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Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

As an American, I recognize that the Ford cars popular across the pond are a very, very different set of vehicles than the Ford trucks popular around here.

The Ford Focus (including the RS version) is popular in Europe. However, as an owner of such a car, I only get raised eyebrows around here.

In contrast, F150 / Trucks / etc. etc. are "real Ford Cars". No one trusts Ford Sedans over here for some reason, despite their popularity in Europe (which is why Ford stopped selling Sedans in the USA, and are instead opting for a $20k truck: the Maverick, over continuing their efficient line of sedans)

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I don't think the problem with sedans was trust, so much as they were being outsold by SUVs and crossovers to the point it didn't make sense for Ford to keep making them.

I'm still upset they cut the Focus/Fiesta ST models. You will have to pry mine from my cold dead fingers :-)

> which is why Ford stopped selling Sedans in the USA

More accurately, sedans from any manufacturer have been in steady decline for years. So only the biggest names are still selling enough to justify continued development. Everyone else is switching to CUVs because that's what customers want today. Can't blame them, typical CUVs now have basically the same fuel efficiency as a sedan but a little more utility and a bit easier to live with (slide in/out without up/down).

I think CUVs are getting better gas mileage as a result of the competitiveness of the market, but I don’t think CUV buyers really care about gas mileage. They were selling well before they got good gas mileage, and SUVs sold good in the US too with abysmal gas mileage. Hybrid sedans still blow any CUV out of the water on MPGs, and are often cheaper than non-hybrid CUV counterparts.

People just like the configuration.

Agree with this broadly, but also CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards in the US mean that it likely was not possible for Ford to eliminate sedans before CUV fuel economy increased to a comparable point.

(I work at Ford, but in a role that doesn’t give me insight into internal vehicle program strategy.)

Some of that is just bouncing back from how low sedans became. A Ford land boat from the late 60’s and early 70’s didn’t require much getting up/down either.

> The Ford Focus (including the RS version) is popular in Europe. However, as an owner of such a car, I only get raised eyebrows around here

Really? I own a 2017 Ford Focus RS in the states and I get a lot of compliments on my car. Most people don't even realize its a focus.

At least in my area, everyone recognizes the blue oval. Most people I talk to about my car is of the "Why did you get a Ford Sedan??" opinion.

Ford makes good trucks, but not good sedans. That's their reputation. That's where most conversations go. People ask me about maintenance issues and are surprised that I've only had to change the oil, brake pads, and windshield wipers and tires. People seem to think that Ford sedans fall apart if you look at them funny.

My hunch is the memory of bad American sedans from the late 90s to early 2000s has either stuck around longer. I think now much less of a difference now but back in the day recall seeing more Sentra/Civic/Corollas on the road into old age than domestics.

I think recently it's been a bit of a chicken and the egg problem for ford and sedans, they don't sell enough volume to justify redesigns and they aren't redesigned so they're not (at least perceived as) terribly competitive.

It’s far older than that. The reputation existed since at least the Pinto fires.

Ironically though Ford would go on to do pretty much the same with the Explorer's tires and the fiesta/focus' transmission[1] but as I understand the Pinto was pretty much typical for compact cars of the era (they were all death traps) and the data used in the Mother Jones/60 Minutes exposes was inaccurate.

"Perhaps the most illuminating data comes from NHTSA fatality rates per million vehicles for 1975 and 1976. In the published chart, the Pinto is responsible for 298 deaths per million cars in 1975, making it on par with the Chevrolet Vega (288) and Datsun 510 (294), but considerably safer than the Datsun 1200/210 (392), the Toyota Corolla (333) and the VW Beetle (378). In 1976, the Pinto’s 322 deaths per million cars was slightly higher than the Chevrolet Vega (310) and AMC Gremlin (315), but better than the Datsun 510 (340), the Datsun 1200/210 (418) and the VW Beetle (370)."[2]

[1]https://www.freep.com/in-depth/money/cars/ford/2019/12/05/fo...

[2]https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2017/10/17/misunderstood-ca... citing [3]http://www.perishablepundit.com/docs/The_Myth_of_the_Ford_Pi...

People judge by how many older cars are still on the road. I see Tauruses on occasion, but not as often as I see Accords and Camrys.

>No one trusts Ford Sedans over here for some reason

From my personal observation: poor maintenance and safety ratings compared to alts. Driving is dangerous in America and you have to have a car to participate economically in most of the country. Also, the used market here is huge and not a lot of 90s/2000s Ford sedans made it this far.

Anyone who knows better, feel free to correct.

> poor maintenance and safety ratings compared to alts

Ford Focus beat the pants off of Honda Fit, roughly in the same category of weight (though the Honda Fit is quite a bit cheaper MSRP, the Ford Focus was frequently on sale at quite low prices).

But people _believe_ the Honda Fit has superior maintenance and safety ratings. So that's that. Reputation is more important than facts.

What? The Focus is a compact car and competes with the Civic. They've traded rankings over the years, but the Focus isn't a clear winner. The Fit is in a different class (a subcompact that competed with the Ford Fiesta), and in any case, I was thinking of the Corolla - which is far-and-away better-rated - and of larger sedans.

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