Adios Mr. Nasser, Don't let the door hit you in the butt...

[Guest Anonymous]

You guys see the news today? Mr. Nasser has been replaced by a Ford family member.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/30/business/30CND-FORD.html?ex=1005109200&en=4a423fd2d37bc4b5&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA

 

Cheers,

 

Lone

[blueovalz]

What will really PMO is if he gets some kind of golden parachute (not sure if this is the correct application) of megabucks because he didn't do his job right.

[Guest Anonymous]

Yeah, I agree with you Terry, I've seen it done many times. A CEO at the corp I used to work for sent the outgoing CEO out with millions in stock (which he dumped and sent the stock price in the toilet). Poor fellow, he retired to his 5000 acre ranch in Texas, those that had seen his spread said he created a western town basically for his house and guest houses. The new guy that replaced him is a engaging speaker and a hell of a salesman, but its all motivational lip action basically, the guy is a bottom liner and when profits drop, he just lays off 10's of thousands.. Every quarter now, they go through restructuring (thinning of older employee's and dead weight) and go a new direction, no wonder it never works, they never give it time to.

 

Regards,

 

Lone

[pparaska]

Very sad IMO that nothing in that article said they would try to build cars that people want to buy. Ford's market share dwindles and all they can do is worry about finances and other "essentials". If you don't build decent quality autos that excite people, you won't out sell the next guy. Daimler Chrysler seems to have learned this, and it looks like Lutz may have a hand at bringing decent products to fruition at GM.

 

Unless the Ford dude understands what makes people want to buy, he'll not fare well. Let's hope - doesn't seem to be much of a car guy to me - just an evironmentalist/accountant type.

[TimZ]

Hey - I still work there...

 

I have to say that there were many smiling faces at work today.

 

Actually, there are quite a few car guys there - the guy that did the majority of the suspension tuning on the Lightning is a friend of mine, and he has two Z's.

 

At least I have the comfort of knowing that several of Nasser's lieutenants are getting the boot, too, and their replacements will have to try pretty hard to be worse...

[Guest Anonymous]

Might want to read Brock Yates over at Speedvision.com for a differant point of view. Getting rid of Nasser isn't good news for those of us who choose to spend our surplus income on Ford stuff.

 

Mr. Ford is a huge environmentalist. As Mr. Yates says, "Gore like." Not good, IMHO.

 

Probably was inevitable, but we are the likely losers here.

 

GrinZ

[pparaska]

quote:

---

Originally posted by GrinZ:

Mr. Ford is a huge environmentalist. As Mr. Yates says, "Gore like." Not good, IMHO.

---

 

Oh boy... "Gore like" REALLY bothers me. If that means he makes up his own "environmental science", FoMoCo is in big trouble. Although I do wish someone would push the fuel cell technology along a bit more.

[Guest Anonymous]

i just heard about Mr. nasser getting the boot this afternoon, weve been going through a lot of re-structuring here to.

Its interesting to hear your opinions on ford needing to build cars that the consumer want, the same comments have been ecoed many a time on our side of the world to!.

I think that Ford Australia may have heard the complaints and are making a real effort to win back customer loyalty, the current line up are way ahead of where they were 5 years ago, and they are leading against GMH in the ute (pickup) market. they have just re-released the F series pickup here to. (its been over a decade).

[Ray]

In my job I see alot of Fords. I am responsible for the ford rail car traffic into Houston. The lastest fisaco involved the new Tbird. The cars showed up only to be held on the ground for 20 days then sent back to the factory for retrofit... It seems the battery is in the trunk and the hot cable runs behind the bumper... Also the wiring harness in the dash was shorting out for some unexplained reason. All this and they only put the 3.9 motor in it. they wern't that fast.... then there are the Mustang Cobras, great car, really poor build quality... Then there is the great Powerstroke deisel... Rod berrings at 150k at the least.. Most of them if they are worked really hard need a total rebuild before 200k...

 

Now that I have slammed the ones I dont like.. I actually like the Taurus, they are a decent car for the money. We have several of them here at work and they seem to do real well... the Expedition's are ok just make sure you get one with a 5.4 the 4.6 is really gutless.. The Superduty's in F450 and F550 are really nice with a 6 speed (if they just had a better deisel)...

 

I will still spend my money on GM or Toyota.. I just like the way they build things.. I want proven well developed products.. My 97 Toyota Land Cruiser doesn't have alot of the OHH Ahh stuff the Ford SUV's have but it will still be running at 300k with very little problems....I have yet to see a Ford that will do that...IMHO...

 

[ October 31, 2001: Message edited by: Ray ]

[jeromio]

I hadn't heard of any reliability issues with the PowerStroke. I've been planning (well, long term planning, those suckers are crazy expensive) to put one in my Travelall.

 

They're actually made by International (Navistar).

 

Nasser's problem was that he was too enamored of "the deal". He wanted to spend lots of money buying up other companies. The bard approved many of his deals (Volvo for instance), but balked at others (Nissan and that one Korean company, Daewoo?). He had what my grandmother calls "short people syndrome" - you know, like Napolean. An intense need to make up for a lack of height with a big ego and over-aggressiveness. He didn't appoint a COO, for instance - wanted to do everything himself.

 

I don't have too much confidence in Bill Clay (Ford). I mean, I don't think he's gonna necessarily screw things up, I just don't think he has a passion for either cars or business.

 

Ford was doing beautifully before last year. Huge profit margins thanks to trucks and SUVs. They don't make any money on the Taurus and they basically lose money on the smaller cars.

 

Took alot of screwing up this past year to get them to where they are now which is pretty much in the red.

[Guest Anonymous]

My last Ford experience (and I'm a car guy, not just a chevy guy, this isn't a Ford bashing, but a observation.) was a Tempo which as most know, and I do for sure, was a POS out of the gate. With the exception of the electrical and transmission, everything else was either falling off, or failing prematurely.

 

What really got my attention though, was trips to the dealer. Every time (and I really do mean every time) I went there, there was (I'm not exaggerating at all) 25 cars deep in the line to sign in cars. Comparing this to my other Japanese/German cars I've owned, lets see, the average line up of cars awaiting service in the morning at Mazda was maybe 4 or 5 cars, Isuzu, 4 or 5 cars, Honda maybe 6-8 cars and many of the honda's were just oil changes, BMW 2-3 cars maybe and VW maybe 3-4 cars.

 

Granted I was'nt at the dealers watching how many cars came later, but the numbers do tell me something. GM, I'm not sure really as the last one I looked at was a LT1 Camaro but didn't buy it. My brother had a V6 Camaro that was really crap. The interior pieces fell off, the window track failed twice, electrical problems and the transmission died at 75 thousand miles.

 

I would love to buy American and help support things in my own country but until they show me that I'm not blowing our hard earned money on a POS then I'll continue buying Japaneses/German cars.

 

Regards,

 

Lone

[pparaska]

Lone, a few years ago, I bought my second ever new car and my first Ford - a 1999 Contour V6 5spd Sport. $15K out the door, a few options, and it handles and accelerates decently for a car of that price or higher. Quality hasnt' been a problem yet. Of course, these didn't sell well, as people that buy Fords don't like them to be tightly sprung, I guess, plus they're a bit small on the inside for a 4 dr sedan.

 

I'm definitely not partial to new GM cars either. Although I started with 2 Chevy's (70 Camaro, 68 NOva), then a Dodge (Dart 6cyl.), then an Olds (76 Cutlass), then the 240Z. You don't see any Fords in that list.

 

My Mitsu Eclipse GSX (92) went to the dealers 6 or 7 times for transmission rebuilds, replacements, etc. before they put a 94 trans in it and it now works well. Just pointing out that even Japanese cars have quality problems. That's a Japanese built engine and transmission in that car too, not made in USA.

 

Hopefully the replacements at Ford and Lutz at GM will shake some spirit and excitement into the designs and styling! Nissan lost the boat on styling for a long time, although I like the new Altima.

[Guest Anonymous]

I think in general, build-quality and durability of cars nowadays just can't compare to cars built 10, 20, 30 years ago. For example, Toyota has a reputation for building the most reliable, longest-lasting cars ie (the older Corolla, camry, first gen LS400, supras, etc.) but recently, a friend of mine who works at a Toyota dealership has seen more and more cars come in for repairs. One of the cars that he bashed was the newer Camry citing numerous problems with the quality of the drivetrain as opposed to the early 90's Camry.

 

But then again, todays cars come with so many features and the motors have such precise-tolerances that they can only last for so long. I hope Mr. Ford helps the company rebuild it's image not just by forging stronger and closer relationships with dealers and customers but by actually building better cars. There's always the compromise of building cars people want to buy and building cars the company wants to make but I hope Ford finds that equilibrium. Same applies for GM. It's really unfortunate that the F-Body's will become an extinct breed and I hope the General develops a favorable replacement.

 

As for Nissan, Ghosn has been doing a pretty good job so far since his takeover. Nissan's superb 3.5L V6 is fast becoming its universal engine and the company is finding ways to use the same platform for many of its cars. The Infiniti line is also beginning to see a facelift and even though the Infiniti line has been handed its ass by Lexus it is beginning to see a resurgence. I guess the only problem Nissan really had was it's identity crisis. When they first launched the Infiniti line, their cars had gusto and when they didn't sell Nissan decided to conform as Lexus did and it didn't work. In short, with their new lineup, Nissan's future looks bright very bright indeed. For it's price, the new Altima is one helluva car. A Sport Compact Car editor praised the car's performance and said that it was cheaper than 5 of the cars they had on their annual "Ten Best under 30K" list and had performance numbers that were better than every car in every category except 1/4 mile time (14.3 vs. 13.9 WRX), braking to the new Celica and lateral grip to the Miata. That's saying a lot, for 22k you get a car that has performance numbers identical to the previous gen M3 (the Altima was actually faster in 0-60MPH) with more space than the IS300, Civics and A4. Not a bad deal to me...