On the search software, when you type the word "Ford", it is often accompanied by "Is it 315 on Ford this year", and you can also find the engine fuel saving technology "Ecoboost" and the dual-clutch technology "Powershift" that Ford is proud of by "sand sculpture netizens" called "Eco bullshit" and "Powershit". So how did this one-sided situation of public opinion happen?
Looking back at the era when Ford was in the ascendant, it should be before 2016, Fox, Mondeo, Yibo, Yihu and other models in the Chinese market "killed and killed", and became one of the 10,000 clubs all year round. However, why has Ford, which has been an infinite scenery for a while, no longer in the limelight in recent years, and its sense of existence has become weaker and weaker after several twists and turns?
With this question in mind, we traced the source to a party, the consumer party on March 15, 2010.
2010 Flameout Gate Incident – Fox
This year, Ford's electronic throttle was affected by carbon deposits, resulting in Changan Ford Focus's low-speed state is easy to extinguish, and Changan Ford's measures to clean the throttle cannot eliminate the above phenomenon. On May 31, 2010, amid the condemnation of the owners and the media's doubts, Changan Ford issued a statement saying that from June 1, it would recall 236643 09-model Foxes produced between August 18, 2008 and May 28, 2010 ( inclusive).
At that time, Ford's treatment plan was
Since then, Ford's fault complaints have begun to ferment, and this fermentation is today. So let's take stock of Ford's years year by year.
2011 Kumho tire problem – Fox
This year, according to reporters of the year, Kumho Tire over-mixed re-refining rubber in the production process to reduce costs, resulting in a decline in tire performance. According to relevant data, the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents in China is as high as tens of thousands of people every year, accounting for 16% of the world's deaths, and on average, one person is disabled by traffic accidents every minute.
Although Ford is not the protagonist, the Fox 1.8MT of that year used Kumho tires, which counted as a lying gun.
But the strange thing is that since 2011, Ford has only "attended" the 315 party after a gap of 10 years, so what happened to it in these 10 years? Has the quality gone up? Unfortunately not...
Although the 315 party "spared" it every year, in the automotive complaints, Changan Ford was a "top student".
2013-2014 Ford Impreza and Mondeo broken shaft gate incident
At the end of 2013, Changan Ford announced the recall of The Wing Tiger due to quality problems in the croissant, involving a total of 80,857 units. However, for more than two years, the Changan Ford Impreza still has repeated "broken shaft" accidents. Subsequently, not only the Wing Tiger model, But also Changan Ford's Mondeo, Ruijie and even the flagship Taurus have successively had broken shaft accidents, which is indeed a miracle in the industry.
In the following 2014, Ford recalled 80,857 vehicles for "materials produced in front of the knuckle that failed to meet Ford's global material strength standards for the material." Since then, the case of Wing Tiger's broken shaft has still appeared frequently in media reports. In every report of the accident, Changan Ford's response was due to human causes.
The negative impact of the shaft break incident on Changan Ford at that time is self-evident, compared with the decline in sales, the loss of consumer confidence in brands and products is the last thing every company wants to see, but Changan Ford has to face this fact.
It may have been a few years to come, but the incident was far from over.
2016 Mondeo Odor Gate
There wasn't news about Ford until 2016. Why? Perhaps this year is a year of explosive growth of self-media, and consumers can obtain information through more channels. It was also this year that the self-media broke the problem of odor in The Ford Mondeo car, involving 1751 car owners.
In the same year, Ford also won the second place in the 2016 complaint list again.
In the year, a list of auto brand complaints was released by the China Consumer Association (China Consumers Association) a few days ago.
First of all, we have to figure out the direction of these complaints. From the list of complaints given by the China Consumer Association, we found that the names with the highest complaint rate are contracts, after-sales service, quality, false publicity, price and other categories.
At the same time, from the list of complaints given by the entire China Consumer Association, the complaints due to contract problems are mainly concentrated in contract breaches (55.28%) and unequal standard terms (4.32%), as detailed in the following table.
Comparing the list, we will find that Changan Ford has a high number of complaints in the contract area of 125, second only to the complaints of after-sales service in the entire complaint category, and the volume is relatively large. Specifically from the reasons given by netizens, some models of Changan Ford have contract fraud and poor service attitudes towards buyers.
After so many problems, how can Ford improve it next year? But it didn't, and even it took the first one down.
In 2017, it "ranked first in the 2017 automobile brand complaint rate list of the China Consumer Association"
In 2017, according to the 2017 auto brand complaint rate released by the China Consumer Association, Ford surpassed Volkswagen with 850 singles, ranking first, and according to the following figure, it can also be found that it is the champion won by 70 more complaints than Volkswagen in the number of after-sales service complaints.
Since entering 2017, Ford's performance is really not optimistic. Suddenly there was a cliff-like decline, what did Ford go through? The first is the product quality problem, especially the domestic Ford. The passage that often circulates on the Internet: "A hundred years of Ford, destroyed in Chang'an" was also released in this year.
The next 2018 can be slightly stopped, but 2019 has begun a new journey - Fox full series of 3 cylinders dissuaded! (Although as early as 17 years ago, some of the configurations were already 3 cylinders)
Is this an operation to push the sales of "Two Fields" and high-end cars to the altar?
Coincidentally, with the standard equipment of the 3-cylinder engine, Ford's life has not become good.
In 2019, the big layoffs and inventory clearance events
This year, a New York Times report that Ford began laying off thousands of employees in China brought Changan Ford, which had recently been sluggish, into the spotlight. In response to weak sales in China, Changan Ford, Ford's joint venture in China, is "quietly beginning" to lay off thousands of its 20,000 employees, according to domestic media reports.
The complaints about the Ford model at that time were still the same as the old 3. Judging from the complaint statistics of the vehicle quality network, changan ford in February 2019 alone had as many as 120 complaints, and as many as 57 complaints about engine oil leakage, cylinder pulling, abnormal sound, etc., of which the 1.5T engine applied to Fox and Mondeo became the focus.
In 2019, after changan ford took office, the president of the national sales and service organization took office, and launched the "sales to fix production" plan, which is intended to reverse the inventory dilemma of dealers. In mid-2019, changan ford dealers' inventory levels reached their lowest level in 18 months, which is considered a success of the "sales-to-sales" strategy. However, what kind of posture the 4S store is facing consumers behind this can be imagined.
And then came our topic today, and the regulars of 315 finally re-attended. Ford "Press Tesla" on the list of 315 evening!
2021 transmission rusty doors
In 2021, the dust settled at 315, and finally Ford was on the list of CCTV. The rust problem of Ford's gearbox exposed at the 315 party: some wing bo and Fox owners reacted with difficulties in starting, serious setbacks, abnormal transmission noise, and even the inability to accelerate and decelerate and lose power.
In this way, the operation of Changan Ford is not the same as that of the American Ford? In the face of the problems that have long been discovered, concealment and non-reporting allow it to ferment, ignoring the life safety of car owners. Let's take a look at Changan Ford's response, "Changan Ford solemnly promises that we will provide free maintenance for the transmission with this problem to ensure customer satisfaction." Changan Ford has been committed to making consumers more confident, more secure and more worry-free to enjoy the car life. This original intention will not change. We will also strive to continuously improve our service system and management, and will keep abreast of the progress of this matter. "It doesn't look like a solution response at all, can it really make consumers satisfied and reassured?"
Many people have proposed that ford's exposed transmission is the getrag dry double clutch that was used, and now Ford has replaced the 8AT, and the transmission has been solved, such as the sudden, abnormal sound, rust and other issues have been solved, there is no need to grasp the previous things. But put yourself in the shoes of a thinker, if you are a Fox and Wing Bo owner using a dual-clutch gearbox, the gearbox frequently stumbles, rust and other issues, many times the rights protection is fruitless, the complaint is invalid, can you still feel unnecessary?
epilogue
Indeed, a large part of the decline in product sales comes from the word of mouth problem of car owners, and in recent years, many models under Changan Ford have exploded serious quality problems. For example, Fox's spontaneous combustion, oil leakage and flameout doors, Mondeo odor, Wing Tiger, Mondeo, Taurus, Sharp World's broken shaft door, the quality of the new Wing Tiger accessories is not passed, and the quality problems again and again make its reputation plummet. However, Ford's quality problems are not unique to China, and Ford's quality score in the US market is also at the bottom. "Hegemony" complaint volume list for many years, broken shafts, gearbox accidents frequent, the image of Ford has fallen to a low point, which is also the fundamental reason why no one has bought Ford cars in recent years.
And Ford is not without struggles. In April last year, they launched a new electric sequence, the Mustang Mach-E, and the sales volume since its launch has never been announced, which is probably not optimistic. In the field of new energy, not to mention its hometown Tesla, in the face of our domestic new forces is also a heaven and an underground, leaving Ford time may really be short.