I totally agree. Ford Aus, whilst doing great work with the release of the BA after the failure of the au (im not saying that the au was bad, but a lot of other people will!). To me it seems that ford are resting on their backsides a bit. To the average person, ford isnt exciting. The mazda 6 is exciting. The honda accord euro is exciting. Simply because they are new and have somewhat of a unique style (sort of). The ford is not. As you said, look at the interior of the BF. At the sydney motor show, it lagged behind pretty much every competitor. Granted its an older model, but will the general public accept that? No, they will go and get a VE or an aurion.
Ford advertising has been a mixed bag. Some ads are good, like the terri turbo or fairmont ghia. But I dont think ive ever seen or heard or read an ad about the fairlane. Holden caprice is everywhere. The ads for the ZF transmission (I think it was those ads) where the german geek is ironing grass or something? What the hell does that mean? It certainly doesnt scream excitement to me. Plus there just isnt enough advertising overall (except that stupid ford ranger commercial. "keep your..... eye... out for it"
: )
And I totally agree with the servicing and cost cutting aspect. Why even bother selling the car if you're not going to look after the customer to keep their business in future and the business of their friends/family?
No doubt ford has the best line-up it has seen for quite some time, all it needs is execution. Firstly a BIG turnaround in ford CRC and dealerships. I know that this may be difficult to control individual dealers, but its something that must be done. I dont want to hear that my handbrake cover looks retarded and cant be fixed because " oh they all do that, sorry". Not good enough. I dont like looking down and seeing the inner workings of my handbrake mechanism. Fix it. I dont want my rotors machined for the third time. Replace them. Its not good enough that my car sounds like its going to explode every time I put it from park to reverse. If its within tolerance, then maybe you need to reassess your tolerances, because I the customer am not happy and this will influence my future decisions and advice to friends. How much would all those take to fix? A couple thousand dollars? Maybe a bit more?
I once heard a story of a family who had refused to buy holdens because of one issue with one dealer back in the sixties. Thats 45 years, and several potential customers lost. How often is that happening now with ford?
Anyway thats my rant for the night.
: