It's not a perfect world

[Bronczilla23]

Fellow Bronco enthusiasts, hear me out. I remember when I first started working for Ford nearly 35 years ago, It was at wixom Assembly in Wixom Michigan. We basically assembled The Lincoln line. Town car, Continental & Mark.

Bear with me on this, I'm getting to something. The Town Car was the our plants bread & butter. Out of 10 cars coming down the line, 6 was a town car. The Continental was a new model that year ('89) and Ford had 9 months of back orders, It was also a hot seller. The mark was a dud- one out of every 10 cars that came down the line was a Mark 7. Our plant was running three shifts nearly around the clock almost 7 days a week, we really couldn't build enough. None of those vehicles at the time exceeded $35K MSRP. I understand these numbers aren't adjusted for inflation, but still.
Currently a Bronco6G member has a thread on here stating she had to wait 2 1/2 years for her Bronco only to have her dealership screw things up. My point is, nobody had to wait 2 1/2 years for ANY vehicle when they placed an order back then, and it's nowhere near the huge global market that it is today. The recent pandemic is been pretty much done so that's an empty excuse.
Ford or any other company should not be having supply issues and dealers should not be marking up MSRP.
Today customers should be able to walk into a dealership, either buy, lease or order any vehicle they want and not have to wait more than 2 months to have it sitting in their driveway.

But it's not a perfect world... not that it ever was. For what it's worth, I'm currently still working for Ford at F-150 assembly in Dearborn Michigan as a Dyno Roll tester. Wixom assembly has since been demolished and is an RV dealership.

Anyhoo, If I board you I sincerely apologize, I just had to vent. Happy Bronco trails everyone. personally, my WildTrak production date was 7/19- that Ford module site claims all my modules on my Bronco are active. so it's supposedly built. With my dealership in Belleville MI here only 7 mi from the Bronco/Ranger plant in Wayne Mi just wondering what's the holdup. 🫤

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[BigHoof]

Look at how many Mustangs were built in the first year and a half, 64-65. From zero to almost 700,000! Things were less complex then. Ford also most likely controlled most of their parts rather than relying on suppliers all over the world. Once you give that up, things are never the same.

 

[7sKnuckledragger]

Look at how many Mustangs were built in the first year and a half, 64-65. From zero to almost 700,000! Things were less complex then. Ford also most likely controlled most of their parts rather than relying on suppliers all over the world. Once you give that up, things are never the same.

Thats just it. Sourced locally and simple.

 

[Bronczilla23]

I agree. Your preaching to the choir lol. It was a lot simpler l back then. Actually I think my dad build a few of those mustangs at the rouge back in the '60s before he got transferred over to Wixom assembly.

 

[userdude]

Was that the boxy Town Car before it became the boat in the '90's? That was a nice car.

Unfortunately, the American car companies practically went out of business the next twenty years building cars like they did in the '70's and '80's. Then the whole "computer-driven car" thing became a way to sell creature comforts that couldn't easily be matched with mechanical means of the previous generation.

Then chips and Tesla showed fly-by-wire and e-actuated chicanery meant the vehicles could be further commoditized while simultaneously modularizing the builds. See, for instance, "Sport Mode" is a bit flip, as are a bunch of other features Ford builds into most vehicles that they don't always give you (free as in beer) access to. Heated seats! Bah, give us a monthly fee.

So the car companies are now everything-bagel manufacturers trying to make up for buying into the fallacy of planned obsolescence that Toyota et al. showed was a sham anyway. But longer-lived cars means fewer sales, so here we are with subscriptions for our bagel machines. Saddle up!

And y'know, just wait until you can't drive the thing at all (full road automation) without an encrypted blessing from the car manufacturer. Maybe not planned obsolescence, but you're going to pay either way.

Yeah, I wish my Bronco was much simpler, but they just don't (can't?) sell that anymore at scale.

The world's a crazy place. Buckle up!

 

[Bronczilla23]

Yes, Great minds think alike. I agree with pretty much everything you say. When I first started at Wixom assembly in '89 I only worked on the boxy shape for about a year until the new more rounded model came out the following year The press was pretty impressed. It was the first year (1990) a luxury car won motor trend car of the year in some time.
But the end of the huge rear wheel drive sedans was on its way out, the start of Lexus certainly didn't help. Smaller more more cheaper econo boxes we're about to make a huge impact. As soon to be success of the Ford escort was right around the corner.
I could go on and on, Even write a small chapter lol. But as far as public and personal transportation goes I don't think it'll ever stop changing.

 

[MayhemMike]

Ford owner my entire life ( geezer). I ordered several over the years and never waited longer than five and a half weeks. The Bronco that I “ ordered” ,not from reservation date took 150 days from order to garage. Considering the world wide circumstances I was satisfied. One thing I learned from a local smaller dealership that had me shaking my head was Ford’s allotment system on specific models. After conversing with the dealership rep ( not a salesperson) about the Bronco process, I then put a hypothetical situation to them based on the explanation of the allotment system. “ If I lived right next door to this dealership and wanted to order a 2023 Mustang Mach 1, are you telling me based on Ford’s allotment system I couldn’t simply because this dealership was not allotted a Mach 1? I would have to drive to some other dealership that had an allotment for a Mach 1 in order to place an order?” The reply was “ yes”. Now how Ford thinks this is good for customers is beyond me.

 

[Bronczilla23]

Ford owner my entire life ( geezer). I ordered several over the years and never waited longer than five and a half weeks. The Bronco that I “ ordered” ,not from reservation date took 150 days from order to garage. Considering the world wide circumstances I was satisfied. One thing I learned from a local smaller dealership that had me shaking my head was Ford’s allotment system on specific models. After conversing with the dealership rep ( not a salesperson) about the Bronco process, I then put a hypothetical situation to them based on the explanation of the allotment system. “ If I lived right next door to this dealership and wanted to order a 2023 Mustang Mach 1, are you telling me based on Ford’s allotment system I couldn’t simply because this dealership was not allotted a Mach 1? I would have to drive to some other dealership that had an allotment for a Mach 1 in order to place an order?” The reply was “ yes”. Now how Ford thinks this is good for customers is beyond me.

I can see where you're coming from. I got a few things similar to happen to me in the past, not sure if their related, but it's close. About 7 years ago I had my heart set on a Mustang GT, I even had a plan on building a nice down payment.. I told my dealer this with my current fusion lease about to end soon. during a discussion I pointed to a Shelby GT in the showroom I said "that's really not much more than a GT". To my surprise he chuckled, and said those are for the upper brass of Ford motor company. I said to him "what, My money isn't Good enough here?" He basically ignored my response. Also, being a Ford worker it always puzzled me why can't we get the A plan for employee discount plan on SVT vehicles? ...Raptor, Shelby.... or even a Ford GT lol.

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