Ford executive pays rare tribute to Toyota Camry

Reuters via Forbes.com ^ | 02/13/2003

[Paulus Invictus]

My son's new Ford van was the single worst car I ever saw! The thing was worse than a lemon, even the Ford agency mechanics could not repair the many things that went wrong or never worked. The A/C was inoperable from the start and that is bad news in Hawaii. The transmission was equally junk.

My son had to get on a 6 week waiting list just to get it into the agency's shop. What a piece of junk! Worse, Ford would not honor the warranty. The best thing that happened to the van was a head-on collision and an insurance pay off.

[Goodman26]

You have one Ford executive saying it is all about product (suggesting, to an optimist, that Ford is going to work on improving the product to make it more like a Camry.)

Then you have another Ford executive blaming poor sales on the Taurus's image and Ford's marketing error in pushing the car too much into rental fleets.

Therefore, I conclude that Ford's high-priced executives don't communicate well with each other and are unlikely to fix the Taurus problem, because they don't agree on what the problem really is.

[MarkL]

Grand total:$1695.00

Actually, the prices that I got was closer to $4200. Tires, clutch, brakes, and timing belt were pretty close... However, the struts, springs, shocks, and the front end work were quoted WAY higher...

Mark

[Old Professer]

My neighbor is an independent foreign car mechanic specializing in vintage Volkswagens and Toyotas; when I see him tomorrow, I'll run this past him for estimates just for drill.

We searched around and ended up buying a 1997 Geo Prizm (Toyota Corolla clone) for my daughter that has been troublefree except for parking lot dings and dents (she works at KMart).

Toyotas are great cars.

[new cruelty]

BTTT