Idiot of the day award goes to Ford spokesperson-You won't believe what they said!

Does the amount of total sales really matter? When thinking about quality, resale values, overall owner satisfaction, etc. does it really mean that a car company is #1 or #2 in U.S. car sales?

All foriegn companies can be the top U.S. sales leaders...if that will take the pressure off the American carmakers so they can better focus on higher quality and better designs.

Agent001, you have right to post these short pieces, but the name-calling and outright judgement is a bit cold and unnecessary at times.

The total sales matters because quality, resale values, and overall owner satisfaction is all factors of vehicle sales. Would you really buy a car because it has poor quality or the resale value is poor?

The reason why Toyota, Honda are great sellers in the U.S. is because of they have great quality products that hold their value, in turn it's a great purchase so more people turn to purchase their cars

The best way to cope with losing a race is pretending that you’re not concerned about winning. Although if I were in charge of Ford, that person or the PR firm who put him on television would be condemned to a life of flipping burgers.

But… in one way, he’s right. They do have more important matters at hand then just a sales race, if he’s referring to marketing. First they have to get their manufacturing process up to par with their competition. On top of the lack of efficiency, there is no bigger insult to the American car buyer than pushing all of the manufacturing out to foreign countries (Mexico, nonetheless) while the Japanese, even Korean, competition is building an avalanche of new factories in the US… PAYING AMERICAN SCALE WAGES!

Ford is becoming the overweight kid who’s always out breath pleading for his friends to wait for him. All of their brands are losing meaning. Mercury has never inspired the name of a great car. I don’t’ think I’ve ever read a glowing review of any of their cars.

What is Bill doing with his time? It’s not working on cars or recruiting great engineers. Even during GMs darkest days, they still had brilliant marketing; but that, apparently is in the toilet for Ford too.

So yes. They do have much, much more to worry about than a sales race. Like finding someone who can at least attempt to put a positive spin on the company’s direction on national television, and building a product that is not at least a generation behind.

d3wade works for ford

I agree totally with webguy. A sales race now means nothing. Concentrate on fixing the wrongs first before doing anything else. But I know that foreign car companies dont have the unionized labor system in their US plants as opposed to Ford and GM. Is this true?

Toyota made #2 for one month. It's not a big deal, especially not a big surprise...If Ford had just one new model out soon, this would be a different story...But I will agree that Ford is cutting it way too close to bankruptcy

This statement is not stupid at all 001. You are just looking for yet another reason to bash an American car company. If you stop to think, which I know you don't do often, you might realize that his point, when not taken out of context, is that Ford will be focusing its attetion on building better cars and shoring up the finances of the company, which does not directly correlate with being the sales leader. I know that is hard for you to understand, but do try to think about it.

What exactly is Ford concentrating on? The small car market is on the upswing with swelling gas prices, yet they provide only minor refreshening for its smallest car - the Focus. I understand they also have the Mazda small cars & the Volvo S40 (premium $), but that's it. Toyota has the Yaris, the Corolla, Matrix & Prius - not to mention the Scion trio. It's no wonder why Toyota passed Ford recently.

Ford should really consider selling Jaguar to cut some red ink out of the books. And is the Mercury (re)brand really necessary? Selling Jag will also help hold them over until they can freshen their lineup and sell some cars - hopefully, without incentives.

What is Ford?

I am curious as to what followed the "we have more important matters at hand" comment. Taken out of context, it sounds damning.

Put into context, such as "our products are the problem, not the sales figures -- if we fix the product problem then the sales problem resolves itself, so we are not overly focused on the sales race", I can side with the spokesperson. Mind you, I didn't hear the conversation, so I can't pass judgement on this one.