Preview: Ford Transit Connect coming to America...with top rating

November 10, 2:28 PM
by John Matras, Auto Review Examiner

Cue Neil Diamond for a chorus or two of “Coming to America.” Mid to late-summer 2009, a new Ford --at least new to us--will be imported. Not that imports are anything new, even for Ford, which has been bringing cars to the U.S. from overseas since the 1950s.

But this one’s really new. It’s the Ford Transit Connect.

It’s new because it’s the first time for Ford to bring a small tradesman-type truck/van to the States. But more surprisingly, the Ford Transit Connect is made in Turkey. As in the country in the Middle East. Ford has a plant in Ankara where the Transit has been made since 2002 for export mainly to Europe.

Built for European use, it’s built to European dimension. The Transit Direct’s wheelbase is 114.6 inches, much shorter than Ford’s conventional American E-Series van which measures a whopping 138 inches. And instead of that vehicle’s big V-8, the Transit Connect is powered by a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that makes 136 horsepower and 136 lb-ft of torque and is rated at 19 city/24 highway mpg. Don’t ask what the E-Series gets. It’s too heavy for EPA mileage rating.

The Transit Connect won’t be in direct competition with the E-Series van or the E-Series’ equivalents from Chevrolet and GMC. Rather it will match up against the Chevy HHR or Honda Element. Advantage: Transit Connect with its 143 cu ft of cargo volume and maximum payload of 1,600 pounds. The Chevy has about 62 cu ft and the Honda 74.6 cu ft of cargo volume, and neither—as technically automobiles—has a payload listed. Neither has the height inside that a Transit has either.

The Ford Transit Connect, not to sound too much like a cheerleader, sounds like the right product at the right time. And if the origin seems a little odd, consider that the British trade magazine Fleet News has called the Transit Direct the “second most reliable model” for 2007 and 2008. That’s not faint praise considering that number one was also a Ford, the larger Ford Transit van.

It can’t happen fast enough for Ford, of course, even it means that some of its income is made overseas. After all, as Ford products, the profits are coming to America too. Sing it, Niel.

2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor Put To The Test

Ed Hellwig, Senior Editor of Edmunds' Inside Line had the opportunity to test drive the 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor pickup truck out in the Nevada desert prior to SEMA. The video below showcases an interior view of the truck in action, as well as its handling, ride quality, and ability to suck up the bumps at over 90 miles per hour.

Local ties can't save Sterling Truck plant

London Free Press October th 2008

MANUFACTURING WOES: Daimler Trucks boss Chris Patterson says the failing bottom line, not emotion, is the deciding factor

Local roots run deep for the man in whose hands lies the fate of workers at Sterling Truck in St. Thomas. But local loyalties do not make a difference when it comes to deciding which plants remain open and which close down, said Chris Patterson, chief executive of Daimler Trucks North America. It is all about the bottom line -- and that states clearly Sterling Truck will be shut down in March, he said.

Patterson was born and raised in Toronto, but his family hails from Goderich -- his parents retired back to Goderich after leaving Toronto and still live there. He also graduated with an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in 1978.

"We do not discriminate based on lineage," Patterson said. "It is brutal. . . . We cannot stay with Sterling longer because we have an emotional connection." Daimler is ending the Sterling Truck line -- also closing a plant in Portland, Ore. -- as its Freightliner and Western Star brands will fill the void.

Patterson will sit down with Canadian Auto Workers union officials tomorrow to hear a plea from workers to keep the plant open and they will come armed with pledges of financial support from the federal and provincial governments.

"We never had any dialogue on this," said Jim Stanford, CAW chief economist. "There are all kinds of things we can do. The province has a $1-billion fund, the federal government a $450-million innovation fund. They did not even try and that is outrageous."

In 2003, a federal and provincial government bailout and CAW concessions helped save the International Truck plant in Chatham from a planned shutdown and more than 800 workers are still there.

But Patterson will not ask for a bailout and bristled at the International example.
"I am very aware of that situation. I am not prepared to comment on the fact our government used our tax dollars to bail out a competitor that was failing. It is not a positive comment about our government's industrial policy. "If they (International) had gotten out of the heavy truck business, perhaps this (Sterling closing) may not have happened."

Closing a plant is nothing new to Patterson. He shut down a Kenworth plant in B.C. during the 1980s and a Freightliner plant also in B.C. in 1992.

As for the Sterling plant's future, "we will be happy to entertain offers to purchase . . . We cannot make money with it at this juncture."

Daimler took over the Sterling truck line from Ford about 11 years ago and since then tried to build the brand, but it never caught on, he added. In fact Sterling has about six per cent of the market in the U.S., and it would need twice those numbers to be viable, he said.

Daimler stated in a release the closings will cost $600-million and save $900-million a year by 2011.

Patterson also rejected suggestions a new plant in Saltillo, Mexico, will replace the Sterling trucks now being made in St. Thomas. Freightliner's new Cascadia truck will be made in Mexico, he said.

The closing is also not an issue of unionized wages, about $30 an hour at Sterling, or the fact the St. Thomas plant endured two strikes in its history. "That has zero, nothing to do with it," said Patterson. "The state of labour relations has not influenced things one way or the other."

The plant closings in St. Thomas and Portland as well as other hourly and salaried cuts will trim about 4,500 workers from Sterling workforce in the U.S, and Canada.

Ford second to none in quality: study

A new study says that when it comes to initial quality, no automaker performs better than Ford. According to the 2008 U.S. Global Quality Research System study, Ford's initial quality now equals that of Toyota and Honda- representing a statistical tie for top place with the Japanese automakers. The study represents an 8 percent increase in quality over last year, and says that each new car and truck launched with improved quality versus it predecessor. How is the quality determined? It's an interesting measure called the "Things Gone Wrong" rating- resulting in a 'TGW' number per 1,000 vehicles during the first three months of ownership. Fords vehicles averaged 1,284 TGW items, statistically equivalent to the 1,250 TGW rating level of Toyota and Honda.

"Last year we tied with Toyota, and this year our quality performance is as good as industry-leading Honda's too," said Mark Fields, Ford's president of The Americas. "Our world-class quality is one of the most important aspects of our turnaround in North America. This consistently strong quality improvement should offer today's customer renewed confidence, setting the stage for important new products like Ford Flex."Ford earned extra honors from the study in the areas of interior trim, seats and appearance- as well as paint, vehicle engineering and electrical / entertainment systems. A total for 15 Ford, Lincoln, Mercury vehicles are now ranked in the top three of their respective segments for either TGW performance, customer satisfaction or both.

Ford to Receive a 10 Million Dollar Grant to Develop Plug In Hybrid Technology

Ford Motor Company is set to receive a $10 million grant from the United States Department of Energy to be spent on plug-in hybrid research and development. The government is funding half of Ford’s three-year plug-in development and demonstration program that currently has 20 plug-in hybrid vehicles on test.

According to the automaker, the three-year program is designed to demonstrate plug-in hybrids to consumers, as well as serve as a developmental test-bed for the untested technology. Ford has been working on a fleet of plug-ins with Southern California Edison, the Electric Power Research Institute, Johnson Controls-Saft and Michigan’s DTE Energy.

Ford is currently using the Edge and Escape SUVs as test-beds for plug-in hybrids. More details of the government’s grant are expected to be released tomorrow when an official announcement is made.