My gripes with Ford Motor Co

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I have owned Ford, Toyota, and Gm cars and trucks most of my life. They all have good and bad about them. Of late, I have turned to the blue oval for many reasons.

My gripes with Ford is their fake gauges and no OLM. I love the GM OLM. Why cant Ford do this? Is it a patent or something they cant copy? To me, the OLM is a break through in technology. Its proven reliable with most any brand of motor oil. It saves time and money.

Second, Ford puts in idiot lights for gauges. That is just STUPID! I hate them! I still have a gm truck and love the realistic readings. I hate a lot of things about this truck but why cant Ford do the same?

I really think Ford is on the right track these days overall and these are minor gripes but they drive me crazy. What are your thoughts?
 
On the gauge issue, unless it is a mechanical gauge, it's just an idiot light with a needle (referring to oil pressure here).

Was unaware that OLM was not available of any Ford products.
 
Originally Posted By: Johnny
On the gauge issue, unless it is a mechanical gauge, it's just an idiot light with a needle (referring to oil pressure here).

Was unaware that OLM was not available of any Ford products.


Gm gauges are real. Maybe not accurate to the tee but they are real. Fords are fake and are nothing but idiot lights. I hate them. The Ford OLM is a mileage counter and nothing more. More fake information from the blue oval.
 
I have owned 3 ford products in my life.

All of them were reliable but I had "complaints" about many of them.

I had a 3.0 93 taurus that was great, leaked a massive ammount of oil otherwise in good condition.

Had a 2000 3.0 Ranger with the manual transmission I hated that there was no cigarette lighter, no rpm meeter, oil pressure guage was worthless. Other than that this truck averaged 25 mpg and was a good pickup.

Also had a 99 taurus with the weird looking back lights. car blew a transmission within 120k miles.
 
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Originally Posted By: defektes
I have owned 3 ford products in my life.

All of them were reliable but I had "complaints" about many of them.

I had a 3.0 93 taurus that was great, leaked a massive ammount of oil otherwise in good condition.

Had a 2000 3.0 Ranger with the manual transmission I hated that there was no cigarette lighter, no rpm meeter, oil pressure guage was worthless. Other than that this truck averaged 25 mpg and was a good pickup.

Also had a 99 taurus with the weird looking back lights. car blew a transmission within 120k miles.


I have had more Gm vehicles than Ford and they nickle and dime you to death. Its always a alternator or water pump or something. The drive trains are good for the most part in my experience. The rest of the car or truck falls apart around them.

Ford is a lot better than they used to be but I hate these idiot lights. THey can do better than this. I have a Ford car and Gm truck right now and they are years apart but I like the older Gm gauge package. Its real.
 
Do you want to pay another $1500 in options for a machine to 'check' your oil? You signed up to an oil nerd site, stay the course and be a proactive oil nerd with the rest of us.

I have gripes with GM. Pontiac Bonneville 3800 SC. Lots of gauges that work, lots of check engine lights, radio programmed with vin so you can't upgrade. A wonderful turd. Thousands paid out to circumvent emissions problems.

Remember anything designed by a vehicle manufacture is to get the car to get just past its warranty. Dex cool death makes it to time to trade it in. Your coolant make be mud but the car is running and passed EPA testing once again. What if OLM are the bare minimum as well? Its what real oil nerds wonder about hehe.
 
I hate how Ford makes things hard to access. They have been like that for a long time too. The lower bolt on a 289 thermostat housing for instance.

I've got a 97 aerostar van in the shop righ now. Labor to replace the timing cover is 10+ hrs. Aparantly you must pull the trans, then the oil pan and then you can pull the timing cover off. absolutly stupid design there. No other engine that I can think of makes you pull a trans to get a timing cover off.

Ac compressor on a 6.0L diesel is 7 hrs.
 
SOme models of Chryslers also had fake gages. They are real gage but they are driven off the computer and unless it is an extreme they do not read the real pressure they are set to read in the normal range unless a catastrophic problem occurs. I owned a Dodge truck that had good gages that read all fluctuations and my wifes Buick has real gages that fluctuate accurately. My Camry just has idiot lights but Moms Camry and Tundra have real gages that fluctuate accurately as well!

As to the oil life monitor it is not a piece of hard ware or technology it is a mathematical equation that estimates oil life based on crank revolutions, throttle position and temp at cold start etc......So it does it's math and then reads out on an indicator or turns on a light. My wifes Buick just has a light that comes on it does not tell you % like some models.

I do not see where the OLM does anything meaningful for all but the most un astute of owners that would change their oil once a year if it needs it or not!LOL Really who need a light to tell them to change the oil. No one has to tell you to breath or urinate it is just something that comes with ownership of a car. No light tells you to change the air filter or the adjust the brakes or rotate the tires etc.....Sometime one just has to think about mundane things.
 
Originally Posted By: Johnny
Was unaware that OLM was not available of any Ford products.


Ford has an OLM, and it also uses percentages. It was available on cars such as the '06+ Crown Victoria, Grand Marquis and Town Car (not sure of others), but only on higher trim levels (i.e. Crown Victoria LX/Grand Marquis LS).

ford-olm.jpg
 
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Originally Posted By: nomochevys

Second, Ford puts in idiot lights for gauges. That is just STUPID! I hate them! I still have a gm truck and love the realistic readings. I hate a lot of things about this truck but why cant Ford do the same?

I really think Ford is on the right track these days overall and these are minor gripes but they drive me crazy. What are your thoughts?


I have driven Fords since 1991. I agree with you on this; they build some good vehicles, then go really cheap in some areas to save money. I hate that. Build it right, and charge what the extra stuff costs and we will pay. I would rather pay a bit more and get real guages and quality tranmissions and such. Get the bean-counters out of the marketing dept. and let the engineers built the trucks they want. Need to stop worrying about the share price and stock options. Build quality, and the world will beat a path to your door.
 
Originally Posted By: JohnBrowning
No one has to tell you to breath or urinate it is just something that comes with ownership of a car.

crackmeup2.gif
Was not aware these two and car ownership had anything to do with each other.
 
I look for quality & reliability in a vehicle...I could care less about guages or an OLM. Temp, tach, speedo, trip odometer and fuel guages are all I ever need. I change my oil every 5000 miles so who needs a OLM? OLM's are for people who pay no attention to their vehicles.
 
OLM is a guage just like a sticker in the window. Ford guages have never been know to be accurate, but I have worked for ford and Worked at the GM proving grounds and Know that GM's guages are far from accurate either.
 
Originally Posted By: nomochevys
I really think Ford is on the right track these days overall and these are minor gripes but they drive me crazy. What are your thoughts?


My biggest problem with Ford is de-contenting. What's available as a feature on an '03 is not available on an '05. For example, I had to go through h3ll and high water to find a '03 Grand Marquis that was built before 01/01/2003. Why? Starting '03, the car no longer had a locking fuel door, under hood light, front seat pockets up front, clock in the centre of the dashboard or black b-pillars (made body colour to save $$$). And get this, an extended length overhead console was introduced for the 2003 model year...only to be available on the FIRST batch of cars. Cars built in 2003 and later have a small overhead console. These cars also had quad sunvisors (2 big ones and 2 small ones underneath them in case you pull the big visor to the side), and those were de-contented in 2005. Did I also mention Ford cut the size of the driver's floor mat in half to save money? '04 and prior model years have a full size driver's side floor mat...'05+ has something the size of a carpet sample. Fast forward to 2009, and a 1999 Grand Marquis is much better equipped than a comparable 2009. An '09 doesn't have an overhead console anymore. Also, an automatically releasing parking brake (when the transmission is shifted into drive) has been a signature feature of these cars for absolute ages, and it's no longer available. What's ironic is I was at the dealer a few years ago, and they are expecting people to buy a '10 Town Car with less features than a '05, for $57,000 USD. That's daylight robbery.
 
I have been a GM person my whole life.

Recently my family decided to purchase a 2009 Focus SES during the Cash for Clunkers program. My reasoning was that Ford has made some big steps in quality lately and they also did not accept or need tax payer bail out money.

After driving the Focus for 3 months, I am very impressed with it. It is leaps and bounds ahead of our 2008 Chevy Cobalt (granted, the Cobalt is at the end of of its product cycle, and the focus is just getting started).

But I do have some gripes about Ford being a complete penny pincher. The focus did not come with a trunk release button anywhere in the car. You have to use either the key or the keyless remote. I would understand this on a base model, but this car is the "top-of-the-line" as far as Focui go.

They also left out a dome light! I cannot believe that a newly designed car would not include a dome light! It does have two map lights in the front, but these are of little help to back seat passengers.

In the end these are small complaints and I'm proud that Ford is making it work without tax-payer money.
 
i have heard the reason for just idiot lights and gauages that always read normal is that manufactures not want warrantly claims off small gauge flucations
 
Quote:
I do not see where the OLM does anything meaningful for all but the most un astute of owners that would change their oil once a year if it needs it or not!LOL Really who need a light to tell them to change the oil. No one has to tell you to breath or urinate it is just something that comes with ownership of a car. No light tells you to change the air filter or the adjust the brakes or rotate the tires etc.....Sometime one just has to think about mundane things.
I find it comical, in this case in more ways than one, when mechanical functions or automotive procedures are compared to the human body and it's function. As breathing is part of the autonomic nervous system, it's basically involuntary and therefore no thought is generally required. As for urination, the body is actually has a signal sent to the brain when the bladder is full. Call it an FBM or full bladder monitor if you will, with pain being an end result of ignoring the monitor signal.
wink.gif


Unfortunately, for some not on Bitog, changing the oil in one's car doesn't fit into the above categories. For those folks the OLM serves an important function in maintaining a vehicle. For those on Bitog it provides conversation about accuracy and related topics, in addition to a guide for OCI.

To the OP's comment about Ford no having an OLM. My son owns an 05 Explorer, with an OLM as shown in a previous post, that indicates with in dash display the % of OCI left, and when a change is needed. fwiw, the average OCI, is 5k.
 
Our old 2000 Mercury Mountaineer had an oil life monitor as does our 2007 Mercury Montego sedan.

The dealer, however, always seems to forget to reset it on the rare occasions we actually have them change the oil. The car came with free oil changes every 5,000 miles, but we usually just change it ourselves. The free changes come in handy in the dead of Winter when a change is due and it is 20degrees outside.
 
FWIW, GM and many other automakers are doing away with gauges now. My buddy's Cobalt doesn't even have a coolant temperature gauge. 90% of the car buying public don't even know what half of those gauges do anyway. I went to the auto show last month, and only a handful of cars had oil pressure and voltage gauges.
 
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