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Old 27-04-2018, 02:36 PM   #27
russellw
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Default Re: Ford Australia’s record $10 million fine for “unconscionable conduct” over dodgy transmissions

Quote:
Originally Posted by mike_nofx View Post
Personally, I feel Ford is still recovering from the Pinto incident:

https://users.wfu.edu/palmitar/Law&V...ett-pinto.html

Although Ford had access to a new design which would decrease the possibility of the Ford Pinto from exploding, the company chose not to implement the design, which would have cost $11 per car, even though it had done an analysis showing that the new design would result in 180 less deaths. The company defended itself on the grounds that it used the accepted risk/benefit analysis to determine if the monetary costs of making the change were greater than the societal benefit. Based on the numbers Ford used, the cost would have been $137 million versus the $49.5 million price tag put on the deaths, injuries, and car damages, and thus Ford felt justified not implementing the design change.
It certainly didn't earn them any friends at the time although the legal precedent for PBL based CBA was well entrenched before the Pinto case and GM, VW and SAAB all faced similar moral liability issues during the 70's in USA courts.

Such harm as is done typically lasts a decade or so and in these cases probably a lot less in reality.

Powershift did significant damage to the reputation of Kuga, Fiesta and Focus in this country and it's not hard to see what the sales impact has been.

Fiesta, for example, had been selling an average of 839 / month over the 3 years prior to the Powershift model going on sale and continued to sell ~900 / month for the next three years and it wasn't until the latter part of 2014 that those numbers dropped to ~800 / month. Since the publicity started in earnest during late 2014, the average has been ~249 / month and the last 12 months has seen that fall to just over 100 / month. So, and not all the blame should be pointed at the transmission issues, Fiesta sales have dropped by 87%.

Likewise, Focus had a 3 year average of 1,100 / month prior to Powershift; improved that to 1,357 / month for the first 4 years on sale; has averaged 529 / month since media coverage began and only 475 / month this last year for a 65% drop.

There was no comparison vehicle for EcoSport but it hardly set the world on fire with only a 158 / month sales average since it went on sale in this country.

Some of that will be down to shifts away from passenger models toward SUV's and some because the change in models at various times didn't meet consumer tastes but a decent percentage of the sales dive has to be blamed on the transmission issues.

We'll probably never know if these issues were identified during testing and an economic decision was made to release rather than remediate but either way the decision was made a long way from FoA HQ and their only blame (apart from toeing the corporate line) has been their poor handling of the customer issues which will be the more damaging in the long term.

Oh, the early promise:

  When it comes to transmissions, people are generally either manual or automatic fans. But what if you could get the best of both worlds in the one gearbox? The sporty feel and efficiency of a manual, with the ease of an automatic.
  • The dual-clutch design of the 6-speed PowerShift automatic transmission has two individual 3-speed transmissions working together in parallel. Each clutch controls three of the forward gears.
  • The transmission automatically engages the next gear in the sequence in anticipation of the shift, so gear changes are quick and power delivery is seamless, whether accelerating or slowing down.
 


... and what might have been.

Cheers
Russ
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