For What It's Worth

tsielski

No idea if the following applies to our Bronco's, but I suspect it applies to everything made by Ford (and maybe other manufacturers as well, but who knows?).

My brothers, brother in law, was a long time Ford employee, somewhere in engineering and retired a few years back. He has a bronzed suspension component that he "designed" sometime in the past that has an interesting story behind it. I don't know for what vehicle that suspension part was "designed", but it looked like an upper or lower A-arm ( I didn't personally see it). The story is that he had worked, using finite element analysis, to reduce the part's dimensions to the absolute weakest specification that would still allow the part to "survive" at a statistically acceptable level (don't know what that level was) up to the average expected life of 60,000 miles. 60K miles interestingly is the limit of the factory warranty. Zero consideration was given for any expected use longer than a 60K mile lifespan.

So to save a few cents worth of material in having a component fabricated, cost that would be passed to the consumer anyway, Ford is designing the 'weakest acceptable' components for their vehicles, at least in some areas it seems. Bean counters running wild. I guess the time of slightly over engineering components for durability has disappeared, making the old marketing phrase "built Ford tough" obsolete. Tends to put the instances of tie rods snapping in a little bit of perspective.

Click to expand...

tsielski

No idea if the following applies to our Bronco's, but I suspect it applies to everything made by Ford (and maybe other manufacturers as well, but who knows?).

My brothers, brother in law, was a long time Ford employee, somewhere in engineering and retired a few years back. He has a bronzed suspension component that he "designed" sometime in the past that has an interesting story behind it. I don't know for what vehicle that suspension part was "designed", but it looked like an upper or lower A-arm ( I didn't personally see it). The story is that he had worked, using finite element analysis, to reduce the part's dimensions to the absolute weakest specification that would still allow the part to "survive" at a statistically acceptable level (don't know what that level was) up to the average expected life of 60,000 miles. 60K miles interestingly is the limit of the factory warranty. Zero consideration was given for any expected use longer than a 60K mile lifespan.

So to save a few cents worth of material in having a component fabricated, cost that would be passed to the consumer anyway, Ford is designing the 'weakest acceptable' components for their vehicles, at least in some areas it seems. Bean counters running wild. I guess the time of slightly over engineering components for durability has disappeared, making the old marketing phrase "built Ford tough" obsolete. Tends to put the instances of tie rods snapping in a little bit of perspective.

Click to expand...

RagnarKon

This is just business in general and a trend in automobiles since the ~1980s.

You can design a rock-solid F-150 and charge $70,000 for it, but if Chevy is over there designing a "good enough" Silverado 1500 for $50,000... well... guess who is going to sell more pickups. The fact is "good enough" is... well... good enough for most people looking to buy vehicles. Those who are looking for a lifetime vehicle that lasts 300k+ miles can't afford a lifetime vehicle, and those that can afford a lifetime vehicle are the type who will trade their vehicle in for a new one after 3-5 years.

In order for it to change, the consumer has to start valuing lifespan of a product. But as of right now that's not something the consumer values—just look at what happens on a yearly basis in the smartphone market.