Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...ty-survey.html

Well, not too surprising based on what I've been reading for the past few months. Looks like Mulally's been too busy accepting awards and the engineers spread too thin coming out with so much new product in the past year or two. Finally caught up with them.

The article says the primary reason for the decline in quality is:
Looks like Ford has a lot of work to do. As bad as Ford's ranking slide is, at least they're higher than Nissan, Land Rover, Scion, MINI, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, and Dodge ...although that's not saying much in my opinion.

Link to full study: http://abcnews.go.com/images/Business/2011089-uiqs.pdf

 

 

I second that hmm.

 

This seems nuts. Are we sure this isn't a result of people just not understanding a complex piece of equipment? I don't see how failure to understand a piece of technology causes a downslide in "quality" of a product.

 

Technology
Reliability

You make the choice.

 

The MyFordTouch system in my wife's 11 Edge works great. No problems after 7 months.

 

I see it all the time here. The problem is that most people want the my ford touch system to do it their way, instead of them doing it the systems way.

The general public is dumb. I literaly had to tell a 40 year old woman the other day that she is using it wrong and to be quiet and listen. She was fighting me saying "but I want to do it this way". Stop whinning, it was not designed to do it that way, listen for a second and learn the correct way.


It drives me nuts hearing a grown man or woman whine like a toddler.

 

Here's the full excerpt:

The decline in vehicle launch quality is evident in a number of areas, most notably the engine/transmission and audio/ entertainment/ navigation categories. There are two primary causes for this quality decline:

 With high fuel prices and more stringent government regulations, automakers are designing engine and transmission software to make their models as economical as possible. However, this sometimes leads to the engine or transmission “hesitating” when accelerating or changing gears, and consumers this year are reporting this as a problem more often than in past years.

 

What does accepting an award have to do with a decline in quality?

 

Well. You guys can always blame the unions. Hahahaha

 

clearly the dealers arn't doing a very good job walking people through the system...you can't blame people not knowing how to use it when it's their dealers responsibility to teach them how.

I didn't need the dealer but i'm in my 20's and have used this type of technology before so it came easy to me....but I could see how someone in their 50's or 60's could be overwhelmed...especially since a lot of them were probably upsold on the technology by the dealer.

 

 

It is coming from Bloomberg

 

Yes, it's the union's fault.

 

It was sarcasm...

 

If one spends too much time accepting awards rather than ensuring your managers are keeping you informed on all the quality issues, that could result in a decline in quality.

I do find it interesting that during the time last year and this year Mulally was accepting various awards on quality and profitability, these issues that are being reported on today were actually occurring.

Maybe awards don't have anything to do with it but it seems this has caught Ford by surprise and I have to wonder why so many problems have slipped out to consumers rather than be caught by testing and internal quality control? Anyone familiar with the 2011+ clutch and MT-82 transmission issues are probably asking the same thing ...

 

Wait until your SYNC goes out of it's mind. It's a dandy feature when it works, but plenty **** frustrating when it doesn't. And when none of the buttons will do anything, it's not a matter of not understanding the technology... it's a matter of it ain't working. I've been fortunate in the Mustang, but I cuss the SYNC in the Taurus probably 9 times out of 10 that I drive it.

 

wrong section

 

I understand how people can be morons, but in the words of Dr. Stephen Covey, we should "make technology (our) slave and not (our) master". One of my pet peeves is how the human element is overlooked in the DESIGN and execution of such technology as we are discussing here.

In the business world I get so tired of IT telling the business what it can and can't do instead of IT serving the business' needs. It's like the tail wagging the dog.

How to operate something like MyTouch should be INTUITIVE & flexible for the vast majority of drivers. Let's face it, it's simply a surrogate in many ways to the manual controls of the past. At least for us old timers.

OK, rant over. I feel better now...

 

Don't blame Ford for MyFord being to complcated. Blame the lazy, ignorant customers that refuse to read the manual on how to operate it.
Sometimes I think the service departments should get to rate the owners on their abilities and have these results posted.