Wixom Gone! Atlanta Gone! The only two plants to produce Lincolns GONE!

2006kmls

2006kmls

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I posted here 30 days ago that both these plants were GONE! And they are, today its official.

Lincoln will migrate to an all off shore platform (Mexico) over the next few years.

The up side is that we may soon see burrito holders instead of ashtrays in the new Lincolns!

To all you who would never buy a NEW Ford product and who shop at Wal Mart, Target and comsume nothing but Chinese goods....these recent FORD developments may give you a clue! Perhaps not?

Have fun cutting that coupon out of the Sears flyer in the Sunday paper for those HANKOOKS that are on sale!!
 
Ken Motz said:
I posted here 30 days ago that both these plants were GONE! And they are, today its official.

Lincoln will migrate to an all off shore platform (Mexico) over the next few years.

The up side is that we may soon see burrito holders instead of ashtrays in the new Lincolns!

To all you who would never buy a NEW Ford product and who shop at Wal Mart, Target and comsume nothing but Chinese goods....these recent FORD developments may give you a clue! Perhaps not?

Have fun cutting that coupon out of the Sears flyer in the Sunday paper for those HANKOOKS that are on sale!!
Click to expand...
What the hell are you talking about? Customer base has shifted from large SUV's to Crossovers and cars. Ford was too damn blind to see this happening until it was too late. Now they will suffer the consequences of their actions. You have to build/sell products that customers want. The days of ol' Henry Ford saying "you can have any color you want as long as it is black" is over with.
 
I agree, Ford could have prevented this and saw it coming. Wixom was supposed to be closed years ago. What sucks is thousands of people losing their jobs who couldn't control Ford's poor decisions. I live in the Detroit area, today is one of the worst we've seen in a long time. I have friends and relatives that will be negatively affected by what happened today, but it needed to be done for Ford to survive at all.
 
I just saw where Ford is losing $248 on every vehicle they sell. Toyota is making $1698 profit per vehicle. What is the solution? Close losing plants and
build profitable ones. Get rid of expensive union contracts/retirement/health costs and start over. Fact of life, we have to get competitive or close down.
Toyota is gaining market share while Ford/GM is losing.....any union people have any ideas to turn things around?
 
doug03ls said:
I just saw where Ford is losing $248 on every vehicle they sell. Toyota is making $1698 profit per vehicle. What is the solution? Close losing plants and
build profitable ones. Get rid of expensive union contracts/retirement/health costs and start over. Fact of life, we have to get competitive or close down.
Toyota is gaining market share while Ford/GM is losing.....any union people have any ideas to turn things around?
Click to expand...
I hate to say it but that may be the problem. Unions. I heard that for every car built like 30-40% of the money invested in a car goes to union wages and benefits. I don't know if that's true but that was rumor I heard at one time. Sounds kind of crazy if that's the case. Hard to make much profit with those kinds of costs involved.
 
it is what it is. build cars in mexico for 1 reason...labor is cheaper. unions and blue collar workers get fat here and want to make more, more, more...ford is smart and they'll do it somewhere else cheaper. bummer it affected people but they shouldn't be making 20-30-40$$$/hour to build cars, period. Labor in US is WAY overpriced. Pretty soon we'll only be good for IP.

No use making fun of Ford or Mexico (china is a little different). It's a business decision and a smart one. Don't think so? look at their stock today.
 
Unions, maybe part of the problem (I think they have outlasted there need), and it sucks that we are driving manufacturing out our country to make a higher profit. I guess the unemployment rate is going up more.
 
and ken keep in mind the post you just wrote was typed on chinese and/or taiwanese goods. No way to get online with a US computer (read: no such thing).
 
My dad worked for Nissan for 10 years and during that time they saw many unions try and get their hands inside the plant (This was in Symrna, TN). That plant was a beauty of what manufacturing should be and they treated the employees very well. At the time he made decent money too ($25/hr), and got excellent benefits. Now I ask you, why do we need unions? I think the answer is so the union bosses can have a job...
 
Wixom is not the only plant that produces Lincolns. Michigan Truck has been the proud sole source of the Navigator since its birth. I assume that you are discounting Hermosillo because it is south of the border...?

This is definitely a dark day for all those who are loyal to FoMoCo, but let's hope that this sacrifice will preserve the jobs of the many who are still employed. I just hope that the powers that be recognize that PRODUCT is king! Build it and they will come!!
 
Some people need to read more. Ford is closing plants in the US, Mexico, and Canada, but the only place they're currently talking about building a new plant is the US. Yes, in Ford's press release, they said that they'll be bulding a new plant in the US. Not in Mexico, not in Canada, but in the US.

Ford is in a world of hurt at this point, but it's not a hopeless situation--Ford as a company is still profitable. Only Ford's North American automobile operations are losing money--and it's really only the cars that have been losing money: Ford Trucks has always been profitable.

Ford of Europe and Mazda are both in the black, and guess what, the guy who was responsible for getting them there is Mark Fields. And Mark Fields is <drumroll> the President of Ford's Americas automobile operations, and the architect of the Way Forward plan that was introduced today.

They have new product, a new direction, and what has been called an all-star design team; I'd say they're in a good position, if they can follow through...
 
I did not see the press conference. My question is why they would build a new plant in the US when the wixom plant is huge. It has four assembly lines i believe, so why start over???
 
Actually, Mark Fields' speech contained the following quote:
"As hard and as painful as it is to close plants and reduce our work force, we know these sacrifices are critical to set the stage for a stronger future. Importantly, that future will include a new, low-cost manufacturing operation that we will build in North America at a location still to be determined."

He was very careful to say "North America" and not "United States". Although it would be great to see something in the US, the door is open for Mexico and Canada. UAW negotiations will surely play a big role in determining the location...
 
cpaul85 said:
I did not see the press conference. My question is why they would build a new plant in the US when the wixom plant is huge. It has four assembly lines i believe, so why start over???
Click to expand...
"Wixom is huge" is a part of the problem. Over-capacity is one of Ford's big problems; if a plant isn't running near 100% utilization, it's being used inefficiently, which means it's wasting money that could be spent somewhere else (like design and research & development). Wixom is just too big for today's production levels, particularly for the expected Lincoln production levels.

Wixom is also relatively old; it will probably cost less to build a new facility than to retrofit Wixom and Atlanta. (Building a new plant in Georgia to replace the Atlanta plant was one of the plans that had been rumored before yesterday's announcement.)
 
one other point to consider is that this probably allows Ford to bury any upcoming losses under "restructuring" and/or "non-recurring" charges. Recently automotive companies have produced some interesting methods to avoid posting major losses (i.e. spinning off divisions only to have them go bankrupt while all along being able to take restructuring charges on their own books). We are all getting emotionally attached to this issue but remember the ONLY thing that matters is if the board and shareholders are happy. Period.
 
Easy to blame Unions, but...

Hey all, long time reader, first time poster.

Look, I mean, it's easy to blame the Unions, and say they've outlasted their purpose, but the fact is unions still exist for a reason: to speak up in a unified voice for workers when big decisions come down from Detroit and Dearborn.

And it's easy to say that Unions demand unreasonable benefits for their members. But there's more below the surface. I was talking to a buddy the other day (who's not a union sympathizer by any means) and he told me he just read that a lot of what's costing the big three so much money is health care costs and retiree pensions, well, no kidding. Someone else pointed out that the non-union Nissan and Toyota pensions are comparable to the Ford pensions and healthcare plans--and that's true. The difference is that those Japanese carmakers have been set up here in the US for what, fifteen or twenty years. How many retirees do they have? Not that many--YET. One of Toyota's plants in Kentucky has, as of 2004, only two retirees!

That's just one example. Another big problem is that until pretty recently, Ford and GM have been building a lot of tired crap. And I'm a big US car guy, myself.
 
FWIW, the latest reports are that the MKS will be built in Chicago, alongside the Ford Five Hundred and Mercury Montego (the other Ford D3 sedans).
 
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