Allen I can't agree any more than this! Sounds like you and me love our FEH's and can't wait for Ford to do more...

 

The dealership issue is indeed a matter that can be tough for a manufacturer to control, but there are manufacturer warranty policies that make the problem worse. Ford seems to have had a policy that started a few years back that didn't pay the tech for diagnostic time (don't know if they stopped that insanity), and really skimped on warranty flat rate. Not that they were the only ones with that policy and warranty compensation model, but it's that policy that gets techs throwing parts at a problem until it (hopefully) goes away. And some problems that are a bit subtle or because of cascading faults, the lack of diagnostic pay will have the tech doing their best to get the unit off their list as quick as possible without getting to the root cause.

An example of this was on my 98 F150. The symptom was a cylinder misfire at light load. CEL illuminated, misfire code on 5 & 8. The first time, the tech replaced 2 of the plug wires, which helped the problem a bit, but it came back within 100 miles. The second attempt was to clean the EGR valve. The third (and successful) try was to replace an EGR control valve. Total billed on warranty was > $600. The real problem was $150. With a system like a hybrid, where drivability symptoms can easily be misdiagnosed to point to expensive parts, this becomes a disaster, both from a customer experience as well as cost.

As to the lack of battery availablity for FEH - yes, what you said was quite true, but the volume projections and component sourcing are critical management and purchasing decisions. Ford made a management decision to treat the FEH as a 'boutique' and 'low-availablity' vehicle by the way the purchasing agreement was worked out. If they've made appropriate decisions to not do that to the Fusion, great. I liked the added versatility that the FEH butch tall-boy wagon form factor offered, but the lack of availabiltiy (and what that said about the management commitment) killed it for me.

BTW, Nissan is operating on the same model - the Altima hybrid is a decent enough car, but Nissan has made a management decision to treat the vehicle as a 'boutique car' with distribution in only a few states, and with very limited availability in them. It's a defensive model strategy that leads to the salesman statement 'yes, we have one of those, but you really don't want it because...' And that, in my view, is treating the model as more of a curiosity instead of a mainline product.

BTW, I don't see there being any 'American' or 'Japanese' or 'German' manufacturers any more. All are multinationals that have far more loyalty to the corporate bottom line than to any nation. Both Ford and GM get large percentages of income from their operations outside the US, and source their parts from whoever can deliver at the best price at an acceptable quality level. Looking at the content labels, the percentages of NA sourced parts are quite close with all the manufacturers, with some of the 'domestics' actually having higher percentage of imported parts.

 

[quote=Frodo;192214] With a system like a hybrid, where drivability symptoms can easily be misdiagnosed to point to expensive parts, this becomes a disaster, both from a customer experience as well as cost.

Your evidence that Ford treats the hybrid vehicles as described?

As to the lack of battery availablity for FEH - yes, what you said was quite true, but the volume projections and component sourcing are critical management and purchasing decisions. Ford made a management decision to treat the FEH as a 'boutique' and 'low-availablity' vehicle by the way the purchasing agreement was worked out.

Your evidence is lacking that Ford could purchase as many hybrid components as desired but choose to go low voume.


BTW, Nissan is operating on the same model - the Altima hybrid is a decent enough car, but Nissan has made a management decision to treat the vehicle as a 'boutique car' with distribution in only a few states, and with very limited availability in them. It's a defensive model strategy that leads to the salesman statement 'yes, we have one of those, but you really don't want it because...' And that, in my view, is treating the model as more of a curiosity instead of a mainline product.

quote]

Nissian has an agreement with Toyota on hybrid components and can only receive 100,000 in a five year time frame. This is the root of the issue.

 

[quote=Billyk;192217]I have no direct evidence that Ford treats the hybrid models any differently than any other model. There is a training program that techs go through for a new model - that also doesn't seem to be substantially different for the hybrid. Do you have any evidence that Ford's beefed up the training or dealer service tech requirements for the hybrids? AFAIK, ASE hasn't gotten any new certification specific to hybrid vehicles - their web site doesn't get any hits on 'hybrid'. And absent any manufacturer requirements (and in some cases even with), chances are good that the dealer will do the least needed to get by. Witness Honda/Michelin PAX fiasco (just go to the Odyssey site for assorted PAX rants).

As to the volume question - when a manufacturer engages a supplier for sub assemblies or major components, a key negotiation point is the guaranteed volumes - this also drives unit cost of the components. The suppliers (especially for a specialty item like a hybrid batteries or transaxles) won't build or expand lines without a reasonable assurance of having a market for that component. With any built-per-spec sub assembly, significantly exceeding agreed-on volumes requires fairly long lead times. For various reasons, the batteries aren't interchangeable (at the assembly level; the cells may well be standardized). Thus the volume and marketing projections for the vehicles become critical. Toyota and Honda saw a market and committed to volumes (that turned out to be too low, at least in the short run). Thus, they were able to sell more units because they committed to buy more battery assemblies. Now, with the overall car market swirling in the porcelain throne and gas going back below the price of purified water, we'll see where the overall market share for the hybrids ends up. Could be that hybrids end up a historical footnote; only time will tell.

As I said before, I have no enmity for Ford or GM - both seem to be making much better vehicles than they have in the past. I'm also no fan-boy of any manufacturer. When I was shopping for my current car, I was quite willing to consider their offerings. As a matter of fact, the FEH is a more useful form factor than a sedan, and had an actual vehicle been available at the right price, it would have been my first choice. As it is, I'm good for 6 or so years (the TCH is likely going to be my daughter's car when she is old enough to drive).

If Ford makes the Fusion hybrid readily available at a reasonable price point, the advertised features do indeed make it a compelling offering. Ford does have some challenges in their dealer network and in their warranty policies that will need to be addressed for the ownership experience to be world class. Not that Toyota and Honda don't face many of the same challenges, but both seem to have found ways of more effectively dealing with them. For the sake of everyone in the Ford family, hopefully Ford will be able to learn quickly enough and make the needed changes, and get the message out in a credible and easily provable fashion.

 

"Toyota and Honda saw a market and committed to volumes"

Did Honda do this?

Honda only sold 13,600 Insight vehicles during the 1999-2006 time frame. In 2001, the peak sales year in the United States for the Insight, Honda sold 4725 Insights. The total for 1999 through 2006 was just over 13,600 Insights sold in the U.S. source:http://www.insightman.com/

Then there is the Honda Civic which arrived in 2003. Honda refused to seperate sale figures for the hybrid version from the non-hybrid version for several years. Honda sold 31,253 Honda Civic hybrid models in 2006 which represented only just over 10% of total Civic sales! 32,575 Civic hybrid models were sold in 2007 which again only represented 10% of total Civic sales.

As for mechanic training, all dealerships that sell the Ford Escape Hybrid must have at least one mechanic that completed the Ford Hybrid Training Certification.