Ford issues more safety recalls in 6 months than ANY auto company has in a YEAR

[RickLightning]

Ford’s Recalls Set Yearly High In Six Months
https://wallstreetjournal-ny.newsmemory.com/?publink=0daf0e85c_134fa7c

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[The Weatherman]

Seems the more Farley talks about focusing on reducing recalls the greater the number of recalls they have. Wonder if someone is trying to sabotage his tenure ?

 

[02Reaper]

Seems the more Farley talks about focusing on reducing recalls the greater the number of recalls they have. Wonder if someone is trying to sabotage his tenure ?

Could be. I think the union workers aren’t good for any business.

 

[Heliian]

At least they are addressing issues instead of just ignoring their problems like stellantis.

Also, Ford is the top selling brand in the usa so far this year.

 

[SunPowered]

Could be. I think the union workers aren’t good for any business.

This union worker (and recent to the forum member) will have to respectfully take exception to this statement.

We union members have an ever increasing amount of skin in the game, with accumulating health insurance and retirement benefits, and the longer we are in, the more we value that, and the less inclined we are to jeopardize in any way that ecosystem which supports our security. Security which is denied non-union workers by design, to keep them hungry and compliant. We are dedicated professionals who therefore seek to protect the business whose success in turn feeds us. Sabotage would be anti-union as well as anti-management, counter productive, and just plain wrong. We have an ever increasing interest invested over time and we do not mess with that individually. Quite the opposite. Insinuating that we might cut our own noses off to spite our own faces by trashing our product's reputation is both illogical and insulting. Respectfully, from a fellow forum member. (For whom choosing to purchase a union built Lightning over another specifically anti-labor, non union made brand, the product of which also happens to randomly shed body parts all over the highway, was a mindful and deliberate choice.)

Going to guess there are other union brothers & sisters in this forum across many industries who would agree. But union or not, pride in our work is paramount.

 

[Henry Ford]

Could be. I think the union workers aren’t good for any business.

1. Union workers assemble vehicles. They don't have anything to do with design or logistics and their part in quality control is exactly what management says it is.

2. I'm a proud union worker who would not be able to afford a fancy new truck with what my employer would be willing to pay me without a contract. When middle class was a thing in this country it was because unions made it a thing.

3. Ford management is disfunctional. They don't need line workers to screw things up for them, they can do it all on their own.

FWIW, I don't work at Ford.

 

[chl]

As an electrical engineer and a lawyer, having worked in the patent field since 1985, and having read many Lightning forum posts, it is clear to me there are many physical design issues with these trucks that can cause trouble, perhaps some safety issues, as well as some software programming issues we have all encountered.

The NHTSA is investigating some BlueCruise incidents- sudden stop or accelerations - that caused accidents - a software and/or hardware issue? TBD.

All of the NHTSA safety recalls were not for Lightnings of course, but other Ford ICE vehicles, the fuel pump recall for example.

Each safety recall needs to be evaluated on it's own.

Sometimes it involves design, sometimes manufacturing.

For example, improper assembly and tightening of the upper control arm ball joint nut seems to be a manufacturing problem:

The defect: in affected vehicles, the front upper control arm ball joint nut may not have
been tightened properly, allowing the front upper control arm to detach from the
knuckle assembly

Whether this was done robotically or by union assembly line workers I do not know. Certainly one has to trust that it was not done intentionally unless some secret agent from an enemy country is employed by Ford.

The misaligned battery electrodes is also a manufacturing issue affecting a limited run of batteries (Ford says and we hope) but that would be the fault of the battery maker.

The rear camera problem was a software issue, some sloppy programming perhaps.
The rear light bar micro-crack issue, manufacturing issue.

One thing seems apparent - the quality control folks need to do a better job of catching these things BEFORE delivering the vehicles to customers.

There are plenty of tropes out there about union workers, old tired false characterizations of a wide variety of workers in numerous fields.

I have been in a union as a Patent Office employee, and I have been in a management position as a junior partner at a law firm.

The Patent Office union represented me and filed a grievance on my behalf because management refused to give me a bonus for exceeding the required quota of patent applications processed in a quarter AND give me a promotion I was due based on performance - they made me choose which I wanted. This had been their practice for some time and many other patent examiners had been subject to that policy. I chose the promotion and then filed for the bonus. The grievance was decided in my favor and I got the bonus.

BTW, we were overworked and underpaid government employees, which is somewhat typical.
When I finished law school and left the patent office for a law firm, within 2 years my salary was more than double what I made as a government employee.

Yes some unions have been corrupted by criminal enterprises over the years, they go where the money is.

But if you have an 8 hour day, sick leave, vacation leave, overtime pay, time off on weekends, etc., thank the union movement for paving the way.

There is still plenty to be done to improve the lot of "working people" - corporate executives incomes in the US are way out of proportion to the rest of many companies' employees.

OK, off the soap box now - back to Ford Lightnings.

 

[Effonefiddy Lightning]

This union worker (and recent to the forum member) will have to respectfully take exception to this statement.

We union members have an ever increasing amount of skin in the game, with accumulating health insurance and retirement benefits, and the longer we are in, the more we value that, and the less inclined we are to jeopardize in any way that ecosystem which supports our security. Security which is denied non-union workers by design, to keep them hungry and compliant. We are dedicated professionals who therefore seek to protect the business whose success in turn feeds us. Sabotage would be anti-union as well as anti-management, counter productive, and just plain wrong. We have an ever increasing interest invested over time and we do not mess with that individually. Quite the opposite. Insinuating that we might cut our own noses off to spite our own faces by trashing our product's reputation is both illogical and insulting. Respectfully, from a fellow forum member. (For whom choosing to purchase a union built Lightning over another specifically anti-labor, non union made brand, the product of which also happens to randomly shed body parts all over the highway, was a mindful and deliberate choice.)

Going to guess there are other union brothers & sisters in this forum across many industries who would agree. But union or not, pride in our work is paramount.

Assembly line workers dont design the truck. Just as Tesla line workers don't. They only assemble what the engineers designed and made, union worker or not. I don't blame the person who built the software in my truck, I blame the upper management who approved of it instead of hiring more qualified software engineers. That's not a union worker saving his nose, that was a mindful and deliberate choice by ford management.

 

[Pacific.NW]

As @Heliian said, I'd prefer that they find these problems and issue recalls rather than sleep on them or ignore them. I'm not concerned about the number of recalls, so long as their network of dealers has access to the necessary parts and information to address them.

 

[TaxmanHog]

Calibration of labor saving tools is the root of several problems, but again it falls on the organization to ensure proper tool review & calibrations are done on routine basis, human and organizational process errors are the absolute root cause.

 

[chl]

"To err is human, to really screw up you need a computer" was the saying when I worked at Bell Labs documenting system software in the early 1980s', still true (truer?) today.

And now we drive them around, and fly in them.

What could go wrong?

 

[No Oil HaHa]

Yep, I’m actually living this article. My wife’s Lincoln has two open recalls with parts being available sometime this fall. These are on top of the 2 recalls which have already been resolved.

It’s an annoyance but still prefer driving Fords over anything else.

 

[rockfish]

Going to guess there are other union brothers & sisters in this forum across many industries who would agree. But union or not, pride in our work is paramount.

Amen Brother.
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