FORD BOOKS BIG PROFIT . . . AND GETS "HOSED" AGAIN BY "CONSUMER DISTORTS"

By Cammie

The business world is a-buzz with Ford Motor Company's slam-bang third-quarter profit. Ford's profits are based on increased transaction prices, healthy new model launches and cost cutting.

"We’re not buying share at the bottom of the food chain,” George Pipas, Ford’s sales analyst, said in an interview. “People buying Fords today are generally more educated and affluent and they want and are willing to pay for nicer Fords.”

But Ford still has abysmal "blue state" market share in on the West Coast (10.8%) and the Northeast (10.4%). Fords market share is still terrible (but improving) among 18-24 year olds (12%) and 25-34 year olds (11%). Ford's bread and butter is in "real America" (the South, the heartland, the midwest and among consumers old enough to realize that buying American matters).

Part of Ford's problem remains a certain "Consumer" magazine that uses self-selected subscriber surveys and other controversial methods to "predict reliability" of new cars. Although Ford is now in the "top ten" among brands (and the only American nameplate in the bunch), the reader survey method still "hosed" Ford in favor of a host of Japanese nameplates . . . and Porsche.

Many coastal public school-educated kids (and selfish adults) simply lack the critical thinking skills and automotive savvy to look past the headlines and "drill down" into the flawed, self-selected, self-perpetuating methodology of these "predictions."

Thus some of the most mind-numbing and blandtastic vehicles around are lauded in these surveys as "most reliable." And the "appliance motoring" sheeple keep lapping it up. In other surveys, such as J.D. Power's Initial Quality Survey, Ford beats its Asian rivals.

Even better news is a fluffy "fun-to-drive" assessment by Yahoo, which places Ford's pavement-ripping Mustang at the top of the "won't break the bank" segment of their "Top 10" sporty cars.