Ford in North America - Not on the nose

[mtbkym01]

With a week left in Canada, thought I might share my experience with what I've seen on the roads here.

Ford are definitely a very strong brand in Canada particularly, where I've seen great numbers on the roads of Fusions (Mondeo), Escapes (Kuga), Edges, Explorers (new shape looks like a large Edge), Mustangs, a few Taurus', and massive amounts of F Trucks.

In fact passing through Kamloops, a regional centre about 400kms from Vancouver, We passed a Ford dealer who had this line up out the front, what colour do you want?






Driving along the Freeway from Kamloops to Vancouver, sitting on 134km/h (120 limit, but nobody does that) this thing overtook me, they sure love their big trucks here - 6.7 litre engine

[Sprintey]

Yep, noticed (and loved) the same thing over there. Also liked the Flex.

FOA for the love of dog rebuild your brand in Australia around the F Series!

[mtbkym01]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

Yep, noticed (and loved) the same thing over there. Also liked the Flex.

FOA for the love of dog rebuild your brand in Australia around the F Series!

Yes, forgot about the Flex, interesting car

[SumoDog68]

Originally Posted by mtbkym01

With a week left in Canada, thought I might share my experience with what I've seen on the roads here.

Ford are definitely a very strong brand in Canada particularly, where I've seen great numbers on the roads of Fusions (Mondeo), Escapes (Kuga), Edges, Explorers (new shape looks like a large Edge), Mustangs, a few Taurus', and massive amounts of F Trucks.

In fact passing through Kamloops, a regional centre about 400kms from Vancouver, We passed a Ford dealer who had this line up out the front, what colour do you want?
image

image

image

Driving along the Freeway from Kamloops to Vancouver, sitting on 134km/h (120 limit, but nobody does that) this thing overtook me, they sure love their big trucks here - 6.7 litre engine

image

image

Now , this looks like a truck should Ngaire :-)

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by SumoDog68

Now , this looks like a truck should Ngaire :-)

Except most (real) Trucks utilise as much load area as possible.
Not waste it with wheel arches

[baboon]

Yeah we saw the same thing in Texas. They love their trucks. F-150, F-250, F-450 etc..

Also lots of Chevrolet, Dodge, Toyota trucks as well.

I remember everyone driving really fast too. There is a saying the speed limit is 90 (mph) or the temperature (in Fahrenheit)!

[LoudPipes]

Originally Posted by GasOLane

Except most (real) Trucks utilise as much load area as possible.
Not waste it with wheel arches

To be fair most of the rear wheels are outside and under the rear bed which makes for a lot of available space in the rear and depending on the model they can carry and tow some serious weight.

You see some ridiculously big vans and trailers hook up to these things in Canada, particularly with the F-450's like in the photo.

[mr smith]

This Hillbilly crap should stay there.

[Ford_The_Win]

Oh Canada! Would love one of those bad boys in my drive way. I think a second hand Silverado or F series is going to be my next car.

[AUwindsor]

Originally Posted by mr smith

This Hillbilly crap should stay there.

yeah and you enjoy your looney nanna state where soon 10km/h over speed will be jail time.

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by mr smith

This Hillbilly crap should stay there.

I was hoping someone was going to say it...

Honestly...our roads (and parking lots) simply aren't designed with these monstrosities in mind. The F150? Sure...it's "normal" sized and fits in here well. The bigger rubbish? Good lord, how much of a status symbol do you really need to say "look at me"...?

The other problem is quality...the models that sell in their hundreds of thousands in the USA are cheap...and there's a damn good reason for that. And there's a reason the only ones we see here converted for sale are the higher end more luxurious models...if you tried to pass off a base model (read: volume selling in the US) truck here in Australia, no one much would buy it unless the price was correspondingly dirt cheap to allow for the cheap equipment level and build quality...

Funnily enough when we were in Vegas and southern Nevada, we saw way more Dodge Rams than Fords...I've often said you see more F250's driving around Rockhampton that we saw in Vegas. I'd guess roughly it was Rams first, followed by Toyota Tundras and Chev's, then other things we don't see here like Nissan Titans and Honda Ridgelines, then Fords, and funnily enough the Ford trucks we did see were government vehicles...power, water, council, local government, heaps around the airport as service vehicles. In private hands though we just didn't notice that many. We were expecting heaps more.

[mik]

i think the big utes ..... sorry pick up trucks , probably would be popular over there if for no other reason just because of the severe winters they have, and the more rugged nature of the vehicles,
also the bigger diesels would be a bit more suited to hostile conditions ???

[baboon]

You see more Fords F's in Texas from Dallas all the way down to San Antonio and further. Very popular for farmers. Tennessee around the great smoky mountains you see lots too. Lots of unmaintained clay roads up in the mountains you NEED ground clearance F-trucks and RAMs are everywhere. Lots of F-450's towing trailers for NASCAR, road trips etc.

[Moby Vic]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

Funnily enough when we were in Vegas and southern Nevada, we saw way more Dodge Rams than Fords...I've often said you see more F250's driving around Rockhampton that we saw in Vegas. I'd guess roughly it was Rams first, followed by Toyota Tundras and Chev's, then other things we don't see here like Nissan Titans and Honda Ridgelines, then Fords, and funnily enough the Ford trucks we did see were government vehicles...power, water, council, local government, heaps around the airport as service vehicles. In private hands though we just didn't notice that many. We were expecting heaps more.

Small sample size. F Series has dominated US sales charts for decades. Chevrolet sales are way ahead of Ram sales as well.

And it hasn't been "Dodge" Ram for a few years now. Ram is a separate division. (But everyone still calls them Dodges.)

[Brazen]

Would rather the F Series here than people towing 3.5 tonnes with their POS tinfoil Thai utes.

[mtbkym01]

Originally Posted by mik

i think the big utes ..... sorry pick up trucks , probably would be popular over there if for no other reason just because of the severe winters they have, and the more rugged nature of the vehicles,
also the bigger diesels would be a bit more suited to hostile conditions ???

Yes, speaking to people in the Rockies and winter is when the trucks come into their own, also plenty towing 5th Wheel Caravans around as well, if you think the trucks are big, you should see these things, some are as big as a 3 bedroom house lol

[malazn mafia]

With One Ford, why did they bother with Ranger. Ranger vs F150 is like a water pistol shaped like a Glock vs a real Glock Pistol. Wonder if those taillights on that black pickup truck would fit into a AU/BA ute for an updated look?

[Franco Cozzo]

Got a newish RAM 2500 in my shop at the moment:



As I said in other threads, there is a market here for them, customer has a 30 foot 5th wheeler van to tow, PX Ranger didn't cut the mustard, they might be rated to 3500kg towing but at close to the limit its not ideal.

This is rated for 7500kg but they're having it down-rated to 4500kg so they can have it on car rego here in Vic.

If they were $75-$80K it would be within reach to average joe.

[Kieron]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

I was hoping someone was going to say it...

Honestly...our roads (and parking lots) simply aren't designed with these monstrosities in mind. The F150? Sure...it's "normal" sized and fits in here well. The bigger rubbish? Good lord, how much of a status symbol do you really need to say "look at me"...?

The other problem is quality...the models that sell in their hundreds of thousands in the USA are cheap...and there's a damn good reason for that. And there's a reason the only ones we see here converted for sale are the higher end more luxurious models...if you tried to pass off a base model (read: volume selling in the US) truck here in Australia, no one much would buy it unless the price was correspondingly dirt cheap to allow for the cheap equipment level and build quality...

Funnily enough when we were in Vegas and southern Nevada, we saw way more Dodge Rams than Fords...I've often said you see more F250's driving around Rockhampton that we saw in Vegas. I'd guess roughly it was Rams first, followed by Toyota Tundras and Chev's, then other things we don't see here like Nissan Titans and Honda Ridgelines, then Fords, and funnily enough the Ford trucks we did see were government vehicles...power, water, council, local government, heaps around the airport as service vehicles. In private hands though we just didn't notice that many. We were expecting heaps more.

I would have thought all models would be built on the same assembly lines therefor build quality does not change with the upper models...

Typically, the reason why only high end models are bought here is purely cost vs what you get. shipping costs, conversion costs etc are essentially the same between a base and upper model and the final selling price isn't going to be massively different so bringing in the upper models makes them more attractive to buyers when they are justifying the costs of buying them.

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

I was hoping someone was going to say it...

Honestly...our roads (and parking lots) simply aren't designed with these monstrosities in mind. The F150? Sure...it's "normal" sized and fits in here well. The bigger rubbish? Good lord, how much of a status symbol do you really need to say "look at me"...?

The other problem is quality...the models that sell in their hundreds of thousands in the USA are cheap...and there's a damn good reason for that. And there's a reason the only ones we see here converted for sale are the higher end more luxurious models...if you tried to pass off a base model (read: volume selling in the US) truck here in Australia, no one much would buy it unless the price was correspondingly dirt cheap to allow for the cheap equipment level and build quality...

Funnily enough when we were in Vegas and southern Nevada, we saw way more Dodge Rams than Fords...I've often said you see more F250's driving around Rockhampton that we saw in Vegas. I'd guess roughly it was Rams first, followed by Toyota Tundras and Chev's, then other things we don't see here like Nissan Titans and Honda Ridgelines, then Fords, and funnily enough the Ford trucks we did see were government vehicles...power, water, council, local government, heaps around the airport as service vehicles. In private hands though we just didn't notice that many. We were expecting heaps more.

Most car parks I parked in were similar size to ours here. Then to make things worse about 15% of the parks are 'compact spaces'
The hotel we stayed at in Vegas had a ground level car park that was for oversize vehicles, but most parking lots in the cities were comparable to our. A few were even smaller than the average aussie ones.

[mtbkym01]

One of the other things I wanted to mention, particularly in the passenger car segment, was the current crop of chev's are the same Daewoo? style cars, that we've got, Cruze, Spark (Barina), Malibu and can't recall the name of it but same as Captiva.

Also, the fuel was interesting, RON ratings of 87, 89 & 91 being premium. Some places had a 94 or 95 but that was it, and most had up to 15% ethanol as well.

[Moby Vic]

The fullsize one is the Impala.

The Spark name is very confusing because it reminds one of the Volt and implies an electric motor.

I think our octane ratings are calculated differently than yours. The octane ratings vary throughout the country as well. Premium here is typically 93 octane. Sunoco has 94 octane, and I've never seen 95 octane. I've never seen 15% ethanol, either--it's E10 here. I recently found a station that sells ethanol-free gas, but it's only in the 87 octane rating. I can only use that in my lawnmower (my cars are tuned to run on 91 or greater).

[FPV GTHO]

US fuel isn't RON.

[Express]

Originally Posted by mtbkym01

One of the other things I wanted to mention, particularly in the passenger car segment, was the current crop of chev's are the same Daewoo? style cars, that we've got, Cruze, Spark (Barina), Malibu and can't recall the name of it but same as Captiva.

Also, the fuel was interesting, RON ratings of 87, 89 & 91 being premium. Some places had a 94 or 95 but that was it, and most had up to 15% ethanol as well.

As others have said that’s because the standard measure for octane ratings varies around the world.

Example Australia use RON and the USA use AKI.

Roughly
90RON = 85AKI
95RON = 91AKI
98RON = 94AKI

My understanding is Australia has pretty poor fuel compared to many other parts of the world.

[mtbkym01]

Thanks for the clarification on the octane thing, makes sense now