I thought I saw a 2012 and 2013 Boss 302s for sale about six months ago semi locally, trans said made in China, geez, that sucks, why not tremec. I thought it said on car window sticker engine is made in USA. I thought they were made / assembled in Canada. Somebody told me that the boss 302 is mostly made of USA made parts, therefore says made in USA but apparently put together in Canada? Confusing. I believe that at least motor should be made in USA. Common Ford. Should the so called crappy Chinese made tranny steer me away from this car? Ger.

 

Old news. Its a Getrag transmission since 2011. Made in China to Getrag & Ford specs. Tremec is made in Mexico to Ford specs. Many auto makers and parts manufacturers use foreign plants. Where have you been? Welcome to the global economy.

 

Wow, harsh-sounding response...a lot of the parts in our cars are USA made, but don't be surprised when you see foreign parts sprinkled thru out.

 

I was direct because of his dis on Ford - as if they are the only manufacturer that does partial outsourcing. People weren't happy about Tremec/Mexico at first either - and Tremec had its share of problems at first also if you remember...
The global economy has been pushed on us whether we like it or not. It is hardly a "Common Ford" problem.
Hell my Chrysler winter car was made in Mexico with just 40% US/Canada parts. And what about GM cars?
A major benefit of the Getrag deal is it allowed Ford to setup shop in China and get some profits back from them.

 

Need clarification regarding the Boss Engine. Are they made / assembled in the USA or Canada, metal formed here, USA or Canada. Read a window sticker some about half a year ago I swear it said engine made in USA. The 5.0 engines in the GT are made in Canada. Just want clarification. Ger.

 

I am thinking if 100% of the boss was made and assembled in the USA it would cost about $85,000.

 

Boss motors are made here, and then shipped to Flat Rock plant in Michigan;

http://rumors.automobilemag.com/cana...#axzz2iXSpjj9w

 

I see...
Yeah I knew the rest had foreign made parts (which is normal) but I was under the impression each Boss motor was built locally. I can live with Canada building it though. lol

It would have been cool to say that it was built all in house.
Aren't the GT500 motors that way?

 

All Boss engines were assembled at the Essex Engine Plant in Ontario, Canada.

 

Yes, Boss engines are assembled at Essex, & the GT-500 engine is assembled at the Romeo MI, Engine Plant on a hand build line. Both Romeo and Essex plants, machine the 5.0L Blocks. Not sure if they share those over the border or not, but they could since the 5.0L goes in F-150's also. The Boss Heads are sent out to a tier supplier for CNC Porting and returned for final assembly. Ford now has a partner in China that makes, or will be making a Automatic 6-speed FWD trans (all Ford design) for use over there. The 6-speed is simiar to the 6-speed made in the Van Dyke (Sterling Hgts., MI) transmission plant.

 

I work for a manufacturer with plants in the US, Mexico, Singapore, China, the EU, etc.- and used to be in charge of market quality (which involves measuring production quality from the various plants).

From a quality perspective, you can get pretty much equivalent quality from any region- the key (as usual) is process control. When a manufacturer installs a plant in a region with low labor costs, a choice is made to either control quality via process control- OR to control quality through inspection (plant ships 100 parts, 20 are rejected, and the 80% yield is still deemed to be cost-acceptable). The problem with the second method is you NEVER catch all the non-conforming parts (so you have to make a decision to accept the financial consequences of replacing the parts down the road).

If the plant has a quality process with quality process control- it doesn't matter how much the laborer is being paid. (In fact, its easier to get process control from a workforce where a line worker can easily be terminated/replaced.)

Usually, a plant in Latin America or Asia will have low yields at first (the workers have to learn the process, and the importance of following the process has to be appropriately reinforced). Assuming good management (i.e., one that institutes process control), the quality then comes up.

The scary thing about manufacturing in China is, they insist upon the manufacturer revealing ALL the details of the manufacturing process and technology. Oftentimes, it only takes a few years until a Chinese-based manufacturer is producing incredibly similar (aka, patent-infringing knock-off) parts. The US government did virtually nothing about this under the Clinton admin- and hasn't improved much since.

Anyway, I don't worry too much about where parts are produced or assembled- as long as the company managing the plant has a good track record for process control (and Ford seems to do a fairly good job of that in their overseas plants).

BTW, if you really want American-made eyeglass lenses, tell your optician you want lenses made of polycarbonate (its the only lens material where production is almost solely US-based).

 

I heard our air quality is improving in the U.S., as quite a few of our factories are shut down due to overseas labor being cheaper.

No secret; we just don't seem to care about this anymore.

 

Great post Varilux! Very insightful.

The labor being Chinese or whatever country is irrelevant. Like he says, it's about the purchaser (the company ordering X of their widgets built to their design) and the quality they demand. Case in point is Apple stuff. Almost entirely assembled in China and has unparalleled build quality in the tech world.

Conversely, any shmoe can draw up a schematic and shoddy case, order 20,000 of them from the lowest bidder and get back 10,000 partially working or barely conforming units from the lot. Still made in China, but vastly different demands from the manufacturer.

Unfortunately, it's the latter scenario that most imported "things" in American fall under and thusly gives it all a taint.