I guarantee they spent months gathering information on reliability and knowingly made the decision that warranty claims would be offset by better sales. They knew they were going to get that much in warranty, but were banking on the sales to wash it away.

But making better cars cost too much and takes too much time. Its Its easier to build crap cars and hope they make it past warranty. 

It’s been decades since the Japanese brands taught the big three a lesson about the cost savings associated with simply using better parts suppliers, setting higher engineering and testing standards, and operating more efficient plants, and apparently they’ve still not learned anything.

Who knew running twin turbo engines in everything from hot hatches to half ton trucks giving them 13,000lb tow rating or pushing that TT V6 to 450hp in a 6000lb Raptor would be expensive warranty down the road.

Have a 6.2 Super Duty myself.

That’s the problem, you can get a bigger, more capable truck for the same money. There were plenty of Gladiators at the local Jeep dealership for well into the $50k range. That’s 3/4 ton truck money. I love the idea of a Wrangler pickup priced to compete with midsize offerings, not so much priced against 1/2 to 3/4…

Yes, I had a deposit on one.

Holy shit, an honest-to-god GM fanboy. In 2019, even. You do you, my man.

That’s the whole point though. Ford and GM are car sellers. By not being a car buyer, he is sticking it to the Man. Personally, I’ll never buy another vehicle I can’t pay cash for again, which will probably limit me to used cars, and I don’t care. My old Camry has served well, in April or so I plan to drop around 12k…

The 180,000 people who bought new Outbacks in 2018 might disagree with that statement. Add in the Jettas, Audis, Mercs, Volvos, and Buicks and you'd probably get a cool quarter million sold new each year in the US

Add to that,

Psst... That is Gary.

5 years later

Exactly, this wasn’t so much a brand loyalty loss as cost driven to those buyers. 

“Why offer cheaper cars when we can just offer longer loans for more expensive cars?”

Well said. I have no inclination or guilt to even consider a Ford or GM product, though I have driven and liked their products overseas. I don’t have a need for $50K for an SUV, nor do I need one. Instead, I will actually take my 20 year old Montero off road camping and complete my errands in a 20 year old VW, all with…

The Asian companies are making and selling these vehicles for a profit. If Ford and GM can’t do the same, they need to just get out of the business. Long term, they can’t bank on the SUV and truck gravy train. Eventually that will hit a dead end too.

The underlying problems with Ford and GM are still present. 2008 and…

US consumers: haven’t had a meaningful raise in decades.

Not necessarily. The requirement of a PE stamp on something like this varies from state-to-state and county-to-county. It can be up to the “owner” to decide if they want one or not, which is usually dictated by policy, their lawyers and/or their insurance company. And depending on the state, all the state engineering a…

The last paragraph of the article sums that up nicely. For anyone who has an inkling of what’s going on from looking at the torque curve on the dyno chart, that is exactly what you want to see on an engine in a large truck that’s intending to tow or haul heavy stuff.