My SWAG at Estimating Dirt Mountain

[dbeyers]

Production, sales and "stocks" (which I think are dealer lot stock) are published Ford numbers. I originally estimated Dirt Mountain from the cumulative difference between production and sales. Further thought tells me that the DM vehicles are not counted in production as they are not finished and should be considered "work in process". Stocks and shipped vehicles (in transit by truck or rail) are a part of production; when a vehicle is sold off a lot it contributes to sales. Further, dealer stocks are not counted as a sale from Ford's books perspective.

If I assume an average 2 weeks of monthly production is "in transit", being shipped, that is produced, but not sold, not stock and not Dirt Mountain the numbers look a bit more believable.

Assuming 3 weeks average transit:

I am not convinced that MIC top production has hit full stride - what happened in September? As I read some of the forums it seems too few 4-door hard tops and very few 2-door hard tops are shipping. I wonder if they implemented MIC 2.0 on just a few 2-door and 4-door molds until they were convinced they had it totally fixed. At that point they might implement the mold changes on the full set of production tools. Maybe they haven't quite turned the corner on the design or they are getting the remaining tooling modified - time will tell.

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[WRF3MD]

MIC 2.0 hasn't been completely resolved. My Bronco was built 06/29, top (started? I don't know) on 10-04, shipped 10/08, delivered 10/15. And has several areas of snakeskin

 

[dbeyers]

MIC 2.0 hasn't been completely resolved. My Bronco was built 06/29, top (started? I don't know) on 10-04, shipped 10/08, delivered 10/15. And has several areas of snakeskin

Did you sit in DM between 6/29 and 10/4? Maybe they are doing MIC 2.5? 2.0 was fixing edges, 2.5 will be thickening up the skin?

 

[WRF3MD]

Did you sit in DM between 6/29 and 10/4? Maybe they are doing MIC 2.5? 2.0 was fixing edges, 2.5 will be thickening up the skin?

Dirt Mountain between 6/29-6/30 and 10/7-10/8. 6/29 blend date, 10/7 built email, 10/8 shipped email. Can't speak to their process, just reporting what I know. I know for a fact that it's in my driveway and it's a blast

Adding in @CO-Bronco , he's got all the dirt mountain info

 

[dbeyers]

MIC 2.0 hasn't been completely resolved. My Bronco was built 06/29, top (started? I don't know) on 10-04, shipped 10/08, delivered 10/15. And has several areas of snakeskin

It almost looks like the skin is thin in certain concentrated areas.

 

[dbeyers]

Dirt Mountain between 6/29-6/30 and 10/7-10/8. 6/29 blend date, 10/7 built email, 10/8 shipped email. Can't speak to their process, just reporting what I know. I know for a fact that it's in my driveway and it's a blast

Adding in @CO-Bronco , he's got all the dirt mountain info

These are Ford's investor numbers for Production, Sales and Stocks (dealer stocks, which I assume have demos/mannequins in them). I am assuming 3 weeks production are in transit in any month. Cumulative sales - production - in transit - change in dealer stocks = my estimate of vehicles held to be completed (dirt mountain). As you can see it appears they made a big dent in October, going from about 6,300 at the end of September to about 1,700 at the end of October, a difference of 4,600.

What is weird to me is that dirt mountain vehicles should count toward "production", but with September production being much lower, it may be the case that "production" are those vehicles that are completed and shipped quickly, while dirt mountain vehicles may be accounted for in some sort of "work in process" purgatory account and not counted as produced until they are ready to ship.

Surprisingly, if you count Production in September and "released from dirt mountain" in September you get about 8,000 vehicles produced/fixed in September; roughly the same as August and October!!! So Ford is consistently cranking out about 8,000 per month.

So the last 3 months average production is 7,980 or about 8,000 per month or 96,000 per year at the current run rate.

 

[Compta38]

all the MIC tops I've seen on newly arrived dealer mannequins looks like dogshit fwiw. If mine comes like that I will have a new top within a year.

 

[dbeyers]

all the MIC tops I've seen on newly arrived dealer mannequins looks like dogshit fwiw. If mine comes like that I will have a new top within a year.

I’m am a little unclear what a mannequin is, is that demo unit that cannot be sold for 4 - 6 months?

 

[Compta38]

I’m am a little unclear what a mannequin is, is that demo unit that cannot be sold for 4 - 6 months?

yeah

 

[dbeyers]

yeah

Hopefully they’ll get their heads around it quickly - for all we know they are modifying tooling as we speak - maybe shipping poor tops to dealers for vehicles is a calculated risk - at least they’ll know where to ship replacement tops when/if they are ready.

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