Ford cannot compete with MB, BMW or Audi. These are all premium vehicles. Ford does not make premium vehicles, nor would their definition of premium ever come close to the standards of audi, mercedes etc.

Ford makes cars for the average person who wants some bang for their buck.
Ford will never be able to compete with mercedes and audi with regards to technology, innovation, quality and craftsmanship.
Ford makes money by cutting corners, audi and mercedes sell cars on the premise that they do not cut corners.

Ill never forget when i went to the mercedes dealer (I have a GLK 350). A salesman came over to me. He must have weighed at least 350lbs and was around 6 feet tall. He opened the door of a mercedes E class, rolled down the window, then with the door wide open and window down he STOOD ontop of the door where the window comes in and out using his full body weight. He then bounced up and down repeatedly. Then he jumped off and proceeded to close the door with a slight tap of one finger. Try doing that with a GM or chrysler or Kia he said.

Anyways, my point being... Ford cuts corners, their factories dont even have the potential to build a premium vehicle when the materials they draft are not even suited for such applications. Thats their whole business plan, order materials which look half decent then charge as if they were actually decent.
Ford and MB have totally different market characteristics and business strategies. Ford has pregnant, teenage drug addicted mothers from Detroit working in their factories building cars under full government benefits. Why? These people will work for nothing most of the time. Then people act surprised when their dash clusters dont line up, or when their interior trim is crooked. Audi has formally educated and trained specialists (most of which are real mechanics and engineers) building their vehicles. God forbid one of them affixed a piece of trim 1mm out of alignment... he would probably be shot at dawn and his whole family disowned by the union of Germany.

Audi, Mercedes, BMW = Make premium cars using high quality materials and good craftsmanship with the help of exceptional staff. Sell less cars but charge more money per car.

Ford, GM, Chrysler = Make average cars, with poor materials, and lousy crafstmanship with the help of unexceptional staff. Sell more cars but charge less money per car.

 

^^^^^ EXACTLY! ^^^^^

That's why the "muscle car" niche works so well for Ford, GM, and Dodge! The whole concept of a muscle car is to put a big engine in an otherwise "non-frilly" automobile.

Now, if you wanted to create a two-door sporty Lincoln, then maybe (Cadillac is making in-roads into the sports market).

 

If I wanted a car that a fat man could stand on I'd buy an F150.

 

Let me just say id never pay 80k for a Cadillac when for that money you can have an AMG Mercedes.

Anybody that chooses GM over Mercedes i feel probably has... as Borat would say... "very funny retardation". LOL

 

If he did that on an f150 he would bend the hinge and the door would no longer close properly. I promise you that.

 

My only question is how did the fat guy get up there, was a stepping stool involved?

 

Maybe he stepped on the great premium Mercedes . . . a CLA, or it was also an Audi dealer and he stepped on a Golf . . . err A3?

The great German 3 do manufacturer some superb automobiles, but their entire lines aren't premium.

 

I'm confident that if Ford's business plan was to produce quality workmanship cars such as BMW, Audi, Infinity, etc they would succeed. That's not the market Ford goes after. Not everybody can afford high end cars that you speak of. Many people just need a 25-30k car to get them back and forth to work.

 

LOL he stepped on the inside of the passenger side first, then put his foot up on the door.

Very true. LOL dont mention the CLA, my old man is going to look at one

Infinity is not premium.

Let me rephrase that...

They could never sell that garbage in europe.

LOL

 

Thanks for that, just one problem.

Aside from Mercedes Benz, GM and Ford scored better than the European brands in long term reliability. So much for the "premium brands."

http://autos.jdpower.com/ratings/dep...ss-release.htm

 

I don't think he was talking about reliability of long term. I'm thinking he meant craftsmanship of the little details to the car. The premium interior products used by Mercadees, BMW, Audi.

 

That's all fine and dandy but if the car is problem prone it's not really worth all that extra money is it? So go ahead, pay 50 grand for the fancy Audi with the "fine quality materials". I hope he's proud of it as it takes more trips to the dealership to get things fixed than my poorly built Ford lol. There's more to being a "premium vehicle" than just fancy interiors and "quality materials".

 

Well to add fuel I will say my 5 series was purchased used in 2009 and now has 140k+ with only one necessary trip to the shop for a bad coil.

 

That is good. By comparison my year old Mustang has never been back to the dealership for a single issue. So far so good.

 

Well yes I could say that my 92 fox me being the original owner has never been to a dealership either.

But me myself and I have necessarily replaced the radiator, fuel pump, water pump, thermostat, etc.

But I get what you're saying.

 

Rofl!!!

 

On a similar note to that I plan to replace certain things before they have a chance to fail. The water pump for instance. I'll just replace it before it goes out. Same with the fuel pump, battery, timing chain, hoses, etc etc. Less down time that way.

 

Whoa whoa guys. I don't look at my thread for a day and now you guys are talking about build quality of euro cars proven by fat guys standing on doors? Wtf. Lol

Back to topic please.

Particularly, what folks think of the S550 they've test driven, as it compares to the S197s they have.

 

That's normal. Most topics by the third page have been pretty well hashed out and then deviate to something else. It's nothing personal, it's just how threads normally progress.

On topic, however, I have driven the ecoboost Mustang and I thought it did pretty well but you have to buy the premium package to get the real performance. I still am not a fan of the front end and thus would likely not buy one.