Ford’s Massive Mistake, Another Blow

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 19, 12:00PM EDT · Published Mar 19, 10:12AM EDT

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Ford’s Massive Mistake, Another Blow — © Courtesy of Ford

The Ford Motor Company may be America’s least lucky public corporation or its most poorly run. After component problems with its new F-150 Lightning, battered earnings, and trouble pricing its vehicles, it has recalled several of its vehicles, including its flagship gas-powered F-150 pickup. The total recall adds up to 1.5 million vehicles.

Ford’s recalls involve two problems. One is that windshield wipers can break. The other is that some brakes can leak fluid. The brake problem involves 1.2 million of its 2013 through 2018 Ford Fusions and Lincoln MKZs. The other recall involves 222,000 F-150 2021 vehicles.

Both of these recalls are a reminder of Ford’s sloppy work. Ford recently said it would take at least two years to improve its quality to industry standards. It is hard to believe that a global manufacturer with a century of car experience could take so long to remedy its problems.

Ford does less right than any of its competitors. In the third quarter of last year, it missed its earnings by $1 billion, mostly because it got its component cost estimates wrong. Ford’s fourth-quarter numbers were another earnings disappointment.

Ford has had trouble launching its F-150 Lightning which Executive Chairman Bill Ford said was the company’s most important launch in a century. There were faults with the EV’s batteries.

Ford also raised the prices of its Lightning and EV Mustang Mach-E because it did not get the price of components correct. It then dropped the price of the Mach-E, probably because of an EV price war started by Tesla.

All through the periods when these problems have hit, Bill Farley has been CEO. He is called a “car guy” because his grandfather worked at Ford’s River Rouge Plant in 1918. The old man must be spinning in his grave. The same is true of Henry Ford, who founded the company.

Ford’s reputation is on the line whenever it makes a big mistake. These threaten sales and cost Ford money. For some reason, Bill Ford has kept Farley in his job. It is strange because Ford has had little trouble firing CEOs during his tenure.

Ford has made another mistake. Based on the company’s history, the count of these is not over.

These are the most popular Ford models in America.

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.