All I'll say is go to you nearest transmission shop and ask the owner how many kids he's put through college due to the Ford AXOD transmissions. Go to google and run a search on "Ford Windstar AXOD" and click on a few links. Ford's been selling known defective vehicles for years.
And just as surely Jamie you must have brown eyes. Anyone that full of it must have brown eyes.
Dave D
Jamie
I don't see that post as "Ford Bashing" in any way. I think it is well known that the tranny in the Windstar/Taurus had issues for several years. I believe they were redesigned in 2001 (AX4 ?), and were much better. I think you can say that a car by company x (particularly one as large as Ford or GM) is bad without "bashing" the whole company. Okay, so the AXO transmission was bad. That doesn't mean that the Toploader, AOD or C4/C6 trannies were bad, right? I often posted about how defective my GMC's fuel injector was. Doesn't mean that all GM trucks were bad. Just the CPI unit on the 94-96 Vortec 4300 engine. (An engine that - despite the FI unit is still running at over 200K.)
Chrysler has trouble too, especially with its A604E transaxle.
Mike would say its OK, because its not Ford. He is a Ford lackey. But he has done more harm than good in the Toyota group for Ford. Fords werent even spoke of here, then he showed up and now we know all about them.
Were it not for MikeHunt's provocation, I would not have coalesced the truth about Ford ownership:
"The ONLY good Ford is a Ford still on Warranty or an old Ford restored"
Unfortunately, Ford DOES make crud across its whole line because of its 5% mandatory cost reduction per year policy that they make their suppliers comply with. 5% a year, every year, reduced cost to Ford. Whomever thought this up is going to destroy the company in a decade.
And it is plainly showing in the last couple of years as rather than be out of business, their suppliers are outsourcing their subcomponets to cheaper sources and while it passes the specs, reliability is far worse. Also, many suppliers have figured out that if it is made/assembled in the U.S., it is considered "domestic" - no matter where the individual circuit boards and plastic and steel and so on comes from.
Afterall, unless the part specifies new high-strength U.S. steel, nobody can tell the difference between recycled stuff from China or Taiwan once it is anodized or electroplated.
5% price reduction a year, mandatory. 1-2% vehicle price increase every year. Not hard to do the math. In a decade, your Escort will cost Ford 40% less and you 20% more. 20K for an Escort than costs Ford 10K to build, anyone? At that point, you'd be better off buying a KIA or Hyundai. At least you get that 10 year warranty.Their business plan seems to be to buy out other companies that make superior vehicles and graft their parts into their other vehicles. All this is going to do is eventually drag all of the Ford brands down to the same shoddy level as they continue to try to cut costs every year.(notable exception with Jaguar) Volvo was the real shame, though. Twice the quality of anything Ford ever made. Now, the 2005s are going to start seeing Ford versions. Ick.
Me? Honda and Toyota don't play this game. Nice quality cars.
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