After being exposed by 315, Changan Ford added "new injuries"

Text/Leju Finance Li Shanshan

Centennial Ford has lost both share and reputation in the Chinese market.

At the CCTV 3.15 evening party last year, Changan Ford was exposed due to a number of product design defects, resulting in the rust of the transmission water, and before the real reason was exposed, Changan Ford shifted the responsibility to the consumer, and in the case of existing solutions, refused to recall, so that the car took the initiative to spend tens of thousands of yuan on its own maintenance.

Changan Ford's quality problems do not stop here, its main models such as Fox, Forres, Mondeo, and Ruijie have different aspects of the fault, and the problems are mainly concentrated in the engine, transmission, body accessories and electrical appliances.

According to the February 2022 production and sales express report released by Changan Automobile, Changan Ford produced 9805 units during the period, down 15.03% year-on-year; sales of 11934 units, an increase of 9.17% over last year, but this year's cumulative decline of 10.38% over the same period last year.

3.15 Expose the truth

At last year's March 15 party, changan ford was exposed to the shady scene of trying to bully consumers.

It is understood that Mr. Wang, the owner of the Car in Xuancheng, Anhui Province, has been using the Ford Wing Bo for six years, and suddenly there is a difficulty in starting, and there is a serious setback in the driving process. 4S shop maintenance personnel said that the vehicle was rusty due to water immersion caused by the transmission. The car has passed the warranty period, and the repair cost of more than 16,000 yuan needs to be borne by himself.

Coincidentally, another Ford Wing Bo owner, Mr. Chen, said that after driving for six years, the gearbox suddenly made a strange noise and lost its power when it was also running normally. But the 4S shop insisted that the owner whibbed in the water, and the car caused the gearbox to rust after passing through the blisters. Mr. Chen had no choice but to spend 7200 yuan on maintenance, but the same failure occurred again after a year.

In fact, many Ford owners said that the vehicle did not wade into the water, and the gearbox did not rust because of the water. After investigation, the main reason is that there is a problem in the design of the model's rain collection board, and when the car is washed or rainy, the water will flow through the gap between the engine and the gearbox through the rain collection plate, resulting in rust in the long run.

In response to this design flaw, the manufacturer had a solution in March 2020 and issued an internal notice to the dealer, providing a solution to add a gasket at the connection between the engine and the transmission, as well as a solution to add a waterproof cap to the heat sink. Therefore, the reason for the water ingress of the gearbox, Ford manufacturers and 4S stores have long been aware.

In this case, the 4S shop kept its mouth shut to the owner and pushed the responsibility to the owner, allowing him to repair the gearbox at his own expense of nearly 10,000 yuan, while quietly filling the loopholes on the rain collection board.

According to Changan Ford's solution, vehicles with corresponding failures will be quietly remedied during maintenance, but the owners of vehicles who are still using the vehicle normally do not know that the vehicle has such safety hazards.

In the face of CCTV's exposure, Changan Ford has publicly apologized, but many people still believe that Changan Ford's reflection is not profound, but just a "routine". As for whether it can change its mind and make changes, it remains to be seen.

Quality issues are frequent

The old accounts are gone, and new worries have been added. Changan Ford's quality problems are not only design defects, but its main models such as Fox, Forris, and Mondeo have different aspects of failures, mainly in the gearbox, engine, body accessories and electrical appliances.

First of all, looking at Fox, the main problem is focused on the gearbox, from the 2015 model to the 2021 model, there are transmission setbacks, abnormal noise, jitter, and inability to shift gears.

A 2021 hatchback EcoBoost 180 automatic ST Focus owner complained that the transmission failure still exists after replacing the sensor, and checked about 10 times in the 4S store within a month, but did not find faults, each inspection was upgraded according to the manufacturer's technical requirements, but there will still be a phenomenon of shock, abnormal sound, and dashboard failure tips in the pendant.

There is also a 2012 model 1.6 automatic fashion type hatchback owner said that in November 2021 to Shanxi Province 4S store to check the transmission problem, the reception staff said that it takes 1 hour to drain the gearbox, but only about ten minutes to end the maintenance, and did not give the owner any inspection list, and then on the way back, the vehicle intermittently appeared serious shaking, the accelerator did not respond, and occasionally the phenomenon of engine idling, resulting in the vehicle can not be used normally.

In addition, Fox has also been complained by many car owners about engine shaking, oil leakage, fault lights and other problems.

According to a car owner who purchased the Fox 2018 1.5T automatic elite model, there are design defects in the engine oil and gas separator, resulting in an abnormally large amount of oil accumulation in the intake pipe, and 200-300 ml of oil has been pumped. Engine oil consumption is abnormally fast, the oil is not hung up and the engine is seriously carbon deposited, and these oils are sucked into the combustion chamber when driving under high load, and the combustion causes the engine to shake and accelerate weakly.

The owner also said that such problems are common to the model, and some vehicles have exploded cylinders, which seriously threatens the life safety of the owner.

The same is true for Mondeo, which has assumed the responsibility of revitalizing Ford. According to the complaint of the owner of the 2020 Mondeo EcoBoost 200 luxury model, he purchased the vehicle in February 2021, found the engine oil leakage on September 15, and went to the 4S shop maintenance staff to inform the owner that the engine needed to be replaced. The replacement of the engine of the new car belongs to the car overhaul, the owner believes that the quality of the car can not be guaranteed, requiring the manufacturer to give an extended warranty, but the manufacturer said that it needs to pay money to achieve the extended warranty.

In addition, many body accessories and electrical problems such as odors in the car, window lifting failures, etc. also plague the owners.

A Forres 2015 1.5L manual comfort owner complained, the vehicle has been used for up to 6 years, the form of more than 60,000 kilometers, so far the car is still full of odor, the smell causes dizziness, resulting in motion sickness among the occupants; another 2017 Forres owner said that the main driving glass lift failure, after removing it found that the plug is full of water and white oxides, clean up after cleaning up, continue to use, but it will still be bad in case of rain.

Performance took a sharp turn for the worse

The joint venture brand used to be the "double cow" of most car companies' sales and profits, and Changan Ford was the same.

Since the establishment of Changan Ford in 2001, in less than 20 years, Changan Ford has sold more than 6 million vehicles in China.

In 2016, the cumulative sales volume of the Ford brand in China was 1.27 million, of which Changan Ford was as high as 950,000. According to the financial report data, in 2016, Changan Ford's net profit was 18.165 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to Changan Automobile was as high as 9.5 billion yuan, contributing more than 90% of the profit to Changan Automobile.

However, with the frequent occurrence of quality problems and the rise of independent brands, Changan Ford's current situation has long been much worse than before.

Since the record of 90,200 units sold in a single month in 2017, Changan Ford's sales have "fallen three times in a row" from 2017 to 2019, with only 183,000 units in 2019.

According to the data, in the first half of 2018-2020, Changan Ford's net profit was -804 million yuan, -3.851 billion yuan and -1.14 billion yuan, respectively, with a total loss of 5.8 billion yuan in two and a half years.

In 2021, Changan Ford sold a total of 253,300 vehicles, although it was a big increase compared with 184,000 units in 2020, but compared with the sales volume of nearly one million in 2016, it was almost a "knee cut".

In January, Changan Ford produced 25,717 units, down 9.72% year-on-year, and sales volume was 24,853 units, down 17.48% year-on-year.

The reason for the decline in sales and profits, the slow iteration of products, the decline in quality control, and the rapid deterioration of brand reputation are the key.

In the past two years, Changan Ford has also continuously launched new products and business transformations in an attempt to reverse the decline. Judging from the current complaint cases, Changan Ford's "road to rejuvenation" still needs excellent product quality and service system as a support.

Source: Leju Finance