Comments on: Ford cuts Q4 losses in half, but still far from profitable

By: Badass Z51

Badass Z51 — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:21:51 +0000

Ad’s aren’t the problem, it’s their products. They could get the Hawaiian Tropic models to come to my house and tell me how great Fords are while they hand me a ****tail and give me a massage. I STILL WOULDN’T buy a ford!

By: jdasch1

jdasch1 — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:01:05 +0000

Ford needs to keep cutting the deadwood within its company. Then it needs to FIRE its ad firm, J. Walter Thompson. Ford will come back to profitability, but their ad firm is 30 plus years old with Ford and is completely out of ideas that sell the cars and trucks Ford needs to sell to be profitable. Get some new blood onboard and see what happens. Most BIG companies when they start losing money, fire the top people and get a new ad agency…this has only half happened for Ford. Look at Toyota for example. They have record problems with quality and recalls…they have 1/3 of the dealers to service the customers they sell to than Ford has, but their ads ROCKKKK!! GM’s ads ROCKKK!! Ford soft sells everything, and sales are soft…get a F**king new ad agency for crying out loud, already!!! OK???

By: autonut

autonut — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:27:55 +0000

Robert, at what profit level Ford can own it’s own factories back? I recall they mortgaged all of their tangible assets for 23 billion last year. They must be paying dearly for that cash (it was before 3 rate cuts). When do you suspect Ford will recover? This year will probably be miserable for most automaker.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:14:44 +0000

The Corolla is riding a platform originally developed years before the C170 and will continue on that platform when the 2009 launches. Don’t confuse an ugly car with an old car. The new Focus has great driving dynamics, it’s just not pretty to look at.

The loss is actually better than it looks in media headlines. That $2.8 included a one-time charge of $2.4 related to Volvo. So, Ford’s loss without charges was about $400 million versus $3 billion last year. I’d say that’s good progress.

Losses for the whole year totaled $300 million after tax (pre-tax, there was an operating profit) compared with a loss of nearly $6 billion last year after tax.

By: F3INT))AP3X

F3INT))AP3X — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:14:29 +0000

I just can’t wait for Ford to make their big come back; I like Japanese cars a lot but I think it would just be so awesome if I could go out and buy something from Ford that’s just as attractive and powerful as its Japanese counterpart. Can’t wait for the day where I can buy American and not look like a loser. I still have my 93 Taurus with only about 65k miles on it and it makes me damn proud to be driving something born and bred in America! (still love my Jap car though =)

By: global_lightning

global_lightning — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:14:53 +0000

Right now they have a great sedan – the Fusion/Milan. It’s competitive against the Accord and Camry and has won several quality awards. This car will also recieve a hybrid system later this year, which should improve visibility and sales. The Taurus/Sable needs a redesign to take off but the current design is holding it’s own. Where they really need help is in the compact car segment. They need to dump the Focus, NOW. It’s too old in a segment where 4 years is considered ancient. They’re losing young buyers to the Japanese, who in 10 years will move up to family sedans. Guess where they’ll go for those?

By: 441Zuke

441Zuke — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:43:01 +0000

ford lost their way when they redesigned the original Taurus in 1996 it has been a long decline since. without a good family sedan for is just going to eat away at itself they need a good compact car and a good sedan. if they can re-invent the wheel all power to them but they have to make a car better then the Malibu or aura at this point.

By: johnnycanuck

johnnycanuck — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:27:21 +0000

So they are capable of making money everywhere but here. Would that be because they have better product everywhere but here? So why not bring some of that product over here? Ford: can you hear the logic in that?

By: DrFill

DrFill — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:20:53 +0000

From pathetic to putrid.
Congratulations?
DrFill

By: Heart64

Heart64 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:17:11 +0000

Drop Fields there 20 Million cash infusion for ya

By: global_lightning

global_lightning — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:56:33 +0000

The Land Rover/Jaguar sale may make an interesting addition to the bottom line. In addition to the cash infusion, Ford could gain steady income from licencing its technology to Tata. Both should be used to improve Ford’s North American operations by investing in new platforms and reducing planned expenditures (ie, heathcare for retirees)

By: SS4LIFE

SS4LIFE — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:50:43 +0000

Well at least things are slightly getting better for Ford. They’ll turn around eventually. It’s just going to take awhile.

By: SwerveEarly

SwerveEarly — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:48:48 +0000

“special items” sounds like something you would find in a backpack on a short bus.

By: jayjc08

jayjc08 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:46:19 +0000

Sounds like it’s getting brighter for Ford…

But I’d really like to see how Chrysler’s doing, because Chrysler doesn’t have such a large foreign market as Ford and GM does. And Chrysler is the one who’s really loosing the reviews, and is doing emergency revamps of it’s vehicles. Maybe Chrysler will become something like AMC, a thing of the past, because they’ve been unable to change over… 40 years. This has been an ongoing pattern, a big dip and loss in market, a few modest hits, to another dip. Chrysler needs to do a serious turnaround, and I don’t see that happening for a number of reasons. They have the design, but not the conscious quality, performance, engineering or investments to really back that up.