If you drive a Ford, sure, it needs a lot of service. Which is why I stopped buying Ford. Toyota and Honda don’t need much service, and I don’t see how they are money makers for the dealer. And when you move to EV, you need even less service than before since the is no ICE to maintain.
Well first off, people like buy that marketing stuff hook line and sinker, so they make more on the sale. Second, pretty much any vehicle that rolls on earths surface is going to need stuff serviced in proportion to how close it is to the ground. For cars this means the dealer can make plenty of money selling brake pads, wheel bearings, suspension bushings, tie rods, and other wear items like that (and the labor to swap them out).
Pretty much everything made in the last 30yr lasts as long as you're willing to keep doing the normal scheduled maintenance and keep feeding it wear parts. The average Toyota buyer is a lot more willing and financially capable of doing that than the kind of person who rolls negative equity on an Altima into a Dodge Journey.
I used to be responsible for a fleet of delivery vans. I would have no qualms about buying Ford.
Go look at the list of most reliable cars. Toyota and Honda are always listed as number one and two. Ford isn’t ever discussed as "reliable". I think this goes way beyond perception. Yes, commercial vehicles by Ford are probably reliable, but we are talking about regular commuter cars, and when it comes to that class, Toyota and Honda lead.
And commercial vehicles live in a different world where companies actually track TCO and friends.
The Transit and the Sprinter (the latter of which has really gone down the tubes since it's '00s peak) might be "good" but that's like being MVP in a junior varsity game. Anyone operating them outside of warranty generally hates them compared to the Ford and Chevy vans they're replacing.
It gels with my experience with Mercedes sedans. Until I got to the very top of the line S-series like the 5xx/6xx, the owner experience on recent models was still a step down from what it was like leading up to 2000, mostly with fiddly bit details and robustness/conscientiousness overlooked in those details, and this quality corruption seems to have infected the other product offerings from your description. The core vehicle itself was fine, but I'm not paying the Mercedes premium just to overlook those details.
Maybe I'll stick with my original plan of getting a Toyota Hi-Lux and convert + tow what I want instead of lumping it into an all-in-one large commercial/trade van.
I’m sorry, but this statement is so utterly and totally opposed to the facts, that I’m beginning to think you’re doing PR for Ford. The demand for Euro-Vans in North America is so high, there’s a 1-2 year waiting list. It’s literally the most wanted vehicle in its class.
What do you do in your Accord? You commute in it, or something along those lines, and that's probably about it. How much back seat wear is it getting? You got kids fighting back there? Do you stick your new dryer on the roof or do you pay the $20 for delivery? Your peers probably answer those questions about the same way. Meanwhile, several tax brackets down things are way different. Some single mom's four kids are doing their best impression of UFC in the back of her '09 CVT Altima, no wonder the seat is ripped, the floor contains a dozen types of dried soft drink syrup and the "window lock" switch is worn out by 100k. The differences only get wider as you start considering vehicles that are sold as having a lot of utility (wagons, SUVs, minivans), at the lower price tiers people size these vehicles to be just barely enough for what they want to do. At the high end people are buy way more vehicle than they need.
Let's even remove brand from the equation. How many grand Marquis do you see on the road these days? Probably 2 for every non-cop and non-ex-cop Crown Vic you see. Do you think that is in any way representative of the sales numbers when those things were rolling off the line back in the day? Of course not. Vics out-sold Grand Marquis and Town Cars by a wide margin. But a greater fraction of 'Vic buyers rode them hard and put them away wet with the intention of getting something else around 100-200k. The older, wealthier Grand Marquis buyers did the maintenance on schedule and kept them in good order so they lasted longer.
A key mechanism of "lasting longer" is price. People have different expectations and give different treatment to a car depending on price. So you trade in your Accord or whatever, it's in great shape. It goes on the used car lot for a lot of $$. So that ensures the the statistical next buyer is more well off, expecting it to last longer and therefore more willing to care for it. Meanwhile the guy that buys the Altima from the above example pays pennies for it and is expecting it to go maybe 50k before needing something big at which point he intends to dump it. So he's not gonna fix that window lock switch. He's gonna have no qualms about letting his dog f-up the already torn back seat. He's also gonna skip the transmission fluid changes and air filter and generally neglect the car because there's no reason not to if you intend on dumping it in short order.
You can run the same comparison on '00s Impalas and the Buick equivalent (both generally regarded as supremely reliable cars). The Impalas got beat and thrown away. The Buicks are still around (proportionally).
You don't think Ford, or GM, or whoever, makes reliable models for the same reason you'd never consider buying a house anywhere other than a good school district. It's a self-reinforcing expectation foisted upon you by the kind of people you surround yourself with.
> You don't think Ford, or GM, or whoever, makes reliable models for the same reason you'd never consider buying a house anywhere other than a good school district. It's a self-reinforcing expectation foisted upon you by the kind of people you surround yourself with.
Completely wrong and incorrect. I’ve owned and driven Ford. They were not reliable and one model I had was officially recalled 17 times, but had numerous outstanding issues that were never recalled for those problems. Toyota and Honda owners don’t have these kind of concerns.
I will freely admit that Canada makes more reliable Fords (and GM) than the US, and the reliability indices reflect that fact. Back in the day, I knew many people who would only buy Fords and GMs made in Canada for this reason.
Service was:
Two alternators, installed by me.
The usual brakes and tires, half installed by me.
Couple of gas caps. (Wtf?)
Two sets of the bes plugs money can buy because that engine was the one with crazy thin threaded areas where the plugs go. Had the dealer techs do those. And I went to a rural dealer, had a great experience.
Water pump, installed by local shop.
I would still be driving that rig, but it had an internal engine component failure that costs more than the thing was worth, so I sold it to a family here for a couple hundred bucks. Husband does his own work, has small shop, can profit on the vehicle.
Was a great vehicle. I got it from a shady dealer who I out dealt for a purchase 3 percent over invoice, and zero back end contract adders. (Took 6 hours, but literally saved me just south of 15k)
I agree with you, all that said. The dealers near me are the worst! That is by far the more common experience.
I have family in the rural part of the State and the dealer there is awesome! Would recommend.
My Ford driving experiences do not agree with you. But, that is all our own experiences too.
One of my favorite Fords was an old 1980 Futura. Box car, 4 cylinder, 4 speed manual trans. That thing got crazy good mileage and was fun to drive. Wonderfully old school black with plaid interior, that old AM radio with center dash speaker, lol. I went 100k in that car. Got it for a song too. Ugly.
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf...
Regardless of manufacturer among well-known cars in the U.S., the economics of a car dealership do not change from one to the next.