Ford penny pinching on 2020's?

[jabroni619]

Companies do survey groups all the time with people, who may or may not be customers, to get their thoughts on x, y, and z. Often times, those groups are made up of a couple hundred people or less and take place at an event of some sort. Companies often want to look at trends and feedback to make decisions about tweaks and future changes. You can’t argue that Ford is not doing the above.

Ford could also have conducted a survey internally asking certain employees whether they pay attention and/or care about a usb light and/or PRND light.

The above surveys are at least possible. And if they are at least possible, then I am not begging the question.

I said such a thing not to try and fool anybody. It was to show that simply saying Ford is penny pinching because they cut out some lights is a fallacy because we don’t have all the facts of why they did what they did. Maybe they did it to save money. Or maybe they did it because they didn’t think many people care. Who knows.

Also, Ford wouldn’t contact many Raptor owners if they did reach out to customers about these issues because Raptor owners make a very small percentage of the F150 customer base who have such features. This isn’t a Raptor issue per say.

How many people do you know who ford has reached out to regarding the lights? My guess is 0

still not fooling anyone. Keep it up though.

 

[FordTechOne]

- And there are customers who come from different brands, who compare Ford to other trucks/SUVs in $70k+ range. This is where cutting corners by Ford is very visible and it is much more harder for Ford to get away with "cheapness" on the interior and exterior.

I absolutely agree with original post, Ford is trying to get away with savings costs, yet there is still enough demand in #1 and #2 type of customers, so items we're talking about here are not "really issues" for Ford. Customers of type #3 are very small percentage of overall Ford sales, unfortunately.

You seem to surmise an awful lot of information without having any facts to support it You act as if Ford, or any other company, makes drastic changes and then just sits back and waits for the sales numbers to tell the story. That couldn't be farther from the truth.

As was mentioned by SVTFordRaptor, all companies do market research to determine what customers value, desire, or are indifferent to. An interior engineer isn't just going to go rogue one day and make changes out of nowhere.

In case you haven't noticed, the full size truck market is ultra-competitive. Ford F-Series isn't the only game in town, not by a long shot. GM has their Silverado Trail Boss, (which is more comparable to an F-150 FX4) and RAM is supposedly releasing their Rebel TRX concept, which is certainly a Raptor competitor.

 

[FordTechOne]

How many people do you know who ford has reached out to regarding the lights? My guess is 0

still not fooling anyone. Keep it up though.

Why would he? The clinics consist of literally a few hundred owners a couple times a year; it's not like they invite almost a million F-Series owners to congregate.

 

[FordTechOne]

I had a 2016 Platinum prior to the 2019 Raptor and I'm pretty sure it had the lighted PRDM. Redundant or not, I'm old school and when it's dark, I look down to verify the gear I'm in. I just don't like cost cutting on a truck that I'm spending 75K on. That's all I'm saying. Whether it's redundant or not, it's still valuable to me.

Why not just look at the Instrument Cluster - directly in front of you - where the illuminated gear indicator resides?

 

[Deleted member 17706]

How many people do you know who ford has reached out to regarding the lights? My guess is 0

still not fooling anyone. Keep it up though.

I don’t think you realize the implications of what you are saying. Just because I don’t know of someone, who was asked from Ford to provide feedback, does not mean that Ford has not done such a thing.

I don’t personally know of someone that has the Coronavirus. Does that mean such a virus does not exist?

I don’t personally know of someone that has been *****. Does that mean people don’t get *****?

I don’t personally know of a Navy Seal. Does that mean Navy Seals do not exist?

I don’t personally know of someone that has been to space. Does that mean space does not exist?

Personally knowing someone does not determine whether or not something exists and occurs. To imply otherwise would be a fallacy.

Ford does survey groups every year (just like thousands of other companies). Just because they do such studies does not mean that USB and PRND light questions got brought up—that would be a fallacy to simply assume that. But it does make it at least possible for it to have been brought up at some point. That is all I posited.

 

[smurfslayer]

- And there are customers who come from different brands, who compare Ford to other trucks/SUVs in $70k+ range. This is where cutting corners by Ford is very visible and it is much more harder for Ford to get away with "cheapness" on the interior and exterior.

I absolutely agree with original post, Ford is trying to get away with savings costs, yet there is still enough demand in #1 and #2 type of customers, so items we're talking about here are not "really issues" for Ford. Customers of type #3 are very small percentage of overall Ford sales, unfortunately.

You left out a couple categories.

The functional truck user who is not brand loyal, but has a specific set of criteria to do specific work in which a truck is essential.

The effete, disaffected hipster wannabe brand snob who bought the Rap as a status symbol

There are couple more niche categories, but ‘brand snob, lots of brand b folks represented in this category, feel like their vehicle’s $hit doesn’t stink and even when they’re stranded on the side of the road with an M car engulfed in flames, it’s still the ultimate driving machine... even while you drive past the conflagration ...

Since you didn't mention anything about Ford reaching out to you specifically or surveying you about this ommission, I'm going to assume you weren't part of this "potential" case study that ford may have done. I can tell you that I wasn't reached out to either. Did Ford reach out to anyone else reading this regarding the lighted USB ports and shifter?

I admit, it was me. Not only did I let the dogs out, when Ford sent the survey, in the extra comments box I told them the shifter ‘lights’ on the center console looked cheesy and since I had this ginormous dash display prominently offering to tell me what gear I had selected, I felt the console illumination was superfluous and a bit ostentatious. I went on to suggest that illumination around the usb port was an unnecessary distraction, bound to prompt some brain dead, selfish, ‘my text is more important than your life’ nit-wit to inattentively plow into a class full of pre-schoolers.

I had no idea they’d take me seriously.

 

[jabroni619]

The truck buyer who’s only looking for the “essentials” isn’t spending 70k on a truck.

 

[K223]

I’m sure more than one of us can not nitpick and knock some of the features on the truck. Or have some ****** complaints about the lack of. Your never going to make everyone happy. Obviously if more than half the Raptor owners complained to Ford about a particular feature, they are going to have to take another look at it.

I used to be a brand loyalist years back. Then I stopped being stupid
And became more open. If there was a truck for instance built with a lot of features I liked and it stood out, well I’m gonna look into that vehicle and possibly buy it.

At this point I have had trucks from the big 3 domestic brands.

The Raptor, well you guessed it! Admired it for the last couple of years more than ever. Standout? Yes! In more ways than one. Pricey yes! But eventually pulled the trigger.

So with that said I really do still like this dang truck after owning it for a little while now. First truck I have owned I did not have to take back to the dealer for some kind of warranty work within 6 months. Anything I may have nitpicked about is really nothing. I like this truck!!!!!!!!

 

[K223]

The truck buyer who’s only looking for the “essentials” isn’t spending 70k on a truck.

Very true and I know many of them. They may spend half the amount of what this truck costs. And many of them don’t give a hoot about a lit up USB port!

 

[GCATX]

I didn't even know the indicators were on the console until I saw a thread here about the new ones not being lighted. I also didn't know the cupholders had the spring things until I tried to put a normal size ceramic coffee mug into one, it's almost impossible to force one in without spilling coffee.

The shifter lights seems like a a 70's tech hold over and the spring loaded cup thingies seem like something the designers should have passed around the table before putting into production. Don't f*%k with my lights around the usb though. Them's fighting words.