cgrx

LOL. no kidding

SHOWOFF

It probobly went bad beacuse someone did not service the coolant on a regular basis. This will cause head gasket failure and the coolant will contaminate the oil destroying the rod bearings and ultimately causing engine failure.

But what do I know.

Gambit

The taurus was a 95, I bought it last december, it lasted till Feb. The head gasket was leaking, but I wasn't about to pay for that to be fixed. There were a few other minor things wrong, but then the serpentine belt broke too and I finally said To hell with it, and got rid of the damn thing

Luftwaffle

That's an old car, I wouldn't necessarily blame Ford for that though. I'd pin it on the previous owner first. I can see where you're coming from though. Me, I won't buy a Mitsubishi car ever. I have a Mitsubishi monitor, I've had nothing but problems with it. I had to replace it twice and it's still not perfect. Also, dealing with their service department is an excercise in futility, not to mention they're mad, crazy slow. If Mitsu motors is anything like Mitsu electric, I don't want any part in it. :p

RX8_Buckeye

Sorry to disappoint you, but that's just not true. Ford has a controlling interest in Mazda and must give the final approval for any vehicle program. The Escape/Tribute program was a joint effort between Ford and Mazda. The Mazda6 is built at a plant in Michigan which is jointly owned by Ford. The platform-sharing being employed for many new Ford and Mazda vehicles requires a coopertive effort between the two companies. Regarding the RX-8 program, it was in fact a Ford exec who led the design effort; however, Ford engineering was not heavily involved in the development.

Gord96BRG

Not true at all. Ford will have several different options - hell, I can come up with two or three right now, like:
- redo the casting to eliminate the casting error, cast all new suspension arms, distribute to dealer, install in cars.
- switch to a forged aluminum suspension arm, have new suspension arms forged, etc.
- switch to a welded aluminum tubing suspension arm, etc.

Ford has to do the strength and reliability and cost analysis on the different options to determine the best solution. Note that word determine - same as in the news article.

XeRo, you're completely WRONG - RX8_Buckeye has it right - Ford owns 33.4% of Mazda, which under Japanese corporate law gives them controlling interest. Ford controls Mazda's Board of Directors, and appoints the senior executives. Ford approves Mazda's budgets and product plans. Make no mistake, Ford approved the RX-8 program, and that without Ford's explicit approval there would not have been an RX-8 program.

Yes, it would have been so much better if Audi hadn't bought Lamborghini and left them to go into bankruptcy and stop all production, wouldn't it? :p For what it's worth, the Diablo was a very powerful but crappy car, the Murcielago is an infinitely better supercar, and the Gallardo is an even better car. The usage of a few Audi bits and pieces in the interior isn't a bad thing, for two reasons - Audi does the nicest interiors in the business, and previous Lamborghini interiors were extremely poor quality and poor design.

So YOU bought an 8 year old car, with a leak, refused to fix the leak, then when the car failed because of the poor maintenance it's FORD's fault???? That's not a design problem, it's a maintenance problem - ie YOU. If you need to hate, you should hate the cheap-*** owner who couldn't be bothered to do normal, routine maintenance. Oh, that would be you, wouldn't it? :p

Regards,
Gordon

rotten42

this should teach you all not to incur the wrath of Gord :D :D

downshift

Actually, Bentley, Bugatti, Audi, and Lamborghini are part of the Volkswagen Group: http://www.volkswagen.com/en/420_konzern.htm

Would that be even worse? The point is that even if a car company is owned by a larger automaker, it doesn't mean they will automatically have the same issues of the larger entity. More often than not, they would still have a lot of design freedom that makes the smaller companies what they are.

BlueEyes

Well when you put it like that :p. Seriously though, the audi lamborghinis are better all round cars for sure, but i just think they lack some of the rawness of the older cars. It could be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view, I am not a fan.

Fanman

Bet Jay Leno is pissed. JK

My family has bought 3 new Ford in the past decade and a half and they all had several reliability issues. It's not just an old used car issue. We had a Ford Taurus, a Thunderbird, and a Mustang GT. All had issues, and all were new when we got them. Ford in general has more recalls than other car companies, thanks to numerous recalls of the Explorer & Focus lines. I personally will never get another Ford in my lifetime. I feel that we gave them ample # of chances to deliver a good product, and they did not. I don't really mind that Mazda is partly owned by Ford, as long as they do not import their lethargic quality control methods over. Different company/ still different mentality on quality..so far.

valpac

iTrader: (2)

As mentioned, Ford IS the owner. Also, the Mazda 6 has an all-Ford power train. Other models use common Ford products as well. Even our own 8's have 3% Ford products in them.

Any company that contributes that many parts to a car line absolutely has a HUGE say in design and manufacture.

Japan8

What year Taurus? Not that it matters soooo much. I'd hate to say it, but that was your mistake. I'd never buy even a recent year used Taurus with 60k miles on it. I question buying even a used 8... You never know how the previous owner treated the car. Did they regularly change the oil? Tune ups? Red lining? Did they at least follow the break in procedure? Lastly... dude you bought a $3k car. I hardly expect any car, domestic or import to hold up so well. Even my good friend from college's Honda Accord is a money pit. He bought a used '91 Accord EX in '98 with about 60k on it. He is done putting money in it now... all it does is eat money... replace this and that all the time. You want a car that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg in repairs to keep it on the road? Buy a brand new car. Otherwise... it's a crap shoot at best.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

Hell these days automakers swap part among themselves....even if they don't own part of each other. Hell.....there are even Mitsubishi parts in our 8's

picosrx8

Sorry to hear of your troubles fanman. But if you pick up a consumer reports for 2004, Ford actually placed average for all manufacturers for problems per 100 vehicles. They tied for 8th place and had fewer problems than almost all European manufacturers. By the way, would you rather your car company issue a recall and possibly fix you car before you notice something is wrong or would you rather they deny anything wrong in the first place?

Fanman

Honestly I would rather my car be built well in the first place. With the other cars that I have had I never had anywhere close to double digit recalls because there simply weren't that many issues to begin with. With the billions of $ that Ford spends on R&D & it's manufacturing facilities you would figure they could get it right. Ford commonly denies issues a lot of times until they get their hand caught in the cookie jar. My friend damn near died as a result of the starter motor/ignition issues that his explorer had. later after several people sued Ford they acknoledged the problem. How about the time it took before Ford acknowledged the tire/rollover issues with it's Explorer ? Ford is no different than many other car companies in covering up their issues. It's just that they have so many more issues. For them cost containment, not quality or customer service is key. My family has had 3 Fords in the past dozen years, so it's not like we had one car and it was an anomaly. Unfortunately, they have lost me as a customer for a generation.

The reason the european brands have had so many issues is that they have added increasingly more complex electronics. That is not a good thing. They said the BMW 7 series, which is rated the worst car in problems, about 75% of the issues has to do with their electronics. MBZ just had a recall because of their eletronic braking system and a software glitch. I wish they would stop trying to add more gizmos. Half the stuff people never use, and they said the idrive manual is as thick as a phonebook.

SHOWOFF

I just think that it's funny that you NEVER hear people openly brag about a car being so reliable. You only hear when it's been a bad car, and people that have poor experiences with a bad car or product tend to tell everyone they meet.

Misery loves company.

BlueEyes

I would just like to point out that many of these issues including the Ford GT's are not Ford's doing. It is suppliers of Ford who drop the ball.

Overport

So, you hate Ford just because you had ONE and it broke down. Ford has been the leader in American-auto sales the past 27 years. They must be doing something right. Jackass.

ptiemann

Toyota doesn't have that problem. Every little screw in a Toyota is made by Toyota.

BlueEyes

Awesome, way to go Toyota....So what. Ford doesn't do it that way. It isn't entirely fair to bitch at ford and only ford because a supplier screws up. Nobody complains about the suplier, they just cal ford a pos car company and become import fanboys.

EDIT: Apparently Toyota doesn't do it that way either.

Gord96BRG

Yup. Every screw. Well, aside from a bunch of engines, like most of the higher performance versions in, for example, the Celica GTS, Matrix XRS, Lotus Elise - which are produced/assembled for Toyota by Yamaha.

Sorry - Toyota buys shocks, brakes, audio components, and many other subassemblies from outside suppliers, just like every other auto manufacturer. Yamaha is the best example of a Toyota supplier, providing complete engines. If you go back a few decades, the Toyota 2000GT of the late 1960s was entirely engineered and built by Yamaha - Toyota didn't produce a single screw on that car, much less every screw.

Regards,
Gordon

RX8_Buckeye

Oh please. That couldn't be further from the truth. What an idiotic statement.

ptiemann

hm, maybe I was wrong. I read that a few months ago. I'll see if I find the source. If I find it, I'll post it here.

Japan8

Uh nooooo.... all Japanese auto manufacturers also user the same type of supplier sytem. Sometimes even the same suppliers! For example, ASMO, NA make electric motors for wipers, windows, etc. for Chrysler, maybe Toyota and I think Honda.... there may be others. They also have to be a wholly owned subsidiary of ASMO Japan who is a subsidiary of DENSO. The issue here is the relationship between suppliers and manufacturer and the level of quality demanded by the maker at said cost.

redrx82004

Reading this thread I learn that 3% of our rx8's are Ford parts. That pisses me off because when I bought the car I asked the salesman if there were any ford parts in the rx8 and was assured that there were none. I told him that if there was just one washer in the car that was made by ford, I would not buy it. My brother and I both had ford trucks which were supposed to be built ford tough and they were always broken. Biggest pieces of junk trucks we ever bought. Now we are both into japanese cars and never looking back. Which parts of our 8's are ford parts? I guess they will need replacing soon.