Ford Patents the Simplest Car You Can Imagine

I'll bite. What exactly did Ford do to make you so grumpy about them?

@VoGo In my personal case, it's owning a Ford that cost me more per month just to keep running (not counting gas) than a car payment at a time when I supposedly couldn't afford a car loan according to the bank. It's owning a Ford that cost me $5000 to make it roadworthy after it had supposedly (paperwork to prove it) passed a state inspection prior to purchase. It's owning a Ford with less than 20K on the clock and needing a complete hydraulic clutch system overhaul for several thousand dollars mere days after acquisition. It's a brand that has NEVER been able to prove its claims of reliability over the course of 30 years. Even Chrysler has treated me better than that!

@Vulpine No it was not Ford that screwed you it was the person you purchased it from in that case of having to spend $5000 to make "roadworthy" or the mechanic that charged you "several thousand dollars" to put on $200 worth of parts that takes 4 hrs tops.

@Vulpine I had a used Land Cruiser that will see your 5000 and raise it by an additional 5000 and that was with me doing every bit of labor except assembling the short block and setting up the gears. Short blocks, differentials, and transmission electronics are spendy but following your logic, Toyota sucks!

@Scoutdude It's Ford who screwed me because the broken ones were all Ford parts that should NOT have broken. It's Ford who screwed me because it was a Ford dealership that charged ridiculous rates. It's Ford who screwed me because Ford is screwing owners left and right with both new cars and services. I don't know a SINGLE Ford owner who doesn't have problems with their cars and in most cases suffer with them rather than pay the exorbitant repair prices. For instance, in 1980, what would you expect a timing chain replacement to cost on the 302 Windsor engine? Would you have guessed $750? And then after the timing chain replacement, would you expect the car to accelerate up a 10% grade from a dead stop with no external load and only the driver on board? The car, never one for serious power though supposedly rated at a mere 185 horses (for a V8?) ended up with less horsepower than a 1962 VW Beetle! I had to get the engine swapped for a small-block 351... after which everything... I mean everything...attached to the engine needed replacing within the next year. That Ford, by the way, was a one-owner car throughout its life from brand-new until I traded it in on an '86 Buick LeSabre 'T'type. That car never failed me from the time I purchased it to the time someone tried to cross the highway in front of me more than a year later. It's the ONLY used car I'd ever owned that never cost me a penny for maintenance. I bought two more used vehicles after that and both of them tried to nickel and dime me to death. Since then, I've only bought new and never bought a Ford again.

@Art Vandelay I'm describing three separate Fords in that statement, 'Murica. A Gran Torino, an F-150 and a Ranger. The Ranger, so far, is proving the least expensive of the bunch after that repair, though the AC really sucks the horses down in hot weather.

@Art Vandelay It sounds more like you buy crappy used cars and parts and don't inspect them properly first, and live in an area with crappy dealers, than anything to do with a specific brand. "I don’t know a SINGLE Ford owner who doesn’t have problems with their cars and in most cases suffer with them rather than pay the exorbitant repair prices. For instance, in 1980..." Presently, everyone is having problems! For example, thirty years ago...

@brenschluss It's not funny to me, brenschluss because I'm the one who spent more money than it was worth in every case AND I see others with brand-new Fords complaining just as loudly. But worse, you're attempt at humor falls flat when you realize that, while I may have had to pay something for every used-car purchase I ever made (except one), GM products typically cost a fraction of what I paid for Ford repairs and they were all minor issues... again, except for one where a bloomin' NYLON timing gear in an '85 Toronado stripped and effectively destroyed the engine. The ''96 Camaro that replaced it gave me over 160,000 miles on essentially the same engine (obviously not nylon-geared) over the course of 8 single-owner years. I ended up selling that one to a guy wanting the body for a professional NHRA racing team. Another GM product purchased new while I still owned the Camaro gave me 130,000 miles with no major repairs... ever. GM always gave me better reliability than Ford, new or used. Even Chrysler products have given me better reliability than any of my Fords--Chrysler presumably notorious for their poor quality yet even my worst-case scenario with one still far less expensive than any of my Fords. "Built Ford Tough"? Well, if you're talking body, I might give you that one; I never had a Ford body rust out on me. But then, none of the others did, either. Under the hood has always been a different story for me.

@Art Vandelay I wasn't trying to be funny. I was pointing out that you're offering anecdotes from the 80s (and they don't flatter you, as it sounds like you're buying used cars from private parties without due diligence,) to justify how you feel today. I might not be interested in a Chrysler, but it's not because the '85 New Yorker was junk.

@brenschluss "I was pointing out that you’re offering anecdotes from the 80s" No, I was offering anecdotes from four decades of car ownership, admittedly some of which were used but others obtained brand new. The Gran Torino was obtained brand new. The F-150 was obtained used (clearly used but surprisingly clean body.) The Ranger semi-used but purchased by my step-father and I have all the records of his maintenance. He had no idea the clutch was failing, even though I later discovered that it had been causing him troubles but he'd been ignoring them because it still did what he needed--drive to the home store and back, one trip at a time. Only on a multiple-stop trip would the clutch act up, at which point he'd let it cool down after which it worked again. Of course, you didn't bother to ask if I'd done any 'due diligence' on any of them, did you?

@Art Vandelay So the most recent bought-new Ford on that list appears to be the Gran Torino, which would have been what, mid-70s? You're right, and I'm sorry I said your anecdotes were from the 80s. After that car, you owned one pickup of indeterminate origins on which you were then ripped off for a shoddy repair, and another that was bought within the family from someone who just happened to forget to mention that they were ignoring some issues with the clutch. Am I incorrect? I'm just trying to figure out the timeline.

@brenschluss Do you enjoy making assumptions, brenschluss? Of Fords alone, the Gran Torino was the first newly-purchased one of the bunch; the Ranger was given to me at 20,000 miles (and 17 years old) by my step-father who purchased it brand new. Over the same time period I purchased several other cars, of which a '75 Cutlass Supreme, a '79 Dodge Aspen, an '83 Mitsubishi Sport pickup, a '96 Camaro, '02 Saturn Vue, '08 Wrangler Unlimited and a Fiat 500 were purchased as new or in the case of the Fiat, a demo with only 5,000 miles on the clock. Of all those new-purchased cars, none gave me any significant problems during ownership except the Jeep, which FCA has gone out of its way to correct despite the fact that it was really a Daimler design and materials issue that turned out to be a pot-metal handbrake ratchet arm breaking teeth and not properly releasing the brake over time. A really weird and near-impossible problem to troubleshoot but caused multiple seized rear brakes requiring replacement of drums, rotors and calipers each time. Even so, the Jeep was typically able to climb steep grades despite the drag of that brake until it seized, unlike the Gran Torino AFTER the timing chain replacement pulling no load whatsoever. Used was my first car, purchased not knowing the the engine block was cracked and pumping oil into the cooling system (took me a week and two gallons of oil to figure it out), my second built for steel-belted radial tires but sold with bias-ply and worn suspension (previous owner had run it hard, but didn't know that until I traded that on the '75 Cutlass, where the dealership's shop recognized the car, Later came the '86 Buick 'T'-type, '85 Toronado and finally the '90 F-150. Of all of those, only the Buick required no repair services at all. The Toronado I loved for many reasons, but needed constant little details worked on, which until the timing gear shredded I was able to handle myself (including fixing the climate control head unit by re-soldering all the connections on the circuit board.) Even the F-150 I was able to handle once the brake system was rebuilt from end to end (rusted hard lines and dry-rotted soft lines) and the broken exhaust manifold was replaced (Like I said, I knew what I was getting into with that, but needed a truck immediately and simply didn't have time or the money to shop around. It was easier and cheaper to fix a $2000 junker with a clean body than pay 5x as much and not know what could be wrong.) I could have parted the thing out for more than I paid for it BECAUSE it was so clean. I was actually offered my purchase price for the bed alone as it was totally rust free despite having operated in Pennsylvania for nearly twelve years. You could say I lost money on it in more ways than one, but even after I sold it (and yes, it had passed both the state safety inspection and the emissions check before it sold) the new owner ended up putting another thousand into it for other issues of which I was unaware. Even so, it's now his daily driver because it gives him nearly double the fuel mileage of his much newer but large-engined Suburban at 19.5mpg highway (unloaded). He says the fuel mileage more than makes up for the little stuff he's always fixing on it and he loves the radio I installed (as the factory one had been ripped out before I bought it (literally--the mounts were all broken) and the replacement was a piece of junk. So used has always cost me thousands more than purchase price, typically within a year of purchase, while new has typically (with two exceptions) cost me next to nothing to maintain. Fords have always cost me extra--always.

@Art Vandelay Vulpy, your past is depressing and your accounts of it overly long. We don't care nor do we hold it against you.