Posted on 01/27/2006 8:14:40 AM PST by oxcart
I live on dirt roads, so that pic was taken when I had a dry, sunny day, which is rare in Michigan.
Sunny...that truck was purchased pretty much standard, 5.7L Hemi and 20" wheels and a tow-package.
I put on the step-bars, mud-flaps, and definitely some new tires.
Since everyone gets the "employee discount price" now, what incentive do employees have to buy a Ford?
If she voted the other way it would mean that she is not a pure supporter of property rights. I agree they are seperate events.
To me it seems Cindy either had a change of heart about her feelings that all paint colors are fine with her or she was not being true to her own desires when she cast her vote.
She still thinks he has a legal right to do it, just as she has a legal right to pressure him not to do it using peer pressure, persuasion, or legal retaliation. She supports both his right to do it, and her own right to express her dislike of what he did and act in legal ways on her dislike.
To use a personal example from my life, my 18 year old daughter decided to marry a 35 year old ex-felon who has children of his own that are her age. I did not and still don't support her decision, but I do acknowledge that it was her right as a legal adult to make that choice.
I am sorry to hear that. I would say that you are supportive of her right to make the decision and at the same time do not support the particular decision she decided to make. Assuming you tried to convince her not to do it, that would not mean you did not support the concept that it is her decision to make.
There are two issues here as I see it. One is the semantics of what "support" means. The second is what I read as your accusation that certain people on this thread (or people quoted on this thread) do not support Ford's property rights, thus they are not as supportive of property rights as they presumably think they are. (ie. they are hypocrites) I don't think anyone loses any libertarian or pro-property rights credentials by legally responding to Ford's decision by deciding not to buy a car from them, or from publicly ridiculing Ford's decision. Such activities are 100% consistent with a libertarian strict property rights outlook. Some of the people in your examples may or may not be 100% pro property rights, but your quotes alone do not demonstrate inconsistencies with a pro-property rights outlook.
LMAO!
How do you say "Fix Or Replace Daily" in German?
Thank you for the funniest comment in this thread!
But I have to say my experience with the quality of their product has been outstanding. The cars are extremely well built and designed.
Got one of those "less than 50 thousand miles on the odometer" cars, eh? :)
I remember when I bought my only Ford. I was showing it off to my boss. He said yeah, sure is a nice, tight, smooth ride. Fords are great until they hit 50 thousand miles -- then they start falling apart. I laughed at him -- until my car hit about 50 thousand miles. OUCH!
BTW his father was a fairly major OEM to the auto industry in Detroit. He knew the business.
I would have said, "OK, buddy, but two questions: What's your employee ID number? And, is that the way you talk to all IRS auditors?"
Then I'd have smiled, turned around, and driven off.
But then, I'm like that, y'know... :)
That's unlike my '75 Grenada, which began to shake, rattle, and roll at about 50 thousand miles. In short order, let's see... no way in hell I can remember everything it did to me... the motor suddenly started sounding like a 50 cal MG -- I'm guessing it must have thrown a rod or something equally "trivial" :) (I ended up dropping in a "new" motor from an "old" junker -- bought a junked Maverick for about $150, paid a garage another $150 to drop in the engine and tranny ("keep the change"), and oh, yeah, I swapped batteries too.
Then, it dropped a tie rod on me while driving down the local "Miracle Mile". Yowie! You ain't had advanture until your two front wheels decide to point outwards in opposite directions at 40 MPH in traffic!
...unless, that is, you've been driving down a country road at about 60 MPH, and had the power steering control valve drop off the Pitman Arm, and your steering wheel turns into a pinwheel that you can spin with one finger -- while your two young kids are sitting in the passenger seat.
Yes, there is nothing to match the raw adventure of flying down a country road at a mile a minute, with no steering whatsoever, knowing that if you're foolish enough to hit the brakes, you might spin out, what with NO steering control whatsoever, watching your car slowly drift to the left, into the oncoming lane, thanking God that there is no oncoming traffic -- until you see that four foot thick oak tree standing next to the road... just before your attention is taken by the split rail fence you run down, one post at a time, again, thanking God that none of the horizontal stringers come flying through the windshield.
Yes, the adventure is incomperable! Your heart bearly slows down even when the car slows to a halt (the split rail fence and your front bumper acting as an ersatz "tailhook and wire", slowing you enough so that you stop a few feet short of that Oak Tree from Hell).
In fact, your heart is doing such a barn dance that as you stagger up to the farm house, to ask for help, and the owner says, "I just put up that fence!", all you can do is blither something about "steering... kids... police... help..."
I'll stop there. That's enough Ford-venture for one day. For me, at least.
Have You Driven A Ford, Lately?
Sadly, I have. I married into one. It's falling apart -- one might say "prematurely", if it was a Toyota, but it's not a Toyota, so, I simply say, "It's falling apart sooner than my wife expected."
"In recent years, the UAW has put handbills on non-Ford vehicles -- and even on some vehicles made by Ford's Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar units -- that were parked at the company's world headquarters in Dearborn.
Land Rover, Volvo and other foreign vehicles also have been vandalized while parked at the automaker's Dearborn operations."
So, when the IRS guy, or the OSHA guy, or the EPA guy drives up in his Beemer or Jag or Toyota or whatnot, and gets that Quality Ford Worker Treatment in the parking lot, he goes back to his office and... what, nothing happens?
Sorry, I don't buy that.
What I do see happening is a case study in "He who laughs last, laughs best."
This is a primo example of self-limiting behavior if ever one existed. It shouldn't take long before some moron finds out the meaning of the phrase "tiger by the tail."
Enjoy the ride, idiots.
And they wonder why the domestic auto industry is swirling the drain...
Don't build a quality car, built to last, at an affordable price. Nope. Bully, intimidate, threaten, and shove your weight around. Yeah, that's the ticket.
What next? Door to door sales campaign? Buy our cars or we'll bust you in the face, buddy?
Idiots!
The Sausage Factory Blues.
Back in the '70s I knew a guy who worked at a major automaker factory (sorry, can't recall which one) for the summer. His job was to work on the line that assembled differentials.
They had this very expensive "computerized" machine that would measure the parts -- he'd pick up the gear or shaft or whatever, stick it in the machine, wait for the machine to think it through, and then read off the number on the display that told him which shim-washers to stick on the shaft (there were several thicknesses of washers -- the machine would tell him how many of each to install, so that each rear end would have the right amount of play, gear lash, etc.)
The machine had four "stations" -- four guys ran it.
My friend was unable to keep up with any of the other three workers, even though he was working as fast as he could, once he saw the numbers pop up on the display.
One of the other workers says to him, you're gonna get in big trouble for working too slow, you're gonna get fired, dude. He replies, hey, I'm going as fast as I can, but I can't do anything until the machine tells me which shims to put in!
The guy laughs at him, and says watch me, I'll show you how to do it.
A piece comes down the line. He takes it. He grabs a bunch of random shims, sticks 'em on the shaft, drops on the gear, and sends the assembly down the line. He says "I take one of these, two of these, and one of these" (or something along those lines), "and there ya go!"
My friend can't believe what he's seeing. He says, but, none of your pieces is gonna be within tolerance! They won't be any good!
The guy laughs and tells him that's someone else's problem, the main thing is to keep up the volume.
Oh, sure, some rear ends will be so loose that they whine like a baby, and wear out in short order, and some will be so tight that they'd overheat from the friction (and rob MPG), and fail in short order... but hey, that's someone else's problem.
Welcome to the kind of "quality control" that sent Americans screaming to the Japanese dealerships.
Being in sales, I typically drive 50-60K miles per year.
I've driven Oldsmobile products, Chrysler products, Chevy products, and Fords.
By far, the most dependable and most trouble-free cars have all been Ford Taurus's.
(And yes, my current personal car is a '99 Taurus with over 99K miles on it. Runs like a top!)
Isn't Jeep owned by Dahmler-Chrysler? And isn't that German?
Just bought a Jeep Liberty and today was the first time we went off-road using the 4-wheel drive! It was pretty cool!
It's never a good sign if you have to force people to use your product
How about someone who works for a slumlord -- or "mobile home park operator" -- but, lives in a nice home in an upscale community?
Shall they be forced to move into the boss's digs, or else be fired?
Twisting arms inevitably leads to resentment. The more they screw with the workers, the more the workers will screw back with them. Creating a "hostile work environment" -- an "adversarial system" -- tends to result in some natural repercussions.
The "Land of the Free" was formed by people who didn't LIKE being told what to do. And frankly, "Because I Can!" is something that may work for BJ Clinton -- and, "in a court of law" -- but out "in the hustings", all it does is piss people off, when they're shoved around, and the "shover" tells the "shovee" that "I'm doing it BECAUSE I CAN!"
Do they have the "right" to do that to their workers? Well, maybe. Maybe even "probably".
Will their workers resent it? Figure that one out for yourself.
Will "resentful autoworkers" be "an asset to the corporate bottom line"? Ask the auditors. Or read the business section of your newspaper.
Good grief.
Let me see, why don't I own a Ford?
Oh, I remember. It was 1992 and my wife wanted a Ford Eddie Bauer Explorer. Well, she got one. Nice looking car. Very little SUV competition at the time.
As for service, well the local Ford dealership in Costa Mesa was incompetent. Horrible service. Same story for my next-door neighbor.
The vehicle burned oil from day one. The dealership claimed that all truck engines burned oil, that is was not a problem. At 70,000 miles by the time we sold it, I was adding a quart a month, and my wife only drove it 8,000 miles a year.
As for the brakes, we had to replace the pads every 15,000 miles. I wrote Ford about that little problem. Got a letter in return saying that our warranty was expired.
What else? The CD player broke, the rear windshield wiper stopped working but the dealership never had time to fix it during three separate service visits.
A year before we got rid of it, the Firestone tire fiasco happened. We had gotten rid of the original Firestone tires because of all the noise they made. So, that was not a problem but it caused the bottom to drop out of the used car price.
In the end, we traded it in for a Lexus RX300. Got crap for a trade-in and the dealer was very apologetic and suggested we might do better selling it ourselves but that the wholesale market for Explorers was very bad.
Now, we have owned 3 Lexus RX 300s. I am on my second one and my wife is on her first. The service at the dealership is great. Except for routine maintenance, the vehicles rarely need attention. The resale value is great.
Would I ever buy another Ford? When hell freezes over.
I have an '83 T-Bird and a 2002 Mustang. Both have been really great cars. I guess experiences differ. Like every GM I have had has some kind of weird wheel squeak that kicks in at like 30 MPH that they can't ever seem to fix. And many others have the good experience with GM that's I've had with Ford. Probably just luck of the draw.
Actually I have 140,000 on it now. The power windows are the only things that have really screwed up. I'm waiting for a lot of things to need fixed on it, though. That tends to happen at 120,000+. Not yet, though, knock on wood.
I'll buy that.
Yep, but it wasn't Daimler-Chrysler when I bought it.
Ron Webber ought to be fired and any idiot who agreed with his stupid idea. Does anyone really believe that forcing employees to drive Fords to work, or be punished by having to park elsewhere, is going to help Ford's profit margin? Ridiculous!
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