Ford's answers to the NHTSA 6.7 Investigation

BenK wrote:

Was asking who knew the whole tolerance stack up and got in trouble when this
kid asked a manager or supervisor...who went higher till it got to their VP of Eng

Who came down to see what was going and yelled: "get this guy out of here!!!" Knew instantly there that Ford's would have a higher than
average electrical fires (they were also reducing wire gauge and
gold plating on the switch/connector/etc contacts). Also why today's
headlamps do not have full voltage delivered to them via the harnesses,
contacts, switches, etc

Tolerances stacking up, or forgetting a spec is important....

Remember the Cruise Control Deact Switch fires?

Caused by specifying a seal that only took pressure in one direction, not the opposite direction, which caused the seal to deform, then leak, and the leaking brake fluid corroded the switch, until it shorted, and because there is no fuse and the circuit is constantly on, it shorted to a fire --- killing people.



Then there is cost cutting...

What it is driven from is a certain ideology called "lean production".

Now, the thing made perfect sense when organizations and designs are fat, but the problem is there is always a limit to how far something can be pushed.

I examined several case files of "a lean too far" and some of the doozies I found included sheet metal so think that modest pressure from a hand was able to distort the component. Or carpeting so thin that it qualified as thick fabric, or trim so flimsy that it fell off on its own within the warranty period.


You described the Ford variant of it is to cut cabling --- with reasonable acceptable performance until it aged, contacts corroded (less plating), spring tensions weakened, insulation gets tired, and strands begin to break.

What it means is that many of the cables were underspeced, and predictable things like dim headlamps, etc. happened.

I have fixed more Ford problems by chasing after gremlins than anything else.

One of the first thing I did to my own is to upgrade the cabling, especially the critical ones to the distribution box, grounding straps, etc.

On another maker, the leaning resulted in brake parts that had less and less metal (heat absorption), window glass that became thinner, and thin sheet metal that ultimately, resulted in severe declines in strength as corrosion took its toll. All the time the make was competing with the tow rating war --- until SAE came in.

I observed this mad focus on manufacturing costs, but yet, at the same time, the same maker's sales cost (as a percent of corp. revenues) remained flat for decades.

So I pointed out to some brass that the most obvious fat was in sales and marketing, and then in G&A, then in the Finance unit.

Boy, did they enjoy that!