“Steady vehicle quality improvement in recent years is beginning to translate into significant savings for the company and far fewer trips by customers to the repair shop.” Which company are we discussing? Land Rover, or perhaps perennial quality leader Toyota? Maybe an oddball like Ferrari or a mass market player like Fiat?
50 – percentage drop in the warranty repair rate for Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles in the United States since 2004
75 – percentage of Ford’s American-market vehicles which improved their number of “things gone wrong”
40,000 – distinct design standards verified by Ford in its Virtual Engineer Lab, assuring that quality at Ford isn’t an afterthought
12 – total Variability Reduction Teams responsible for an individual vehicle subsystem (paint, interior, etc.), “looking for imperfections so slight even the untrained eye, or ear, could not detect them”
1,000,000 – test miles logged on the new 3.5L EcoBoost V6 prototypes before landing under the hood of the 2010 Lincoln MKS
I did not know how much Ford had improved quality. Are they not the only one of the big three to refuse bailout money? I’m rooting for Ford regardless. As an aspiring auto writer, I enjoy reading your blog.