I had a buddy who just got his 4door bronco and it was missing temperature control knobs ok delivery. Obviously ford fixed it but a few years ago you would never find a Ford sold like that. I do believe any company right now trying to push consumer goods are more focused on maintaining their revenue streams by getting products out the door rather than perfecting it and make the consumer wait longer. I wouldn’t say anyone is at fault since consumers want their goods while companies physically cannot get them out. So there has to be a trade off somewhere.
An issue discovered at delivery or soon after isn't exactly a reason to buy an extended warranty, since the standard warranty covers this. I mean, if your truck has several issue while under standard warranty, good reason to think you'll need the ESP. But if your truck has been solid for 3 years, I'm not sold that it's going to start falling a part.
Also, I'm not fully buying the idea that build quality has gone down hill, and vehicles will require more warranty work than before because of plastics and electronics. Unlike other consumer goods, Ford loses a lot if their vehicles fail early. No one goes back to the brand when they got a lemon with them before. No one wants a vehicle that has crappy resale value.
And as stated before, Ford makes money off the extended warranty.
The warranty at least gives piece of mind like many have said. Some of the parts may have gone through less vigorous QA vs in the past. Some may fail prematurely. I will say with every day that passes, we will find more companies adopting a fix-it model rather than a buy-it-and-forget-about-it model. Take a look at old appliances vs new ones. There are still ovens out there from the 60s that work like a champ where some new ones die within 2 years. Just saying.
Anyway the funniest thing was when i picked up the truck the dealer told me that soon Ford plans to sell vehicles with mechanical configurations and then any nice “electronic” add-ons will be sold as a subscription. You want heated seats? Ok that’ll be $50/year. Not sure the truth to that but he certainly believed it would be a thing lol.
I really doubt this will happen on features like heated seats, particularly when other brands aren't following suit. But there is, and will be subscription fees on some service type features. Already exists for internet access. Maybe security monitoring, remote access control, streaming services, etc.
