An open letter to Ford - Solution to Dirt Mountain

[navi]

But why wont Ford just ship all our BRONCOS with a soft top right now and send us the new mic later?
Or just ship are BRNCOS with them bad mics right now! and most of use will drive with the top off anyway!!
#freethebadbatch #wemad

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[wetdog]

May i suggest

 

[710-oil-614]

For the simple reason alone that Ford would be putting the already faulty tops fate and ultimate customer satisfaction squarely on the shoulders of dealers who - did not create the problem, may not be properly trained to handle installations and/or have the capacity to, and do not want to be the QC police for Ford.

For a company that dropped the ball on the initial QC. Passing the QC buck on to dealers and shipping out vehicles that are currently substandard quality to the public that is already weary of production issues would be suicide.

Hard no from me - but I'm also not part of #badbatch and would probably feel different if my vehicle were sitting at the lot.

As painful as it could be for processing. Ford ought to give those with built vehicles the option to choose.

 

[navi]

I just woke up in a cold sweat, dreamt some norway rats was shitting all over my twin turbos.

 

[WhiteMamba]

I like it! I communicated today w a Ford employee and suggested giving those of us w Broncos, sitting at #DirtMountain, the option of replacing the defective MIC tops w soft tops then delivering them. This shouldn’t affect their bottom line profits and would significantly reduce the volume of vehicles sitting idle in the lot. It would reduce the headache Ford has and make a few of us future Bronco owners a little less frustrated! This could also allow Ford to resume builds and push out more Broncos for other waiting. I sensed, it wasn’t a good idea bc logic was involved…

Where they going to get the probably 3000 soft tops they would need and build broncos on line?

 

[1975U15]

I just woke up in a cold sweat, dreamt some norway rats was shitting all over my twin turbos.

What an embarrassment. It looks like a University of Wisconsin fan. I’d expect this from a BYU cougar or a Cal Berkeley fan, but a Badger?? Good lord. Ball baby titty face.

 

[mpeugeot]

For a company that dropped the ball on the initial QC. Passing the QC buck on to dealers and shipping out vehicles that are currently substandard quality to the public that is already weary of production issues would be suicide.

As painful as it could be for processing. Ford ought to give those with built vehicles the option to choose.

Not only did they drop the ball, but even last week continued to build vehicles with known bad hardtops, instead of bumping them to a later date. Why build a customer vehicle knowing that you are not going to deliver it (or that there was a high probability of not delivering it) due to the hardtop issues?

 

[De Brus]

I am quite sure that you are correct about this, but I am also not convinced that Ford has found the best path forward yet. Maybe there are things that I am unaware of, or completely ignorant of, but I want Ford to try to find a better solution. They are an innovative and creative company, so I remain hopeful that they can find a better solution.

bro, it's over, they've made the decision. Nothing will change, vehicles will be stored until tops are acceptable.

Not only did they drop the ball, but even last week continued to build vehicles with known bad hardtops, instead of bumping them to a later date. Why build a customer vehicle knowing that you are not going to deliver it (or that there was a high probability of not delivering it) due to the hardtop issues?

they're building hard top vehicles today, not just last week. There's still space in the lot and they're gonna fill er up.

 

[mandyhoth]

I actually thought the same.
That you should feel dumber!

Seriously I did have the same thought. Obviously they’ve know about this for quite some time. Broncos have been heading to Dirt Mountain for 2 months now!

Almost as dumb as me still habitually refreshing my pizza tracker. like it was all just a bad dream or something. I’ll go into it without even thinking now, I’ve done it so many times

 

[VoltageDrop]

Sadly for us, it's cheaper for Ford to hold them at Dirt Mountain so that's what they will do.

 

[Efthreeoh]

So your proposal is to ship not-yet-completed Broncos that have not been released from manufacturing to dealerships so the dealership can store the Bronco at their storage lot vs. Ford's.

Then have a bulky top be shipped to dealers all over North America for installation.

That, versus storing the unfinished production near the MAP production facility, which has an addendum 1.3M square foot assembly facility that was set up by FoMoCo specifically for installing post-production accessories. So, instead of shipping replacement MIC tops in bulk from the nearby Webasto production facility to the MAP addendum facility, you think it is less expensive for Ford to create a logistics nightmare and disperse top shipments all across North America.

Good plan.

 

[dwbronco]

I know this is probably borderline crazy but what if, just maybe, Ford is setting are expeditions soooo low and will actually get our Bad Batch Broncos out much sooner. Actually, now that I wrote this I feel dumber. Oh well, let me have it. Bring on the comments and emojis.

Lowered Expeditions, even. Do they come from the factory like that, or is it DIO?

 

[Erock]

Okay, for the love of Henry, the abbreviation for the Ford Motor Company is FoMoCo.

this

May be best to address them with the proper abbreviated name, if you wanna get their attention. Just a thought.

 

[R11]

So your proposal is to ship not-yet-completed Broncos that have not been released from manufacturing to dealerships so the dealership can store the Bronco at their storage lot vs. Ford's.

Then have a bulky top be shipped to dealers all over North America for installation.

That, versus storing the unfinished production near the MAP production facility, which has an addendum 1.3M square foot assembly facility that was set up by FoMoCo specifically for installing post-production accessories. So, instead of shipping replacement MIC tops in bulk from the nearby Webasto production facility to the MAP addendum facility, you think it is less expensive for Ford to create a logistics nightmare and disperse top shipments all across North America.

Good plan.

This is the simplest and most solid rebuttal, though IMO would likely be more effective and productive if not delivered with sarcasm.
-
@mpeugeot: your thoughts are well written, and frustration both obviously understandable and justified.

But how it could make PR or financial sense to allow more bad tops to leave the control of The Mountain, I do not see. They would be shipping a hard top they know is going into the garbage, and paying to ship the part to replace it. If a soft top could be shipped with the ex-hardtop now, that would mean a supplier could crank out thousands of extra soft tops, which doesn't seem likely. If it would need to be produced and provided later, again, it certainly seems more logical to install them en masse at the dedicated accessory installation facility.

As I understand it, logistics are tuned pretty strictly, so a change of this magnitude would be quite costly, especially in the context of shipping rates being relatively high.

Further, is it possible that the tops Ford put on the Dirt Mountain Broncos include ones that are significantly worse in quality than those that were permitted to pass QC initially? Their appearance might make release into the wild ('wild' in the sense of not-absolutely-controlled-on-campus) even more of a nonstarter.

As has often been the case, while not insignificant, the momentum we generate on the forum can start to seem a little larger than it is. Photoshopped badge jokes (albeit well done and clever) are just not something the vast majority of eventual Bronco owners will ever see.

I really, really hope Ford has suppliers running a secret soft top production boost, for 2D and 4D, and will offer it at a surprise discount any time now to all those waiting, but I fear that is not going to happen, since this announcement probably represents hundreds if not thousands of hours of meetings.

 

[Massbronco]

The remedy to this situation needs to happen at the plant. Stack shipping tops on a rail car or convoy would be an absolute disaster. Youd be wishing for the snakeskin/honeycomb mic after seeing what 3 weeks on a railcar could do to a stack shipped top, not to mention the risk of damage during dealer install.

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