommend you read "The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case" by Gary Schwartz or any number of recently published articles about Nader and the Pinto debacle. Pretty much everyone who has looked recently has found the gasoline tank explosion problems to be exaggerated and comparable to those of other vehicles made during that period. This was actually a discussion topic in one of my econ classes this week. Do a little research, some reading maybe, and learn why people like Nader should be shot in the back of the head without warning.

3. GM vs. Ford - I could provide any number of anecdotal cases of Ford vehicles breaking down and having hideous faults. My family has owned both and they have ALL broken down. Just the Ford vehicles were more expensive to fix or had really bad problems under warranty. The point of this being that you can't prove that Ford is better than GM and I can't prove GM is better than Ford (nor do I want to, I just said they were as good as or better than Ford). Unless you can find a properly executed statistical survey over a period of a decade or so I would say that issue is dead. My empirical experience with Ford and GM have been okay, I have enjoyed the Fords more (until the new Silverado's came out) and was more willing to put up with their issues (I didn't have many with my Ranger but our other Ranger had some severe issues). You have better empirical experience with Ford. Big deal. I'm not in the market for another full-size truck.

kc5zom

Just an addition. I was looking for that article online and I found this website which has a brief summary of some stupid reliability things that have happened to automakers over the years:

http://overlawyered.com/topics/auto.html

They say that article isn't online. I can't find it yet either but I'm going to look for some more to post. But that one was my favorite.

macdaddyslomo

If Ford does not care about you please explain why Ford Voluntarily recalled Firestone's products.... I am referring to the second recall...this recall was what caused Ford to take such a financial hit last year that stock price plummeted,but Ford chose to take the hit financially. Just for the well being of it's customers,no other reason...the Federal Government didnt require it,Ford just got some data that some of the tires would be faulty,so Ford replaced them ALL....whens the last time a manufacturer did that...I seriously doubt Toyota would take such a bold step,especially considering it would probably bankrupt them

fossil boy

That smells like a tax deuction for FORD. Corporate citizenship wouldn't involve dislocating former UAW jobs to Mexico...

Mustang

This is developing into quite an interesting debate, but before I
say anything further, I want to re-iterate my objective when I
first posted in this thread. My point is not to claim that Ford
Motor has better quality vehicles than Toyota, nor was it to
compare Ford to Toyota in any possible way. Toyota Motor Corp. is a very distinguished company and they produce the highest quality vehicles currently in the marketplace. All manufacturers strive to get the to this benchmark that Toyota has set.

I don't want to wast my time to say that Ford Motor is better than Toyota whether it be for product design, style, quality,
reliability, social responsibility, vehicle safety, environment,
etc, etc. The fact is both of these organizations are great
companies. There are some things that Toyota does better (quality and reliability of cars) and there are other things that Ford does better such as more developing more exciting products (Mustang, T-Bird, GT, SVT) and of course Ford conquers the truck world.

Basically, my point here is to give some credibility to Ford Motor
Company and to give awareness to those that are less knowledgable about the facts. The fact that some members of this forum simply bash Ford simply because it's "Ford" upsets me for the fact that they are talking through their ***. Stop the bashing people! If Toyota were in charge of Mazda, they would probably eliminate the brand altogether so that it would not compete with the likes of Camry and Corolla. If General Motors had control of Mazda, they would essentially try to bring over all the operations to the U.S. and make another Cavalier out of the Protegé. Given Ford's heritage and its zeal for exciting emotional products, Mazda is where it is today.

Now that I've got that off my chest, let me clear up some issues
here. If you guys think J.D. Power & Associates is full of ****,
then why bother even listening to the other commercial publications out there? Consumer Reports?... Car and Driver?.... Motor Trend? Edmunds.com? Take them all out of the equation cuz they are all tied to the manufacturers in one way or another.

Crown Victoria investigation - The National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) on Oct 03/2002 closed its investigation
regarding the Ford Crown Victoria and fuel leaks during rear-impact crashes. NHTSA found that the vehicle not only meets the current standard for fuel systems during a 30 mph test, but also that the Crown Victoria did not leak during a 50 mph test.

As for the Firestone/Explorer safety recall isssue. It was Ford's
own iniative to recall several million of those tires, resulting in
a serious financial loss. I believe it was almost $3 billion! Ford does care for its consumers.

Also, I am amazed with ProtegeMaster. You seem to be a very
sensible, well informed guy. You know that Ford Motor controls
Mazda, yet you bash Ford, and go ahead and drop thousands of
dollars on a Mazda product.... I don't understand the logic behind
that decision. Also, you have yet to own a Ford vehicle so your
basis of attack is strictly based on heresay. Own one, then talk
about how much they suck.

September 11 was a tragic worldwide catastrophe. Although Toyota Motor is a foreign company, the USA is where Toyota flourishes. This is where they make all most of their cash and therefore they should have contributed much more significantly to the cause.

Environment: I don't believe you have all the facts. Sure Toyota
has the hybrid Prius on the market, but it's such a low volume car
that it hardly makes a difference in the marketplace. That's no
surprise since the Prius isn't the most desirable vehicle out there. Meanwhile, Ford Motor is on the brink of launching the
hybrid version of its popular Escape SUV. I'm sure this model will
have much more of a positive environmental impact since it will
sell in larger volumes. Also, take hybrid technology to the next
level and Ford Motor is furiously developed zero emmission, fuel
cell electric vehicles in collaboration with DaimlerChysler and
Ballard Fuel Systems.

While I'm talking about the environment consider the fact that the average FOrd vehicle is more recycleable than the industry average. Focus has been designed to be 85% recyclable. Also, Ford Motor Company and Alcan Inc. have launched the North American automotive industry's first "closed-loop" recycling program for aluminum sheet scrap.

Want more??.. how about this...?? On December 8, 1998, Ford became the first automotive company to voluntarily certify all of its manufacturing plants around the world to ISO 14001, the only internationally recognized environmental management system standard certified by independent auditors. That's 140 plants in 26 countries – and Ford did it in three years!

How does that sound for environment and social responsibility?

Like I said before, I am not here to draw and comparisons to other auto manufacturers - each has their own strengths and weaknesses. My objective is simply to enlighten you with some facts and be proud for the fact that we as Protege owners have a great controlling company a the helm.

David

Ok to al the anti Ford people shut up. This is bullshit. So what Ford owns Mazda, who the hell cares. One more thing if Ford did not take Mazda over there would be NO Mazda. Same for Jaguar. As for Jag their quality was so bad that Ford spent 2 billion just to improve it. Now Ford has Land Rover and Volvo both of witch need to improve quality. Yes the next Protegé will share more Ford parts than it ever has big deal. You’re driving a Jap Ford anyway. Now I’m on my 5th Mazda in a row. And my next car will likely be a Mazda but I will look at the Ford and the Mercury cars before I get anything.

fossil boy

Hi!
Item #1 seems to be a complete contradiction to your stance in earlier posts. Yes, Toyota is a MUCH better product (NOT necessarily company) than Ford.
As a consumer, I am interested in the value and integrity of the items I buy...

2) Wasn't the MR2, GTS, etc exciting. Hybrids are exciting too, though maybe to different mindset than yours. You cannot extend your values, carte blanc, to everyone. Personalities and opinions ought not be one-size-fits-all!

3) Yes, your only "fact" generated it that you are offended by someone's negative opinion of Ford products. Your speculations of "what if" GM etc owned Mazda has no basis whatsoever, and seems to be driven by emotions rather than reason.

4) Ford was reducing legal liability from the impending civil lawsuits from the numerous Firestone/Ford-related blowouts/rollovers. IMO, they are both liable...

5) You've been very condescending to the "less-informed" (i.e. non-Ford) members throughout your posts. Fact: I don't respect this style of debate - it usually signifies some critical weakness in the opponent's logic. BTW, I've owned and driven many Ford vehicles: (from a '65 2 + 2, Maverick, Pinto, '70 Mach 1, F-100, F-150, Bronco, LTD's, etc.) Except for those Early Mustangs and trucks, the rest of the cars do suck! LTD was ok, BUT where's the "excitement" in that? The Truck frames are solid, but honestly, I'd rather have a Tundra than an F-150 or Landcruiser over Expedition (or Landrover)
I Knew Ford owned the controlling interest in Mazda. My purchase of the Protege was delayed by the fact that I had to prove to myself that in NO WAY was this car designed or manufactured by Ford. Sad, but true..

6) 9/11 has nothing to do with anything other than being some emotional, flag-waving attempt of yours at garnering Ford support ("Proud to be American"). Toyota has obligations to its consumers, workers and to stockholders, only. I think it crass that such "generosity" of a corporation is exploited to demonstrate how much Ford cares. Give me a break, this actually seems to be more of a ploy for publicity...

All I can say is that I am not intending to single you out for attack - BUT, that seems to be what you instigated with ProtegeMaster. He doesn't like Ford and has his reasons; he shouldn't be forced into long explanations as to why. I simply don't care whether anyone likes Ford or not - I am not driving their cars. Unfortunately, I don't like any Domestically produced auto...
Next Car: Mini Cooper S! - Does this make me un-American?

ProtegeMaster

In terms of various publications relevant to auto rating, Consumer Reports is the ONLY magazine run by a non-profit organization, Consumers Union. They are not driven by profit nor glory. Their mission is to protect public safety, health, and foster an intelligent, informed community of consumers who know the facts about the products they buy. CU tests products more thoroughly than any other organization, and they publish these results so that we might be able to buy products that we can trust and rely on to be safe, dependable, and of good value. This is an honorable, good cause that helps us live better lives, and I’ve found this intelligent organization of great help in protecting my right (and admitted unswerving insistence) for quality products of all kinds, including cars. I will never accept mediocrity in anything, ever, particularly when we’re talking about large investment commodities like a car.

I bought a Mazda Protégé because I was already aware that Ford had virtually NO involvement in this car’s design and production. I spare nothing in exhaustively researching large investments, and a more thorough evaluation of Protégé’s worthiness I could not have accomplished. Beforehand, I knew where Protégé was built, I knew how it was going to get to the U.S., I knew where it was delivered in port, I knew it’s complete, impressive reliability record (my most important demand in a car), I knew its qualifications in relation to other competitors at the time of my purchase (it was among the top rated cars at the time), and I knew its safety record. I also knew exactly how much it cost the dealer to buy that car from Mazda; not the MSRP or the price that dealers tell you is “the invoice price”—The TRUE cost. I bought my car for 4% over what the dealer paid, and I got everything (except for the color—I preferred silver) I wanted, including side impact airbags; safety being dearly important to me. Despite many of my problems with the Protégé (which is worth a whole other thread I’ve written to before), this Mazda remains absolutely tops in reliability, equal to Toyota, Honda, etc., and is a wise, trustworthy investment for anyone. I applaud those who saw fit to buy a Protégé on this forum-- They made a most intelligent, shrewd choice. That’s why I bought a Pro..

Back to pollution, Ford doesn’t come close to Toyota in terms of pollution control. For starters, Toyota has long specialized in small car sales, and far outsells Ford in that regard. Small cars emit tons less pollution per year than the average mid size passenger sedan, so Toyota wins. Toyota DOES sell SUV’s; even large ones. That’s quite true, but they also sell the Prius, which counteracts the pollution created by Toyota’s larger SUV’s. So do their small car sales. So, as a fleet, Toyota produces less pollution than Ford does, and it always has.

Further, the impact of hybrid vehicles is vastly under appreciated in terms of how much better they are-- It’s a matter of simple arithmetic: Consider that the average passenger car, burning 581 gallons of fuel a year, produces:

77.1 lbs. of hydrocarbons
575 lbs. of Carbon Monoxide
38.2 lbs. of Nitrogen Oxides
11,450 lbs. of Carbon Dioxide
(sourced from U.S. EPA data)

That’s for a single car.

Toyota announced that sales of their Prius hybrid vehicle has now topped 100k vehicles. Let’s use that as a benchmark. That comes to 1,214,030,000 lbs. of pollution for 100,000 vehicles, per year, for the average passenger sedan that Ford sells (notwithstanding the fact that Ford specialized in Trucks and SUVs, which top their sales and produce millions of tons MORE pollution than sedans). But we can keep it simple and assume it’s a Ford sedan. The Prius, alternately, burns about 370 gallons of fuel per year. Using EPA data mathematically across the board yields a Prius emitting 773,134,000 lbs. of pollution per 100k vehicles, per year. 440,896,000 lbs. saved running the Prius. In other words, enormous savings. Naysayers should put the weight of that statistic on their shoulders. It's incredible.

Consider that Ford offers NO hybrid vehicles of any kind, and by the time the beloved Escape hybrid SUV is released the Prius will have already been on the marketplace for 3 years, far outreaching 100k vehicles. By the time Ford gets off their *** and really delivers a hybrid car that’s more efficient, it will be too late, as it already is today. Toyota will have already been there for years, and will also be further on their way to delivering on their intentions to build AN ENTIRE FLEET of hybrid vehicles, not just one (as in, ALL the cars they make will be hybrid. Globally). Ford is already out of the picture in terms of any objective person being able to take them seriously regarding efficiency and complete environmental stewardship. That’s not what Ford does.

More on reliability: For those still doubtful, here are the latest product recalls from Toyota and Ford…

Toyota:

Toyota 4Runner '96-'98
Toyota Camry and Previa '91
Toyota Camry '95-98
Toyota Camry '97
Toyota Corolla without power windows, door locks, and sun roof '93-'94
Toyota Corolla and Geo Prizm '94
Toyota Previa '91
Toyota Tercel '87-'90

Ford:

Ford Aspire '94
Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique '98
Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique '95
Ford F150 light pickup trucks '97
Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique '95-'96
Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique '98
Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique '99-'00
Ford Contour, Mercury Mystique and Cougar '99-'00
Ford Crown Victoria, Lincoln Town Car, and Mercury Grand Marquis '92-'93
Ford Crown Victoria, Lincoln Town Car, and Mercury Grand Marquis '94
Ford Crown Victoria, Lincoln Town Car, and Mercury Grand Marquis '95
Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Grand Marquis '95
Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis, and Lincoln Town Car '95-'96
Ford Escort '93
Ford Escort '95
Ford Escort '91 and Mercury Tracer '91-'92
Ford Escort '92 and Mercury Tracer '91
Ford Escort and Mercury Tracer '92
Ford Escort and Mercury Tracer '94-'95
Ford Escort and Mercury Tracer '95
Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator '99
Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator '97-'00
Ford Focus '01
Ford Focus '00
Ford Focus '00
Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury cars, vans, and sport-utility vehicles '00-01
Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury cars, vans, and sport-utility vehicles '95
Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury (various models) '96-'97
Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln vehicles '01
Ford Mustang with V8 engine '93
Ford Mustang '95
Ford Mustang and Taurus, and Mercury Sable '95
Ford Mustang GT '98
Ford Mustang GT '94
Ford Probe '93
Ford SVT Focus '02
Ford Taurus '96
Ford Taurus and Excursion, and Mercury Sable '00
Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable '93
Ford Taurus, Lincoln Continental, and Mercury Sable '96
Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable '88 and Lincoln Continental '86-'88
Ford Taurus, Mercury Sable, and Lincoln Continental '86-'95
Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable '91 and Ford Explorer '89-'90
Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable '95
Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable '96
Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable sedans and Ford Windstar minivan '96
Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable with antilock brakes '93
Ford Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar '92-'93
Ford Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar with semiautomatic climate-control system '96
Ford Windstar '95-96
Ford Windstar '99-01

That presents a staggering 51-8 differential. Ford cannot, and does not, compete in reliability. That includes the Mustang, which is worse than average in that regard.

And I’m glad the Focus is certified recyclable. Given its dreadful reliability record I consider it scrap metal right off the dealer lot.

kc5zom

Why the hell do people keep trashing Volvo? They made perfectly good cars before Ford bought them. I've known several people that have owned them. And they never had any stupid engine rattles bothering them day in day out (that Mazda is taking forever to fix). The S70 and S80 are real pieces of work. The S80 was one of the first cars with a networked control system installed instead of the usual centralized variants (all this without a larger automaker supporting them? Go on!).

Mustang - I would recommend taking an introductory course in economics. They cover in the first five minutes or so why corporations are just greedy self serving entities.

Protege Master - I would shut up about Consumer Reports until you can prove their data is statistically reliable. Otherwise they are just a BS non-profit organization that doesn't accept advertising. Kind of sad since there is probably some good money in selling their stupid awards. You sound like a damn advertisement when you talk about them.

This seems to have dissolved into a Ford vs. Toyota debate. I just thought it would be funny to compare pre-Renault Nissan with post-Renault Nissan (you know the corrupting influence those big automakers have on smaller corporations).

UCSBgeek

My parents have had a '90 toyota camry and an '88 taurus... 88 taurus, gone after two years (trade in for the camry), camry, still in the garage . That's not to say Ford is bad. It's just that it had all these weird problems that the dealer couldn't seem to fix I don't think any vehicle company really has better "ethics" than another. It's mostly image. For example, right after the EPA announced that they were going to require better pollution control and mileage standards for SUVs, Ford goes out and announces that they plan to develop cleaner SUVs, etc, so it looks like they are doing it out of "ethics." I'm not really bothered by that, that's just how people are.

Oh yeah, 80s volvos rule

Consumer Reports seems to be pretty accurate from what I can tell, coiniciding with my own observations. But sometimes it's just luck of the draw, you can get a really good car, or a lemon, even if they're the same kind.

And I'm kinda bummed out about the Focus quality problems. It looked like a really promising car too.

David

Yes I took one for a test drive last week and that will most likly be my next car too.

stocker

I will put in my opinion FWIW. I owned an 85 ford escort. I got rid of it after it tried to kill me three times. My girlfriend owns/leases a V6 mustang LX, hands down the biggest piece of crap I have ever sat in. Can't even begin to describe how bad the fit and finish is. Toyota, well ask any Mk III supra owner out there about their latest BHG and see if they think Toyota is a caring company.
I work in the auto industry, for me it isn't that I particularily dislike the american companies, it is just that their quality practices scare me.

Stocker.