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Comments
The Car is more expensive than either 500 or Montego, and seems to be designed to help drive up the Toyota brand. The 500 is meant to save a great American company from extinction. These cars seem the same but they are not. A souped up Avalon is near-luxury. A 500 is a comfortable family car with enough space to do anything you want.
Are you people agents of Toyota? What is going on here?!
Montego Premier FWD plus Safety Pkg and Moonroof:
$28,685
Avalon Touring plus Moonroof, Upgraded Stereo, Anti-Theft Alarm: $30,470
A difference of $1605 comparably equipped. Seems reasonably close.
Sure, when you start adding things to the Avalon that are not offered by Ford, it surpasses the price. But.... Ford had chosen to make the best Five Hundred/Montego only comparable to a mid-grade Avalon. The Five Hundred/Montego are also compared to the more expensive (and more feature-rich) 300 models, so whats the issue?
BTW, an excellent article on the Five Hundred in the March issue of Car and Driver. 8.3 Rolling to 60 for the CVT/AWD combo. As ANT has always said, that transmission truly capitializes on everything the 3.0L has to offer. Not bad at all.
~alpha
http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/mercury3e_20050203.htm
"It's off to a good start. The 2005 midsize Mercury Montego is in short supply without offering rebates, and more than 40 percent of its buyers traded in a non-Ford product, mostly Japanese imports. The sedan, available in front-wheel- and all-wheel-drive, the latter a feature the Japanese don't offer in their sedans, replaces the Mercury Sable. Even Lincoln-Mercury President Darryl Hazel is a bit overwhelmed with Montego's success."
I predict the Montego/Ford 500 will be a great success, especially the AWD version. With further upgrades/options, which I am sure Ford/Mercury will make in the coming years, a lot more import car owners will switch to them. These upgrades/options would include, but not necessarily limited to, a 3.5L engine with more horse power, a navigation system, antenna on the windshield, lock on the gas refill cap, real wood trim, etc. As long as the price stays competitive (around $35000 with the upgrades), people will buy this car. Don't be so sure this car is only for older people (I am 62). My son, at age 23, also loved this car at first sight.
It is about time for the domestic cars to reclaim at least some of the market shares that they lost years ago. With your help, we will get the job done.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953
Now, remembering that, this is what you wrote,
"The new Passat appears to be a nice car and certainly an improvement over recent Ford products, but it certainly doesn't have any of the characteristics of the savior of a company."
You don't even call is by its name. You say its a Passat. If the 500 is a passat then a Civic is a full size pickup. Look, if you don't like Ford, then good, don't write in these forums, buy Japanese. In fact, live in Japan, you'll see its a verry different, and not so bright a place. But that's Okay, ignorance is bliss.
Ford represents many of the things that are good about America, and it needs saving. Fords taxes pay for many of the governmnet programs that "yuppies" cheer for in theire civics.
If we don't understand what makes us great, we will never be great. I'm sorry but your last post really struck a chord.
This is a good company, this is a great car. Sooner or later features will be added, many are in the works, its selling without rebates. The only reason you hate this car (and you do, since you know enough about its name to log on to the forums yet can't remember it when you have to post) its that its produced by the country that produced you.
http://www.autoweek.com/news.cms?newsId=101705
Source: Autoweek
To give everyone the CLiff Notes version, there's a lesson Lexus/Toyota has learned from BMW. And that is, to improve the vehicles, add options, improve engines, upgrades, as the vehicle ages. This way, it'll always keep the vehicle fresh and something to keep customer's interest, as the vehicle ages.
Again, BMW has done this for awhile. Toyota/Lexus is now interested in following the same route. Ford has done this for quite awhile but "GASP", they are negatively critisized for it.
I'm interested in seeing how the media spins this in a positive light for Toyota/Lexus, 2-3 years along the line.
Not to mention the back-up of vehicles still at the factory parking lot being fine combed through before released to make sure everything is perfect.
There is nothing wrong with linking to other publicly accessible articles no matter where they are.
In a bad sales month, we sold more Five Hundreds than in any previous month. It really feels now like people know about the car and are interested.
I previousl wished that Ford cars gave you the same feeling that Ford Trucks. The feeling that this is the best vehicle like this out on the road.
We recently had a big snow storm and had to move all the cars on our lot to plow. This is always a bad experience because in the cold and with cars sitting sometimes for months without being moved, you can imagine how many cars have to be jumped.
That being said, we moved over thirty F-150s, only one had to be jumped. (someone left a door ajar).
Freestars and Tauruses were the worse.
The Five Hundreds and Freestyles were fine, but they haven't been on the lot for months yet.
The Five-Hundred actually feels like it was made by the same company as the F-150. I just hope this proves to be the case.
Mark
The foreign mfrs. are much further along the curve on this (and especially on luxury brands). Not sure whether it is a function of age (as a Caddy dealer told me) or the type of customer, or the marketing.
If you remember foreign cars had reclining seats forever. Finally the domestics realized that customers may actually want them. Not sure where they get the focus groups but they probably aren't car buffs.
Its good for America because it begins to even up the playing field with the imports, who either produce the cars overseas or produce them here with next to nothing union interferance. This will show the UAW that they have to be more competetive with salaries and benefits if they want production shifted back to NA.
If Ford and GM didn't diversify enough, they would wind up like Chrysler.
The main reason Ford is so good for America is that its based here, so overseas profit is taxed too, and pays for many government programs that only the top 5% can really afford to fund.
Even the best systems are tedious to use and frequently don't report the best routes, can't correctly locate the address, etc.
For me, at least, nav is more of a toy than a genuinely useful accessory.
Thats right, WHY PAY THOUSANDS of dollars for something that you can get with your current cellular phone!
One of the current major cellular phone service. The one that made the walkie talkie feature famous now offers GPS navigation with turn by turn directions and voice prompts..
Good thing to because the Ford Navigation system is a Pain to use its CD-Rom based with 8 discs.
Now keep that in mind, Discs go out of date as information changes and they can be damaged with use.
I can't wait until more companies offer cellular navigation. Oh and you don't have to purchase a special phone, all phones sold in the US built after 2002 are GPS enabled for enhanced 911 service.
Mark
~alpha
What methods that website used to state such a claim, is beyond me.
Based on all figures I read the last few months, it could not be true. The 500 and especially the Freestyle are in big demand and Ford is not able to supply them. I agree with you about the Freestar minivan, though. They are not selling well at all.
~alpha
Ford you have given you one to do a long term test on just for them! Good to hear you're still in love though. What kind of real life mileage are you getting, john?
The difference is the Impala got LOUSY in town mileage (15-19) and much better on the road (27-31). It also seemed to be much less weather dependent.
I am very happy with the Five Hundred so far. If the Fusion also came in AWD (and it will in about a year and a half), I MIGHT be tempted. Maybe.
Do you know of any way to find out exactly what the deal is with his car? He understands that delays happen, but right now nobody can tell him why there is delay, or if it will be another two days or another 2 months. Any advice you, or any of the other forum goers could provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Other senario might be the unit having been built, someone might have caught a possible issue, and they are going through it with a fine-tooth comb. More over, nothing turns up when they do this, but some examples are picked randomly, are scrutinized after assembly to assure the quality is still intact and there's no issues.
Sorry to be a pain; no worries if I'm asking too much here. I know you have better things to do than be my personal Ford contact. : )
If it's a FWD order, there can be no rational explanation - these cars can be bought off the lot anywhere in the country right now.
Regional should be able to find out for you usually, but specifically it's quite difficult for them to find out. It's one of those wait and see situations.
I am a little surprised that Ford isn't communicating this more clearly to their customers, but hopefully they will catch up to demand soon, since the AWD capability is one of the major selling points of the vehicle.