Ford’s Lincoln Hammered In New Research

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jun 25, 11:45AM EDT

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Ford’s Lincoln Hammered In New Research — © sshaw75 / iStock Unreleased via Getty Images

According to Ford management, there has been an ongoing quality issue with their vehicles, which has once again been highlighted in the recently published J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Initial Quality Study covering all major car brands. Ford’s luxury brand, Lincoln, received a placement near the bottom of the rankings.

The study quantifies the number of issues per 100 vehicles, with data collected from 93,380 individuals who purchased or leased new 2023 model-year vehicles. The survey comprises questions spanning nine distinct vehicle categories, namely: 1) infotainment, 2) features, controls, and displays, 3) exterior, 4) driving assistance, 5) interior, 6) powertrain, 7) seats, 8) driving experience, and 9) climate.
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The average brand score in the study was 192. Lincoln’s score was 208. U.S. rival, GM’s Cadillac, had a strong score of 170. Among luxury car brands, Infiniti (212) and Audi ((221) also did poorly.

The brands with the best quality were Dodge (140) and RAM (141). They have the same parent–Stellantis N.V.

Lincoln faces a problem that plagues Ford in general. Several months ago, The Wall Street Journal published “At Ford, Quality Is Problem One.” Among the issues were recalls and their effect on warranties. “Mr. (Josh) Halliburton (director of quality) said he expects to see Ford’s warranty problems improve next year, but it may take two to three years to see the most impactful results.”

As Ford ventures into the EV market, its quality challenges pose a significant obstacle. The company is set to invest billions of dollars in this endeavor, putting it in direct competition with Tesla and nearly every other major manufacturer worldwide.
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Lincoln sales are down this year, off by 10.8% to 32,130. If it were not for strong sales of its flagship Navigator–up 69% to 7,184–the problem would be much deeper.

Lincoln’s final problem is that it is up against luxury brands led by Mercedes, BMW, and Lexus that sell many more vehicles by far. (Here are 20 cars that have been completely redesigned for 2023.)

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.