TonyG_FX4

I went to the dealership I have bought my past two trucks from looking for a king ranch. They informed me they placed an order for a king ranch back in November and the truck they ordered has pretty much every feature I want so I told them I would take it and put down a deposit. This took place first week of January. They said it would be in Jan 26th, so I was like great only few weeks not bad.

Jan 26th came and went I called the salesman the 31st asking if everything was ok with the order etc. He said "yeah we already got billed for it so it should be here any day usually when we are billed it means the truck is on the hauler." Another week went by, called again he said he would call the dock because the system is showing truck as delivered and obviously it wasn't. This has gone on back and forth for weeks him telling me the dock saying snow has delayed the delivery etc at one point they claimed they couldn't find it at the dock.

Than today, for once the salesman called me, he said "I have good news they have released the truck for shipment and delivery date range is march 8th-14th." I said oh great they found the truck what happened, he said "they held it along with 200 others trucks for "work" now that they are finished its being released." I was just glad the truck is released and said thank you for keeping on top of it etc. He was telling me how the woman at the dock now hates him because he was anything but pleasant with them because she gave him the cold shoulder for a while and he kept on top of them.

I do believe he tried hard to get answers and a solution and probably called them daily due to the fact the dealership did pay the invoice of this truck a few weeks ago.

My question is and he didn't have an answer, was to what "work" needed to be done was there something wrong or something ford caught onto with a shipment of the trucks and intercepted it? I live on east coast the truck would be coming to new jersey so I dont know what dock it would come from. Anyone else's dealer orders or trucks they have a deposit on coming up delayed?

redknight1

when you say dock I assume you mean phili right? Since that is where nearly all of imported cars come into. It would have been stuck at customs.

TonyG_FX4

The dealer referred to it as the "dock" maybe thats their nickname for it. Yes though I assumed it was some sort of car hub not that it came in on boat. Is the car hub or whatever it may be called located in philly?

Kenn213

I assume he meant loading dock, not ship dock. Why would an F150 go through customs? Built and delivered within US.

TonyG_FX4

Exactly, but regardless of that why would they hold 200 trucks for almost a month to be worked on. That's what I am trying to understand.

02fx4dude

OP, is your truck a 3.5 EB? I talked to a local dealer a few weeks ago about the lack of 3.5l EB in XLT or XL on any lots around Milwaukee. He said they aren't receiving them at this time, he would not say why.

TonyG_FX4

Nah, it's supposed to have the 5.0

Rich33Y

I don't work in the industry, but I know a few people that do.

Let's say QA finds a bad window switch, which leads them to find out the whole box of switches is bad. The supplier can barely keep up and a new box won't arrive until the morning.

They can either shut the plant down and send everyone home (with pay) or keep the line running and set those vehicles aside.

Now, back to the switches. The supplier can barely keep up with production so it takes awhile to get an extra 200 built to replace the defective ones.


Ask your dealer to show you a "Complete History" of your vehicle. It should show you everything, including if anything was 'fixed' at the factory.

redknight1

That's what I thought. And since they would probably only other be built in Canada. But I know that nearly every imported car comes into the United States via Philadelphia and sometimes San Diego/Los Angeles. That is the only thing I could think of since he said dock.

roadPilot

Sort of accurate, but sort of not.

If an issue with a supplier component (or internal process) isn't caught right away, there are going to be plenty of vehicles with the issue that haven't shipped yet. In addition to making the correction with the supplier component or assembly, the plant will quarantine (hold) vehicles so that OSM (on site modifications aka repairs) can be made before the trucks ship. We're not talking one or two or five trucks - we're talking tens to hundreds.

Ford would rather delay shipment (and perform the OSMs) than allow them to ship and have to pay for warranty work later. Plus, they would rather delay delivery than have a customer take ownership of a truck with defects.

If it's a supplier issue, they'll make the supplier bring people on site to go through all the trucks to fix them. Ask me how I know ...

With regard to supplier components, other than logistics (e.g., coming from overseas), most suppliers can react to providing replacement components (with the necessary revisions) is very short order. 200 components or assemblies isn't too hard (for us) to make, as our capacity to build is in excess of 2,400 units per day.

I've never heard of this. Let me assure you, there are TONS of "repairs" that occur at the plant, prior to shipment of your truck. And this "history" isn't provided to any dealer or dealer system.

There is an actual "repair" department where completed vehicles go for "repair" due to production issues. I don't believe any of the information from these pre-shipment repairs is made available to anyone outside of the plant.

Further, there are many instances where a truck has to be "repaired" right on the line. I literally watched this happen with MY truck when it was being built. They were not able to install the (front) carpet or the various interior trim pieces up front because, when they installed the instrument panel, they inadvertently caught one section of the vehicle wiring harness behind the IP brackets. So for about 15 or 20 minutes, they simply put all the components (that they would have installed) inside the cab area. It wasn't until AFTER the cab & bed had been subsequently mated and the vehicle moved into the chassis department that two guys came over (from the trim department) and spent about 15 removing brackets, freeing the wiring harness, then reassembling the interior, adding all the components that hadn't been installed -- all while the truck was still moving through other workstations with normal assembly operations being completed. This "repair" wasn't documented, nor will any dealer be able to obtain it from the plant. Had I not been following my truck through the assembly plant, I would never have known this occurred.