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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

Back in the nineties Ford ran a lot of ads about how quality was job one. But in the last twenty years their quality declined by a large amount at the same time other brands were getting better. I say that as a lifelong fan of Ford, quality was why I left the brand two years ago.

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I think this may be a US thing. Fords built in Europe are pretty decent. Reliable (compared with most other makes), cheap parts and ubiquitous servicing. I've bought Fords (in the UK) for about the last 20 years and have in the main been very satisfied.

Putting timing belts in oil was quite a bad idea from them though.

Ouch, did not expect to get triggered by this on HN

- Peugeot 2008 owner but not much longer

That's fair. Got stung by that a couple of years ago. Fortunately there are plenty of models without that.

Fords have a really bad name in Australia. The cheapest Hyundai will outlast even a high end Ford.

But in terms of reliability, here Toyota is king

Ford is not as protected from competition in Europe.

It's impressive all the recall notices I get on my 2020 Escape Hybrid. At this point I joke with my friends that they're love-letters from Ford.

(most of them are for fairly innocuous stuff...)

And yet all the time you spend performing those recalls should be annoying. Maybe you don't plan to eventually sell your car on the second hand market but if you do, a car without all the required recalls could have a lower value than one with all the recalls applied.

eh, every 6 months to a year I bring the car in to the dealer to handle the stack of pending recalls, during which I get a rental, courtesy of Ford. It's not much of a deal for me.

Few of the issues I've experienced with the car were clearly tied to quality issues: 1) Battery died a few times, but maybe that was user error 2) squirrels/rats nibbled the engine cable harness, a not-uncommon occurrence in our area. Only 3) auto-unlock on passenger side being unreliable is clearly a quality/design issue.

Honestly, I actually love the Escape. The pedal feel is very responsive in all driving modes, compared in particular to the 2020 Hybrid Rav4, which felt like driving a boat (maybe I didn't find the drive mode?), or the 2020 VW Tiguan which had a shockingly slow automatic transmission for an ostensibly "sporty" vehicle. And I'm not even a car guy. I also love its actual buttons on the dashboard, instead of the idiotic "everything on a huge touchscreen" that too many cars do nowadays.

> every 6 months to a year I bring the car in to the dealer to handle the stack of pending recalls

The fact that you find this acceptable is amazing to me.

Sounds like a complete failure of quality control.

Cars here are inspected yearly anyway or you go change winter tires for summer tires. (Because we lack the place to store them in typical houses.) So you are at the garage anyway every 6 months to 12. Then they can also do the other stuff

Still enjoying my 05 Focus, in which I have done zero recalls, although I did have to fix the persistent trunk leaks with bathroom sealant.

(As a non American) I remember hearing a joke that goes something like “How do you fix a Chevrolette? Buy a Ford”, but nowadays I guess a bike is a better option

Or more realistically a Toyota, and their numbers are reflecting this.

Which numbers are those? Their sales numbers or their numbers of vehicle recalls due to defective engine manufacturing?

They destroyed their heavier truck reputation with this new Tundra unfortunately

what's wrong with it?

The new Tundra TTV6 had a manufacturing process defect that allowed shavings to get into the engine bearings, which causes catastrophic engine failure.

They still don't have a solution to the problem. The shavings amount/size is supposedly common among all engine manufacturing processes, but the new engine design has such tight tolerances that it's now problematic.

Appreciate my 2UZ-FE more every year.

Fix Or Repair Daily

Found On Road Dead

Faulty Obsolete Ruinous Decline

There is also the ‘joke’ - What does Ford stand for? Fix Or Repair Daily.

None of the US automakers have good quality reputations. If you want something that works reliably, get a Toyota.

Ebbs and flows with these companies. If you got used to driving in the 70s then the FORD meme was “Fix Or Repair Daily”.

The other classic one is, “What’s Ford backwards? Driver Returns On Foot.”

Fix or replace daily. Fixing and repairing are the same. ;)

If a company is saying “X is job one” it’s because they suck at X. They sucked at quality. They still suck at quality.

Actually in the latest J.D. Power initial quality ratings they took a big step up in quality. I think it was the first time in 15-20 years that they were on the list of recommended major brands.

https://archive.is/VcL8c

JD power is pay to play. Ford just kicked in more money this year.

I'm very skeptical of the initial quality studies. No idea how well predict long term (or even 5 year) quality.

The same Ford whose bean counters caused them decades of reputational damage over skimping on rust protection? Seems like they haven't learned any lessons at all.

Really? Ford’s quality in the last half of the 1990s was the poster child of cheap, vac-form plastics.

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