U.S. market: Toyota is now #2 - too bad, Ford

"Toyota Passes Ford As 2nd-Biggest Auto Seller in US in 2007, Ending Ford's 75-Year Lock"

AP article:

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Reply to
Nomen Nescio
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I don't think the part about Ford being the 2nd biggest Auto Seller in the US for 75 years is true. I think Chrysler (Chrysler + Dodge + Plymouth + DeSoto) actually sold more cars than Ford (Ford + Mercury + Lincoln) in the late 40's (less than 60 years ago). And as usual it depends on what you include in Ford sales. They aren't including Mazda sales in the Ford totals - even though a significant number of Mazda vehicles sold in the US are built by Ford for Mazda (small pick-ups and Tributes) and Ford effectively controls Mazda (even if they don't

100% "own" Mazda).

2007 Toyota US Sales (Toyota + Lexus + Scion) = 2,620,825

2007 Ford US Sales (Ford+Mercury+Lincoln+Volvo+Land Rover+Jaguar) = 2,559,133 2007 Mazda US Sales (Mazda Only) = 296,110 2007 Ford + Mazda = 2,855243 If you assume that 35% of Mazda Sales are really Ford Sales (Ford owns 35+% of Mazda), then I think you could argue that Ford Sales were 2,662,771

If anything, the only manufacturer that truly had a good December was Mazda, their US sales were up by over 25% in December (compared to last year) and they had a 10% gain for the year - better than any other manufacturer in the US. At least something related to Ford is doing something right.

Look at it another way - Ford had virtually no new products for 2007 (unless you want to count renaming the Five Hundred , Freestyle, and Zephyr) and sales decreased by 9%. Toyota had multiple new products (Camry, RAV4, Tundra) and only managed to increase sales by 3% for the year, and actually saw a decline in December.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

Yeah, you sort of expected that from Ford. It's engineering team has been anemic for a long time. The F-series and Mustang are the only real new Fords lately, the rest are mostly Mazdas and Volvos. GM, in its turnaround, can come up with new technologies in their sleep. And then you look at how Ford had to squeeze out a new engine or tranny. Maybe that's why they're all under "new management." ;)

Reply to
johngdole

Why do you hate America?

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

Why does saying Ford is #3 now show that one hates America? Are you suggesting that Americans should put up with second rate cars?

Besides, they build many of their cars in America.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

What do you mean by second rate cars? Many recent buyers surveys show consumer thing some of the vehicle Ford builds are better than those sold by Toyota If you believe if one brand sells more than another they must be better. In that case you must believe GM vehicles are better than those from Toyota since GM sell more in the US.

What he means by hating America, when one buys from a foreign company, that imports most of what they sell in the US then claims they build some in the US when in fact they only assemble some in the US of mostly imported parts and materials. To make maters worse they take away good paying jobs that offer great benefits and replace them with lower paying jobs that offer much less desirable benefits, building cars that cost more then take all of the profits out of the US free of US federal corporate income taxes.

Reply to
Mike hunt

I mean cars that are not as good as the cars made by Toyota and Honda. Having more competition from both overseas and from within the US forces the Michigan 3 to build better cars. And, cars built by Toyota and Honda in the past have been shown to have more long-term reliability than many build by the Michigan-3.

I don't believe that. There are many factors that go into the decision to buy a car. For those who lease cars or trade them in often, long-term reliability is not an issue at all.

Or that Toyota cars are best because Toyota sells more vehicles around the world than anyone else.

Toyota buys $28 billion worth of goods and services in the US.

The pay that workers get for Toyota is similar (although a little less) than what the Michigan-3 workers get. However, Toyota is building plants in the US. The Michigan-3 are closing plants. The big-3 also offer much better pensions, which will be decreased greatly the workers if their pension plans go belly up.

The Toyota subsidies in the US are US corporations that pay state, local and US taxes. Some states and local governments chose to give Toyota tax incentives to move to their jurisdictions, but they would have done the same thing for the Michigan 3, Dell or Google, too.

Reply to
Jeff

Ford quality is inferior, on average, not only for its cars but also its current and former employees, as you've just demonstrated.

That's stupid salesman talk.

And that's stupid drunk talk.

Ford has nobody to blame but itself for its problems.

Reply to
larry moe 'n curly

I was a toy mechanic, and trust me, they are no better. Where I worked they often did unscrupulous things, where the customer never new of a problem.

Reply to
razz

It's funny how everyone just ignores the horrible sludge problems that burned up so many Toyota engines. Then there was the head gasket problems. And Honda has some transmission that has a major defect that they pretend it doesn't have till you twist their arm, otherwise they just tell you it's "normal" and hope you'll go away till the warranty expires. And there is the Isuzu that cloged it's hydraulic lifters if you didn't use synthetic oil in it but of course they don't tell you that till after you complain about the noise. There isn't a dime's worth of difference in the reliability of Ford's and Chevy's compared to the "imports". For some reason it's fashionable to knock American cars now days no matter what the facts are. People who get

250K miles from the American car somehow aren't satisfied and still go buy an import due to the constant negative BS about American cars.

It probably wouldn't frost my balls so much if I didn't see how our fleet of thousands of American vehicles performs. They just roll up the miles yet get no respect.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

Except that Toyotas and Hondas last longer, on average, than those from the Michigan 3. At least those that have been on the road long enough for us to know.

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Except that it's not BS.

There's no doubt that cars from the Michigan 3 last longer than they used to and their quality has greatly improved. So has the quality of the imports. Toyota really worked hard in 2007 to decrease the number of recalls last year.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

I know that, but odds are that if I buy a Toyota I won't need the dealer as much as if I buy a Ford. Also the Toyota and Nissan dealers around here seem to take problems more seriously and not dismiss everything as being "normal", as the Ford dealer that rated 7th best in the US does.

Reply to
larry moe 'n curly

That survey has nothing to do with how long a vehicle lasts. It surveys an owner to determine how many problems they have with a three year old car. The average three year old Ford had 2.21 problems, the average 3 year old Toyota had 1.8 problems. If you round them both off to the nearest problem, they both had 2 problems......Not a significant difference.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

That's 25% fewer problems.

I would consider that significant.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

Well since JD Powers didn't give us a margin of error on the statistics, it might be that there is no actual difference. Then again your math is not to good either. You could say a Ford has 23% more problems than a Toyota, or that a Toyota has 19% fewer problems than a Ford - but no where can I get a 25% difference....

At any rate using percentage in this manner is the sort of clever disinformation that Toyota likes to use. Saying that the average 3 year old Toyota owner has 25% fewer problems is misleading if not downright dishonest. The old saying - "Figures don't lie, but liars figure" - seems appropriate in this case. You can make a case that the average Toyota owner had ..maybe...one fewer problem than the average Ford owner, but that is about all. You don't even have any comparison of the cost of the problems. It might be that the three year old Ford owner had three problems that cost nothing, while the three year old Toyota owner had 2 problems that cost $5k dollars (even if covered by warranty). I think the only thing you can draw from that particular JD Powers press release is that most three years old cars from the volume manufacturers have very few problems. Did you notice that 3 year old Scions (a Toyota after all) had essentially the same number of problems as 3 year old Fords? And how do you explain that three year old Mercuys had fewer problems than three year old Toyotas (6 % fewer problems..). Mercurys are just rebadged Fords. Why would they be so much more reliable?

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

I haven't looked at JD Powers surveys, but Consumer Reports rarely shows much difference among rebadged cars from the same manufacturer. Also CR shows Scions to be more reliable than Fords of the same ages.

Reply to
larry moe 'n curly

I was rounding to 25% from 23%.

Reply to
Jeff

But you didn't like me rounding 1.8 to 2 and 2.41 to 2? It is not legitimate to round from 23% to 25% - you didn't change the number of significant digits. You could have rounded to 20%, but in that case you should have rounded the underlying data, and the percentage difference would have been 0%.

At any rate, please except my apology. I thought you were trying to make the claim that Toyotas were significantly more reliable than Fords. Clearly they are not - at least based on the information provided by that particular JD Powers press release. There is no way that press release could justify the claim that "that Toyotas and Hondas last longer, on average, than those from the Michigan 3." If someone really wanted to make that claim, they would need to get the RL Polk registration data and adjust it for location, age of purchaser, usage, maintenance, etc., etc., etc. Probably a task that cannot be done without a major statistical effort and a lot of additional data gathering. I suspect car manufacturers have enough information that they can make a good guess at the relative reliability adjusted for all the pertinent variables, but they aren't sharing that information. About the closest we get is that both Chevrolet and Dodge have recently claimed that they build the longest lasting, most reliable trucks (based on RL Polk Data). I once wrote Chevrolet asking for the basis of the claim and got nothing back. Without some sort of supporting data, it is a meaningless claim.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

That is the case now, but it wasn't always the case. I believe CR got wise and now blends the data for badge engineered cars.

Which Scions and which Fords. But honestly, any short comings for the JD Power results are trivial compared to the completely unscientific CR survey. I feel bad just using the term "survey" when describing the CR popularity contest.

CR reliability ratings Scion tC - very good Scion xB - very good Ford Crown Victoria - very good Ford Fusion - very good All the other Ford cars are rated average. Hard to know if there is much of a statistical difference between average and very good.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

Yet, there may be problems more common to one brand vs. another. For example, there may be problems that show up more only in the 4-cylinder Atkinson engines that are available only in Ford Escapes and Mercury Mariners, so the Mazda Tribute might be affected less often than the Mercury Mariner and Ford Escape, affecting the numbers of these three vehicles.

In addition, owners of brand may have different tolerances of different things failing. For example, buyers of Mercuries might be bothered more by the recall of the heater blower resistor that had to be replaced in my Ford Contour, so Mercury Mystique owners might be more likely to report blower resistors that had to be replaced under recall as a problem than Ford Contour owners.

So even sister vehicles might have different problem records because of different hardware or different perceptions of what is expected.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

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