Ford Trucks For Sale

The Ford Motor Company said it is making further reductions to its North American truck production plan, while adding more small cars, crossovers and fuel-efficient powertrains in response to the continued deterioration in the U.S. business environment and the accelerated shift away from large trucks and SUVs.

Ford also announced that sedan and hatchback versions of the next-generation European Ford Focus will be produced in North America beginning in late 2010.

“As gasoline prices average more than $4 a gallon and consumers worry about the weak U.S. economy, we see June industry-wide auto sales slowing further and demand for large trucks and SUVs at one of the lowest levels in decades,” said Alan Mulally, president and CEO. “Ford has taken decisive action to respond to this accelerating shift in customer demand away from large trucks and SUVs to smaller cars and crossovers, and we will continue to act swiftly moving forward.”

Including medium and heavy vehicles, Ford now expects U.S. industry volume to be between 14.7 and 15.2 million units, compared with the previous assumption of 15 to 15.4 million units. Accordingly, Ford now plans to produce 475,000 vehicles in the third quarter, a reduction of 50,000 units from previously-announced plans and a decline of 25 per cent when compared with the 2007 third quarter. In the fourth quarter, Ford plans to produce 550,000 to 590,000 units, a reduction of 40,000 units from previously-announced plans, and a decline of 8 to 14 per cent compared with the 2007 fourth quarter.

Ford will also delay the introduction of the new 2009 F-150 pickup truck by approximately two months, due to the industry-wide slowdown in the segment and the need to sell down dealer inventory of the current model. The new truck will go on sale in late fall.

To cut back its production, Ford will now begin 2009 F-150 production in August at Kansas City Assembly Plant and in September at Dearborn Truck, and will eliminate one shift at each plant; Michigan Truck Plant will be idled for nine consecutive weeks beginning the week of June 23; and the line speed will be reduced at Kentucky Truck Plant and Chicago Assembly. Production of large pickups will wind down at Cuautitlan Assembly Plant in Mexico by the end of 2008; the plant will be retooled for production of the new Fiesta small car for North America, beginning in early 2010.

Ford will also add a third shift for production of the Ford Edge, Lincoln MKX and Ford Flex at its plant in Oakville, Ontario. Other upgraded plants include a third shift at Kansas City, which produces the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner; and a new third shift at Wayne Assembly to produce the Ford Focus.

“We view the move to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles as permanent, and we are responding to customer demand,” Mulally said. “In the near term, we are adjusting production to the actual demand, increasing small cars and crossovers, and reducing large trucks and SUVs. For the long term, we are moving fast to introduce more small cars, crossovers and fuel-efficient powertrains, including more hybrids, and we will adjust our manufacturing facilities to match our updated product line-up.”

Union says slashing output of pick ups and SUVs will eliminate 300 jobs

The storm battering Detroit intensified yesterday with Ford Motor Co. offering a bleak sales outlook and its second major production cut in less than a month, which will wipe out 300 jobs at its Canadian operations.

Ford said it will delay introduction of a new generation of its F-series pickup by two months, cut production of trucks and truck-based sport utility vehicles even further than it announced less than a month ago and will have difficulty meeting its previous target of breaking even on a company-wide basis next year.

It also reiterated earlier plans to boost output of smaller cars and crossover utilities, including the CUVs made in Oakville, Ont.

“We view the move to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles as permanent and we are responding to customer demand,” Ford president Alan Mulally said in a statement.

Union officials said slashing output of trucks and SUVs means 300 jobs will be lost at the company’s Windsor, Ont., engine facility, which puts together V-8 and V-10 engines for Pickups and SUVs.

There are about 2,500 Canadian Auto Workers members now at Ford’s engine plants and joint ventures in the city and 738 on layoff, Mike Vince, president of local 200 in Windsor, said yesterday.

The crisis in Detroit is spilling over to parts makers in Canada as well, with Magna International Inc. announcing this week that it will slash 400 jobs or one-quarter of the work force at a plant in St. Thomas, Ont., that makes frames for GM’s pickups. GM revealed in turn that it is delaying development of its next generation of pickup trucks to focus more of its resources on cars and other vehicles that use less gas.

Magna’s U.S. plants will take a hit with the Ford announcement because the parts giant makes many components for heavy-duty pickups assembled at one Ford plant in Kentucky and frames for the Explorer SUV built at another plant in that state. Output is being throttled back at both plants. It will trim a shift of Explorer production and cut the assembly line speed at the pickup plant.

Previous cuts by the Detroit Three are one of the causes of parts sector employment in Canada plunging by more than 20,000 jobs to 81,676 workers last month from a peak reached in 2001, industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers said in a report yesterday.

The parts sector will not disappear, said Mr. DesRosiers, president of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc.

“The remaining parts sector should be able to recover as the cyclical downturn in the industry recovers,” Mr. DesRosiers said.

The Ford announcement capped a brutal week for the Detroit Three that included forecasts by several Wall Street analysts and the chairman of Chrysler LLC that sales in the U.S. market will plunge to their lowest level this month in more than a decade.

Underlining the growing danger to Detroit was Ford’s new statement that its perennially profitable credit arm will report a pretax loss this year and will not pay a dividend to its parent company.

Regulator filings show Ford Motor Credit Co. has posted a profit annually since 1989, which is as far back as Securities and Exchange Commission documents go.

Two influential U.S. ratings agencies added to the pressure, with Standard & Poor’s Corp. placing ratings for all three companies on credit watch with negative implications and Moody’s Investors Service Inc. cutting Ford’s outlook to negative from stable.

Both rating agencies are worried about the cash drain the severe slump in truck and SUV sales is causing.

“We have renewed concerns about all three auto makers’ future cash outflows in light of the prospects for U.S. sales for the rest of 2008 and into 2009,” said Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Robert Schulz.

Deteriorating fundamentals could reduce liquidity to undesirable levels by the second half of next year, Standard & Poor’s added.

Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday it plans to greatly increase the use of more fuel-efficient six-speed automatic transmissions, doubling their number by the end of next year and putting them in 98 percent of its North American vehicles by 2012.

Ford said the six-speed automatic transmissions offer 4 percent to 6 percent better fuel economy than four- and five-speed automatics.

The Dearborn-based automaker says its 6F35 six-speed transmissions will debut in the 2009-model Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner crossover vehicles, which now have four-speed automatic transmissions. They also will go into the 2009 Mazda Tribute and two other vehicles early next year, Ford said.

“These technologies are all about fuel economy,” said Craig Renneker, Ford’s chief engineer for new automatic transmissions.

Ford Vice President Barb Samardzich, head of the company’s North American transmission operations, said the new transmissions are key to Ford’s planned 30-percent cut in vehicle greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

“They also deliver improved acceleration and smoother shifting, all at a great value for consumers,” she said in a statement.

Congress passed a law last year that requires new cars and trucks to meet a fleet average of 35 mpg by 2020, a 40 percent increase from the current average requirement of 25 mpg.

Ford said its Sterling Heights transmission plant will make 1.3 million 6F35 transmissions a year. A $658 million investment announced last year at transmission plants in Sterling Heights and Livonia, Mich., and Sharonville, Ohio, was primarily for making these transmissions, Ford said.

General Motors Corp. last month unveiled a six-speed automatic transmission combined with a four-cylinder engine in the popular 2008 Chevy Malibu.

GM said the new powertrain would debut immediately in the high-end Malibu LTZ and next year in two lower-priced Malibu models.

Reflecting changed priorities as rising fuel prices bite, Ford is transforming a Mexican large truck plant to make the European-designed Fiesta small car for North America from early 2010.

Ford also said it would sell a hatchback version alongside the popular sedan and add diesel engine production and a gearbox joint venture in Mexico.

Beginning this year, the Cuautitlan facility near Mexico City will be converted from current production of F-Series pickups for Mexico - future supplies will be imported from the US - to small cars for all North America.

The Chihuahua engine plant, which builds I4 engines, also will assemble diesels for light- and medium-duty trucks in a variety of global markets.

In addition, through a joint venture with Getrag (GFT), Ford will establish a new transmission plant in Guanajuato to supply various vehicle lines.

Ford said the multi-plant development project is a US$3bn investment, including the support of local suppliers, as well as Mexico’s largest ever automotive investment, expected to create approximately 4,500 direct jobs. Together with indirect employment at suppliers, the moves affects 30,000 jobs in Mexico.

“Ford is absolutely committed to leveraging our global assets to accelerate the shift to more fuel-efficient small cars and powertrain technologies that people really want and value,” said Ford president and CEO Alan Mulally.

“Our investments in these facilities in Mexico are part of our plan to further realign our manufacturing capacity in line with the introduction of more small cars and crossovers.”

“Customers responded very positively after seeing both the sedan and hatchback versions of the Verve small car concept [at motor shows],” noted Mark Fields, Ford’s president of The Americas. “We know the market is headed toward more small cars and crossovers. With our product and manufacturing flexibility, we will be able to offer both models and add production capacity.”

Momentum in small-car sales is outpacing overall industry growth worldwide, the automaker said. Globally, small car sales have grown from 23m in 2002 to an estimated 38m in 2012.

Driving the growth in the North American market is a group of young people aged 13 to 28 years - dubbed ‘millennials’. Today, this group stands 1.7bn strong worldwide and will represent 28% of the total US population by 2010.

The new investment is expected to increase Ford of Mexico’s annual production to almost 500,000 vehicles and 330,000 engines by 2012, with about 80% of the vehicles and most engines headed for the North American market.

Ford also has stamping and assembly plants in Hermosillo, Sonora, where the Fusion, Mercury Milan and Lincoln MKZ sedans are built. These mid-size cars are sold throughout North America as well as Venezuela and Brazil.

The Associated Press (AP) said Ford’s move was a blow to the United Auto Workers union, which last year approved a contract that granted concessions to the automaker.

Earlier this year, according to AP, UAW president Ron Gettelfinger said the union would try to convince Ford that its US plants were competitive enough that the automaker could make money building its smallest cars in the US. Currently, all subcompacts sold in the US were built overseas, he said at the time.

AP noted that Ford has sold 12m Fiestas since the vehicle was introduced in 1976. Although a familiar name to customers in Europe, Asia and South America, it was only sold in the US - from 1978 to 1980.

The Ford Motor Company has been plagued by different problems in recent months. Last year, they have lost the most money in their storied and lengthy history. They have even used the company’s plants as collateral for a loan they needed badly.

And it seems that Ford is not out of the woods yet. Recently, the company announced that they are recalling diesel engined 2008 model Super Duty trucks. The recall is the result of reports of tailpipe fires on diesel variants of the 2008 model of the heavy duty pickup trucks. The culprit of these fires was discovered to be leaking oil or fuel ignited when it came in contact with the diesel particulate filter located near the tailpipe of the trucks.

As of today, FoMoCo received three reports of tailpipe fires. It can be remembered that Ford proudly announced the development of the particulate filter and its ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of the diesel engines. In one reported case, it was said that the truck’s hot tailpipe ignited the grass beneath it. Fortunately though, the grass fire was extinguished immediately and that no one was hurt neither in the incident nor in the other two cases of tailpipe fires.

The recall, according to Dan Jarvis, spokesman for Ford, “is an important product for us and an important customer base, and we want to move swiftly to make sure this does not become a safety issue for our customers.”The recall will be a big blow to the company’s reputation and it might as well negatively affect the sale of the Super Duty trucks. The truck is one of Ford’s most profitable vehicles and the company rally needs to address the situation as soon as possible. That is why Ford will be sending out recall notices to their customers in early April. But before that, their dealers can warn them of the possible risk of tailpipe fires.

The recall is the second problem that FoMoCo encountered with the Ford Super Duty Truck. It can be remembered that in late February, Ford’s engine supplier Navistar International Corp. halted deliveries of the PowerStroke engines due to contract disputes. The supply of the engines to Ford’s assembly plants is as abrupt as a vehicle stopped in its tracks by brake components from EBC Active Brakes Direct.The recall will affect the first 8,400 diesel Super Duty trucks for the 2008 model year. These vehicles will undergo software upgrades that according to Jarvis will only take less than ten minutes per vehicle. The new software upgrade will shutdown the vehicle once it detects abnormally hot temperature on the particulate filter. This will give drivers of the Ford Super Duty trucks to pull safely to the side of the road to let the particulate filter cool down before running the vehicle again.

New seats designed by an in-house team at Ford Motor Co. are to debut this spring and summer in three important vehicles: the F-150 pickup, the Lincoln MKS and the Ford Flex.

Jerry Brown, Ford’s chief engineer for global seats and restraints engineering, said the new seats are part of an effort that began in 2004 at Ford to do more of its own interior design and engineering.

Ford expanded its seat engineering department from about 65 to 150 to develop seats across all Ford cars and trucks with a unique look and feel.

When the program began, Ford had 28 seat platforms. Today, the company has nine and it is aiming to reduce that to two. The F-150, Flex and Lincoln MKS feature the same seat, Brown said, but each has different cushioning, fabric and other modifications to fit the character of each vehicle.

“We had to continually pay for the engineering, the testing and then the tooling to constantly refurbish or replace these 28 different seat structures,” Brown said. “So we took a step back to try to figure out how we could get away from that.”

The first seats from the program debuted on the Ford Focus last fall. Warranty claims on those seats dropped 47% and the money spent to settle claims fell 70%, Brown said.

Ford has saved millions of dollars from the program beyond the warranty savings but Brown declined to be more specific. Now, Ford may use the program as a model for other product areas, such as instrument panels and center consoles.

“We just simply feel we need to be more involved in the system integration of our interiors to ensure they are distinctively Ford,” Derrick Kuzak, Ford’s group vice president of global product development, said at the SAE 2008 World Congress last week.

Ford Motor Co. (F) will cut North America production by 101,000 vehicles during the second quarter in response to the weakening U.S. sales market.

The auto maker now plans to build 710,000 cars and trucks during the quarter, Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair said during a conference call Thursday. European production, however, is expected to increase by 53,000 vehicles to 565, 000.

The production cuts underscore how the softening U.S. economy, combined with rising gas prices, are impacting the sale of new cars and trucks. General Motors Corp. (GM) said Wednesday that U.S. industry sales may be worse in the second quarter than the first quarter.

Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally said during the call he will continue looking to trim hourly jobs after the company bought out 4,200 hourly workers during the first quarter. Mulally said he will now concentrate on reductions on a plant-by-plant and product-by-product basis. Buyouts will be used but the packages won’t be sweetened, Mulally said.

“We don’t have a company wide hiring freeze,” Mulally said. “The overall direction is to size production to demand.”

Ford shares recently rose 56 cents, or 7.5%, to $8.08.

Ford trucks are about to start working smarter on the jobsite. Through innovative thinking and industry-first partnerships, customers of the brands popular work-trucks and work-vans will be able to experience enhanced connectivity and security on the go with the newly-announced Work Solutions.

It’s a name given to an umbrella of helpful features intended to help owners better run key aspects of their business. Ford says that four key technologies have been developed to meet the goal.

The first is an in-dash computer system that’s powered by Microsoft Auto and allows high-speed internet access right from the dashboard, using the Sprint Mobile network. Navigation is included with this feature- and it’s the first broadband-capable in-dash computer in production.

Customers can use it to access the internet virtually anywhere, as well as to print or store important information. There’s an SD card slot, a built-in stylus, and full Bluetooth connectivity.

The in-car computer puts a sensitive touch-screen to work in a tough environment that’s commonly filled with dirt and dust, but Ford promises that the system is held to the same standards as the rest of their truck.

The Tool Link system is available under Ford Work Solutions too. It uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags embedded within tools to display a real-time inventory of equipment that’s stored on board. RFID tags are very small and require no power source, as they’re “energized” by an external reader before emitting a signal. This allows a scanner to determine how many of the ‘tags’ are present in a given area without actually seeing or touching them. For Ford’s application, the system was developed with DEWALT tools and ThingMagic- an expert on embedded RFID technology.

“Tool Link increases productivity and saves money,” said William Frykman, Ford Work Solutions product and business development manager. “It helps contractors and tradespeople guarantee they show up at the job site with the right tools for each job– and that they don’t leave equipment behind.”

From keeping track of tools to keeping track of an entire fleet of vehicles is Crew Chief- a telematics and diagnostic system that allows owners to manage their machines more easily.

The system is tied into the vehicle electronics and can warn of undesirable situations like excessive idling or the presence of a check-engine light. Using a web-based application, owners can dispatch workers to job sites quickly while keeping detailed maintenance records on all of the trucks. Crew Chief can also help calculate fuel expenses and even alert the office if a truck is in an unauthorized area- and for how long. It’s a triumph of technology over excessive coffee-breaks.

Finally, a Cable Lock security system was developed with Master Lock and aims to discourage theft of expensive tools that are too large to fit in the cab of a truck.

A heavy-duty, ten-millimeter sheathed metal cable can be woven though large equipment that may have to stay in the vehicle’s box when it’s parked- like a tool-box or generator.

The cable can then be attached to anything else in the trucks box, the tie-down cleats, or even to itself, making sure that the larger items stay just where they were left.

According to Ford, these smart new features add a new dimension to the concept of a work-truck above and beyond payload ratings and maximum towing capacities. “Our truck customers are smart — and they work hard,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s president of The Americas. “Ford Work Solutions provides truck customers new technologies and tools to help them work even smarter and further boost their productivity.”

The vision for Ford’s truck team was clear: Redesign America’s favorite truck inside and out to give customers unrivaled capability, unprecedented choice and a host of smart, game-changing features. The result is the new 2009 Ford F-150, the new benchmark in the full-size pickup segment from the industry’s truck leader - which has built more than 33 million F-Series pickups since 1948.

The Ford truck team adopted a holistic, 360-degree approach to revamping the new 2009 F-150 - from its segment-first features to the tough new exterior highlighted by a dramatic three-bar grille and more spacious, flexible and refined interior, to the unparalleled choice of cab styles and trim levels - including a new Platinum series that redefines truck luxury. Under the hood, the new F-150 will be powered by three modern V-8 engines, mated to either a 4-speed or a new fuel-efficient 6-speed automatic transmission.

The improvements are just as dramatic beneath the sheet metal. A new high-strength, lighter-weight chassis is the backbone that allows this tough truck to deliver more horsepower, better fuel economy and safety, and additional towing and payload capacity.

A high-tech suite of features ensures the F-150 is sure-footed and safe in all driving and load conditions. The new F-150 offers segment-first standard AdvanceTrac with RSC (Roll Stability Control) and Trailer Sway Control plus available Rearview Camera Assist as well as Integrated Trailer Brake Controller a segment-first on light-duty pickups.

The interior of the new 2009 F-150 SuperCrew offers more usable space for moving more people and gear thanks to a 6-inch stretch that improves rear seat legroom and cargo capacity. A mechanically articulated second-row seat flips up and out of the way. Combined with a truly flat load floor, the feature gives the new SuperCrew class leading 57.6 cubic feet of space behind the front seats and can accommodate items up to 47.9 inches tall, such as flat-screen TV that needs to be hauled from the electronics store to home.

Sales of Ford trucks and sport utility vehicles sagged again in March by double digits. Meanwhile, growing sales of the Focus compact car shed light on increasing consumer demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Overall, auto sales last month were the lowest since March 1993, as U.S. new-car buyers pulled back from rising gasoline prices, tighter credit markets and a weak economy.

Ford foresees an even tougher second quarter, said Jim Farley, group vice president for global marketing and communications.

“I would like to tell you the worst is behind us,” he said. The second quarter “may be the most difficult of the year.”

General Motors and Chrysler led the downward sales trend with a 19 percent sales drops in March, followed by Ford’s 14 percent decline compared to a year earlier.

Toyota, Nissan and Honda reported declines of 10 percent, 4 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

The North American sales outlook for the entire industry for the year could dip as low as 15 million vehicles, Ford executives said.

F-Series truck sales declined 24 percent and Explorer sport utility vehicle sales fell 15 percent, the automaker reported.

Ford sold 54,465 F-Series trucks last month, compared to 71,482 in March 2007. Buyers continue to bypass the Explorer in search of more fuel-efficient vehicles, with the SUV dropping to 10,969 sold in March, down from 12,876 in last year’s period.

Ford’s Louisville plants manufacture the Explorer and F-Series 250 and larger trucks.

Those results are even starker when compared to March 2006, with F-Series truck and Explorer sales plummeting about 35 percent each since then.

Viewed another way, trucks and SUVs account now for 30 percent of Ford sales, compared to 50 percent in 2004, Farley said.

“That is a wholesale change,” he said. “Frankly, this shift puts a lot of pressure on our market share.”

The change is apparent across the automobile market, said Jesse Toprak, chief of industry analysis at Edmunds.com.

Still, with rising sales of the Focus, Ford’s lone entry in the small-car market, and increasing popularity of the Edge, the Escape and other crossover SUVs, Ford is maintaining its 15 percent market-share goal for 2008, Farley said.

Ford continues to enjoy decent sales of the Edge, up 35 percent in March to 13,508 from 10,915 one year ago.

The Focus also appears to be getting traction among buyers looking for a small vehicle for price, fuel economy or both. Ford reported Focus sales rose 36 percent in March to 21,168.

Still, Ford would do well to broaden its small-car offerings beyond the Focus, Toprak said.

“Honda and Toyota have always had quite a few selections in every category,” he said. “That is truly the whole idea of going after the niche markets, to have a car for any customer, in any income bracket, in any kind of size.”